Horrible audio crackling and low audio quality.

[Mr.Mech]

I have bought the game with every expansion yesterday, having been a massive fan of the X series since before 2007.

And now here I am positively heartbroken, because for whatever reason, no matter what I do the sound is stuttering/crackling/♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ itself if anything happens.

It began very well, with first startup producing no sound whatsoever, on any selectable audio devices. Then I hit the "reset to default" in the settings, and that gave me the cracking audio. After that I started looking for solutions.

I usually have my headsets bitrate at the maximum of 24bit 192000 Hz (don't ask why), and I was advised to lower it to 24bit 44100 Hz, which does make the game generally not crackle, but if anything mildly loud happens, it is worse than before, not to mention that everything in general sounds low quality.

I have updated every driver I could possibly find on my PC (even my mouse), validated files, redownload a microsoft redistributable containing the openAL32.dll file, since I have played Stalker Anomaly a while back, and I've seen people with my exact problem referring to that, but that game has not been on my pc for months.

I haven't the faintest idea why this is going on, as nothing of this sort has ever happened, and everything still works perfectly fine.

I have minimal software/hardware knowledge and am mostly just following tutorials and instructions, so if anyone can help, please explain everything like I'm an idiot.

My PC specs are the following:
CPU: Intel I5-8600k
Motherboard: Asus TUF 370-plus gaming
GPU: Gigabyte Geforce RTX 2070 windforce 8G
Memory: 16x2Gb ddr4 3200MHz


Thanks to anyone in advance.

[eMYNOCK]

greetings,

are you by any chance using something that is called STALKER anomaly or similar?

if so.. this is known to mess up the sound pretty bad.

[Mr.Mech]

Originally posted by eMYNOCK:

greetings,

are you by any chance using something that is called STALKER anomaly or similar?

if so.. this is known to mess up the sound pretty bad.

I've mentioned it above:
"since I have played Stalker Anomaly a while back, and I've seen people with my exact problem referring to that, but that game has not been on my pc for months."

[eMYNOCK]

right, sorry... must have slipped by.

i do not know if this relates to you but maybe the method in this topic helps.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/392160/discussions/0/4772129115120091113/

[Mr.Mech]

Originally posted by eMYNOCK:

right, sorry... must have slipped by.

i do not know if this relates to you but maybe the method in this topic helps.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/392160/discussions/0/4772129115120091113/

Okay, so now the crackling is gone, but the main menu has no sound, I can hear no music, and I can't hear any voice lines: the narration in the menu and right after I click one of the new game starts, and the NPC's.
There might be more, but these are the first few things I noticed.

[Mr.Mech]

Yea, about 80% of all sounds just do not play anymore. I don't know if this is an improvement.

[Digll]

I have this same issue (I to play and have STALKER anamoly installed. I looked for the openal32.dll but it's not located in the linked version of Groks better sound mod. There is a bin folder that has soft_oal.dll, and a bin folder inside the installer for openAL but neither of these DLL's fix the sound. They cause most game audio not to function, except for notification sound and footsteps.

Has anyone else resolved this? The corrupted sound is exactly like a sample rate / bit reduction effect in post audio.

[Sel Und Irae]

So, I can kinda chime in on this but i can tell you right now people are not going to like answer.

I play X4 on a Dell Laptop & On my Primary Desktop (Custom Build for Elden Ring) And i've noticed distinct differences between each. Now, My Laptop the specs are all "Minimum" Recommended for x4 whereas my Desktop is way past Dev Recommended Specs.

The main difference? Some zones don't load properly, Sound files cut out constantly & events bug out constantly. Combat is also heavily affected as is the Economy and yes, I've noticed my sound on Laptop since ToA has been AWFUL which could be a sign to upgrade since x4 is Rapidly moving into Next Gen Territory.

I have no issues on my Desktop aside from bugs already in the game *Cough* Large And XL Ships not having an interactive menu *cough* but Laptop is borderline unplayable since update.

Also, X4 before ToA only used 9 G of RAM but since ToA it is using 11.2 to run which means on low end systems that don't have that dedicated RAM you're going to have A LOT of issues.

[Digll]

I think the issue is unrelated to what you're speaking about, and sounds exactly like the other STALKER player on the board. For reference my system specs are a 5ghz 5800x and 3090 performance is not an issue, it's definitely related to the openal32.dll

[Digll]

Did you resolve this Mr. Mech I'm having the identical issue?

Originally posted by Mr.Mech:

Yea, about 80% of all sounds just do not play anymore. I don't know if this is an improvement.

[n0kturnal]

I have exactly the same problem... tried everything already

Changed the sound to 44hz 24bits, the intro is super noisy but the rest is better than before

[UMeffert]

I just encountered this problem a few minutes ago, and am very happy that I found this thread.

Thank you for pointing me towards STALKER Anomaly as I found a sound mod I used that suggested making modifications to the global openAL.

This was the source of my problem and thankfully has an easy fix.

Solution:

1. Download the openAL Soft config utility https://openal-soft.org
   
2. Extract the contents of the downloaded zip to a convenient location
   
3. Open the extracted folder, open the alsoft-config folder and run the alsoft-config.exe
   
4. If you are getting an error download and install openAl from https://openal.org that should clear up the issue
   
5. Once alsoft-config is open click on the Playback tab and change your Resampler Quality setting back to Default(Linear)
   
6. Click Apply and your are done. Restart X4 if you had it open in the background and the sound should be back to normal.

Hope this helps others as the solutions I found in my browsing weren't that helpful.

[Digll]

Originally posted by UMeffert:

I just encountered this problem a few minutes ago, and am very happy that I found this thread.

Thank you for pointing me towards STALKER Anomaly as I found a sound mod I used that suggested making modifications to the global openAL.

This was the source of my problem and thankfully has an easy fix.

Solution:

1. Download the openAL Soft config utility https://openal-soft.org
   
2. Extract the contents of the downloaded zip to a convenient location
   
3. Open the extracted folder, open the alsoft-config folder and run the alsoft-config.exe
   
4. If you are getting an error download and install openAl from https://openal.org that should clear up the issue
   
5. Once alsoft-config is open click on the Playback tab and change your Resampler Quality setting back to Default(Linear)
   
6. Click Apply and your are done. Restart X4 if you had it open in the background and the sound should be back to normal.

Hope this helps others as the solutions I found in my browsing weren't that helpful.

This solution worked for me. Buy this man a beer.

[Mr.Mech]

Originally posted by UMeffert:

I just encountered this problem a few minutes ago, and am very happy that I found this thread.

Thank you for pointing me towards STALKER Anomaly as I found a sound mod I used that suggested making modifications to the global openAL.

This was the source of my problem and thankfully has an easy fix.

Solution:

1. Download the openAL Soft config utility https://openal-soft.org
   
2. Extract the contents of the downloaded zip to a convenient location
   
3. Open the extracted folder, open the alsoft-config folder and run the alsoft-config.exe
   
4. If you are getting an error download and install openAl from https://openal.org that should clear up the issue
   
5. Once alsoft-config is open click on the Playback tab and change your Resampler Quality setting back to Default(Linear)
   
6. Click Apply and your are done. Restart X4 if you had it open in the background and the sound should be back to normal.

Hope this helps others as the solutions I found in my browsing weren't that helpful.

I am so happy, thank you!

[n0kturnal]

Thank you very much!