15 Hours In - Audio Crackles and Game Crashes

[AsheMan]

I've been having a great time with a fresh Skyrim Special Edition play through until now. I've been doing the main quest line and am now in the ancient Dwemer Underground place looking for the Elder Scroll.

I'm deep in the dungeon when suddenly my audio starts crackling and the game becomes laggy, eventually crashing. I reloaded the game and the problem continues. I even loaded an earlier save when the problem wasn't occuring, but as I travel deeper into the Dwemer dungeon, it starts again and becomes unplayable.

This is super disappointing! I cannot progress any further in the main quest because this Dwemer Dungeon triggers some kind of audio bug and breaks the game every time.

[Cap'n Redgrave]

I just had this happen now too, audio is crackling and when I try to exit the game it freezes up forcing me to restart my PC, this is deep in one of the dungeons aswell. 15 hours in too myself. Hopefully we have a fix soon.

Edit: I verified the game integrity and reloaded a much older save game (about 1 hour old). Now things are working fine, have you tried doing either of those?

[AsheMan]

I reloaded a much earlier save and it was all good until I went deeper into the dungeon again. I'll try verifying the files and reloading an earlier save.

[AsheMan]

I tried your suggestion. I verified files and it repaired a single 1.4kb file. I reloaded an old save, but as soon as I got deep into that same dungeon the audio crackles and game slowdown starts and forces me to restart the PC to close down Skyrim.

[Havoc-44]

Not sure if you're still having this problem or not, but I had the same issue. Long story short, I changed the audio format for my device from 16 bit to 24 bit (studio quality) and it appears to have resolved the issue. From what I've read, this was an issue with the original game as well.

[AsheMan]

I loaded the Community Patch Mod and reloaded an old save and it fixed my problem. I've now played well beyond the point that kept crashing the game. The only downside is that by using that mod, it disabled my achievements. :(

[StarlightRac]

nexus has download that will enable you achievements again

[turokk]

I have the same problem

[Cacoastrum]

I had the same issue, more or less. Managed to fix it, so I'll give you a rundown of my patented method:

•went to raldbthar, for DB quest. Sound glitched before I made it into Alain's campfire room, right in front of a locked gate.

•reloaded my quucksave of five seconds ago, did not fix problem. Became nervous.

•closed game (via task manager, as it froze after I clicked the exit command), reopened. Still didn't work.

•left skyrim for a week, thinking it was an audio glitch requiring a patch.

•came back, no patch, said "♥♥♥♥ it." Played through the rest of the raldbthar section (didn't go to deep market), quicksaved once I was back out in the open world.

•exited, verified integrity of game cache. Everything checked out, problem still unresolved. Morale was low.

•as a Hail Mary, I deleted true storms and the unofficial skyrim patch from my mods via the game menu, and reinstalled them through NMM.

That fixed it for me. Maybe I had outdated versions, maybe the game just likes NMM more. I know I do.

Oh, also I switched my audio device from 16bit to 24bit. That didn't solve the issue at the time, but may have played a role. Anyway, hope this works for anyone still experiencing this issue (if anyone is).

[Raize]

I am having this problem also, in the exact same spot, dwemer ruins about half way through. My sound was already 24bit and I reinstalled unnofficial skyrim patch and nothing :(

Anyone else have any advice here ?

[DamZe]

This seems to be a glitch/bug for that specific Dwemer Ruin which is tied to the main quest, dying halfway in the ruin will corrupt the save and the audio will go haywire. Luckily you can go back to the surface and save again, upon reloading the game should work normally again.

[opjose]

A lot of built in audio devices, i.e. Realtek, etc. utilize the CPU for "effects" including spacial synthesis, equalization, dolby, etc.

TURN OFF or remove these effects altogether and you will get better performance and stability, and eliminate driver latency "crackling" issues.

All of this applies if you utilize music/audio DAW software too.

[Cacoastrum]

Audio cut out again, quickly solved problem by de-and-reactivating mods in nexusmod manager.

[Martha_Stewart]

Sorry to bump such an old thread, but I'm having a very similar issue but I am running a purely vanilla SE install with no mods whatsoever. I am on a main quest, the one where you need to go to Blackreach to eventually get a scroll. I am in those dwarven ruins (I think on my way to the occulary?) and the audio crackled a bit, and then totally disappeared in game. Audio is fine on the launch screen and splash, but in game totally gone. Totally uninstalled Skyrim SE (including deleting the cfg files and everything under my documents), re-downloaded, same thing. Verified, same thing.

Went to a much earlier save, SEEMED to work for about 5 minutes and now the same thing again. Nothing changed at all on the PC, but I did ensure I have the newest drivers for everything. Change the audio to 24b/44 as others have mentioned and didn't help. I'm getting a little frustrated here and would appreciate any advice! Running 8.1, 6700K (turned off any overclocking in case it did anything, nada).

Interestingly enough, since this happened, the game always seems to hang on exit to desktop. That's too much of a coincidence.

[wim1234]

Originally posted by Martha_Stewart:

Sorry to bump such an old thread, but I'm having a very similar issue but I am running a purely vanilla SE install with no mods whatsoever. I am on a main quest, the one where you need to go to Blackreach to eventually get a scroll. I am in those dwarven ruins (I think on my way to the occulary?) and the audio crackled a bit, and then totally disappeared in game. Audio is fine on the launch screen and splash, but in game totally gone. Totally uninstalled Skyrim SE (including deleting the cfg files and everything under my documents), re-downloaded, same thing. Verified, same thing.

Went to a much earlier save, SEEMED to work for about 5 minutes and now the same thing again. Nothing changed at all on the PC, but I did ensure I have the newest drivers for everything. Change the audio to 24b/44 as others have mentioned and didn't help. I'm getting a little frustrated here and would appreciate any advice! Running 8.1, 6700K (turned off any overclocking in case it did anything, nada).

Interestingly enough, since this happened, the game always seems to hang on exit to desktop. That's too much of a coincidence.

first , i hope you do use the unoffical path, the ussep mod, it patches a lot of things.
there is always the option of using different audiofiles, like lucidity sounds and immersive sounds.
maybe you play with too high settings?
also if you game hangs when exiting, that shows something is clearly wrong.
i run 1in 8.1 too, np at all with this game.

[Martha_Stewart]

THanks for the reply. Running 6700k and 980ti, have had the game since release and on Level 50 with tons of hours - don't think it's a setting. I'll check the unofficial patch. I might be doing a clean Windows install here in a bit too- see if that helps things.