Audio Popping, Anyone

[Spider Pig]

Anyone else having audio "popping" issues, where you hear static or the audio cutting out?

I have the detailed traffic info up on-screen, and everything looks great there. 3ms ping from Steam Link to host PC (which has very beeft hardware). Using about 15Mbps of bandwidth, with it showing 100+Mbps available.

[-F- Conscript]

I have the same issue, everything is fine except the audio.

[Tech]

Same issue here

[Space Coyote]

Me too. Seems to happen when connecting to a new network.

[Mr Thor]

Also having this issue. Was working fine then as the night went on the popping started

[mjhcsta]

+1 Same issue here

[Dolvich]

Me too. Was working ok for a little while earlier but now the popping is back.

[Kier of Rhada]

Same here. Constant popping to the point that the audio is unrecognizable.

[jeremyzx]

Yes. Seems to happen if there's ANY hiccups in FPS. Audio is very stable as long as the view isn't changing (e.g. looking straight ahead in Portal 2), but slight audio distortions, cutting out, and "tearing" seem to occur when I start moving around. Noticed in in Skyrim, Fallout 3, Soma, Portal 2, and Mirrors Edge

[Tuna]

Same here. Picture looks good but audio has artifacts to a point where it gets unenjoyable. I seem be able to trigger this by controller input. Tried with Transistor where the haptic touchpad has no function. But the more input create on this touchpad the more the sound gets distorted. When I stop, the audio returns to normal. I had the impression that it helps if I manually set the bandwidth to a lower value. But streaming at 3 mbps isn't exactly the best experience picture quality wise.

[GreyZ]

just reposting what I wrote in another thread:

Go to Advanced client settings, enable Display Performance Information. Follow the onscreen prompt to show your performance (start+y with steam controller).
Check if you have any packet or frame loss. If you have anything more than 1% in either of those you will definitely experience issues such as graphical artifacts(clouding, pixelation) and sound stutters.

If you have frame loss you should lower your graphics and stream quality until it goes away (below 1% frame loss is "bearable")

[WirrWicht]

I've connected a mouse per USB. When moving the cursor, I get static in the menu background sound and the display flickers. No need for streaming to get distorted sounds.

[jeremyzx]

Turning down the max display resolution to 720p definitely eliminates the popping, thanks GreyZ. My frame loss was fluctuating between 0 and 1%, depending on the amount of input I was sending. While I'd like to blame my middle-of-the-line graphics card (GTX 770, 2GB), I don't understand why the popping would occur when I'd spam input on the touchpad on menu screens that aren't exactly doing anything graphics intensive (Portal 2).

I'm not exactly happy with bumping down to 720p when it seems like, displaywise, my setup didn't have any problems with 1080p other than audio.

[Spider Pig]

Ok. So I figured it out (for me at least). It was related to my nVidia video card (GTX 980).

If you turn on your streaming stats overlay while in-game, you get a lot of information about lag, ping, dropped frames, etc. It also tells you the Encoder that's being used (on your source gaming PC), and the encoding lag that's being added.

If you look at the streaming stats, and see:
Encoder: Game D3D9
Streaming Graph: Dark blue bar (encoding lag) has spikes while you have a lot of activity / motion on screen
Screenshot (manually rename this link): bit-dot-ly/1NhokoU

That means that your game is using software-based encoding, and that it's adding quite a bit of encoding lag; especially when there's a lot of motion on the screen. That added lag introduces audio and video "skipping" when streaming. Steam Link was using software encoding, even though I specifically selected "Enable Hardware Encoding" in Steam settings.


The problem for me was that I had nVidia Game Stream / ShadowPlay running in the background. This is the feature where nVidia cards automatically buffer the last 5/10/20 minutes of game activity (like a DVR), so that you can create instant-replay videos. This feature uses the hardware H.264 encoder on your video card; and prevents other applications from using that H.264 encoder. Go into nVidia GeForce Experience, and disable Game Stream / ShadowPlay.

Once I did that, I re-confirmed that I was using both Hardware Encoding and Hardware Decoding on my Steam Link, and saw that my game was now correctly using the nVidia H.264 hardware encoder. Encoding lag dropped to 0, and no more stutters / skipping.

New streaming stats:
Encoder: Desktop NVFBC
Streaming Graph: No spikes on dark blue bar (encoding lag)
Screenshot (manually rename this link): bit-dot-ly/1VXOXRW

[bling bling man]

Originally posted by Spider Pig:

Ok. So I figured it out (for me at least). It was related to my nVidia video card (GTX 980).

If you turn on your streaming stats overlay while in-game, you get a lot of information about lag, ping, dropped frames, etc. It also tells you the Encoder that's being used (on your source gaming PC), and the encoding lag that's being added.

If you look at the streaming stats, and see:
Encoder: Game D3D9
Streaming Graph: Dark blue bar (encoding lag) has spikes while you have a lot of activity / motion on screen
Screenshot (manually rename this link): bit-dot-ly/1NhokoU

That means that your game is using software-based encoding, and that it's adding quite a bit of encoding lag; especially when there's a lot of motion on the screen. That added lag introduces audio and video "skipping" when streaming. Steam Link was using software encoding, even though I specifically selected "Enable Hardware Encoding" in Steam settings.


The problem for me was that I had nVidia Game Stream / ShadowPlay running in the background. This is the feature where nVidia cards automatically buffer the last 5/10/20 minutes of game activity (like a DVR), so that you can create instant-replay videos. This feature uses the hardware H.264 encoder on your video card; and prevents other applications from using that H.264 encoder. Go into nVidia GeForce Experience, and disable Game Stream / ShadowPlay.

Once I did that, I re-confirmed that I was using both Hardware Encoding and Hardware Decoding on my Steam Link, and saw that my game was now correctly using the nVidia H.264 hardware encoder. Encoding lag dropped to 0, and no more stutters / skipping.

New streaming stats:
Encoder: Desktop NVFBC
Streaming Graph: No spikes on dark blue bar (encoding lag)
Screenshot (manually rename this link): bit-dot-ly/1VXOXRW

i was excited and then realized i had a different graphics card... will it still work with amd

[ykarie]

I just get drop out about every 3 minutes for a second or two. PC is on wireless (2.4 GHz N) and the Link is wired directly to the modem/router combo. Could be related to the fact that both the PC and TV are 1080p120, resolution is set for that, and the PC is rather old.