Sound becomes distorted in all games

[Khaaaaan]

I'm having a weird issue with sound in games, there's no problem with music, movies, youtube, etc. After differing periods of time (5mins-1hr) the sound suddenly becomes very distorted. Voice becomes robotic as best I can describe it and other sounds become very high pitched and garbled. The only thing that fixes it is exiting steam and retrying, then after a certain period of time it happens again. System info is below, I know the combination of CPU and card is odd, the card was free from a friend and plan on upgrading the rest soon - not sure if this is the problem?

What I've tried from reading around:
- PCI latency timer in BIOS is at 32
- HPET is enabled
- On-board audio disabled in BIOS
- Windows system sound set to 16bit 44.1 (have tried 16bit 48, and 24bit 44.1 and 48)
- All drivers up to date
- Even did a clean install of windows because it's driving me mad

AMD A10-7850K (R7 APU disabled in BIOS)
Radeon R9 270X 2GB
8GB memory

[Scott (Australia)]

You upgrade to Windows 10 by chance?

[Khaaaaan]

I did. Initially from Windows 7 via the free upgrade, then clean install of Windows 10 earlier today. Is there some sort of issue with Windows 10 and sound?

[Scott (Australia)]

Audio drivers for Windows 10 don't always work, especially Realtek ones.

They just repackage Windows 8 drivers and pray.... Really dodgy.

[Khaaaaan]

Would it make any difference that I have the on-board audio, which is Realtek, turned off? It's just from the R9.

Also seems strange that it's only with games, no sound issues at all for music, video, etc.

[MrMcSwifty]

Why are you using the video card audio? I would just use the Realtek, unless there's a specific reason you're not doing that.

[Khaaaaan]

No particular reason, just saw to try turning the on-board audio off. Turning it on makes no difference.

If it makes any difference it's connected via HDMI (from the R9) to my AV receiver, no seperate sound connection.

[Scott (Australia)]

Windows 10 audio and LAN drivers still have timing issues.

It is almost 2016 FFS!!

[Khaaaaan]

It had been a long while since I played anything when Windows 7 was on there - was really just used for movies and music - so I have no idea if the issue will remain if I go back to it, but looks like the only thing to try is yet another clean install but with Windows 7 this time.

Would it make any difference to try changing the latency timer to something other than 32, or turn HPET off? I have no real clue what these do or mean

[Scott (Australia)]

I use PCI Latency of 64 cycles myself, but it won't impact a dodgy audio driver.

Leave HPET Enabled and in 64-bit mode.

[Khaaaaan]

I'll try setting the latency to 64 just in case, but looking like I'll try going back to Windows 7 afterwards, oh joy. Thanks for the help anyway guys.

[Scott (Australia)]

It won't fix it, 64 is for server/workstations and 32 is for normal PCs.

It's just a Windows 8 driver not working under Windows 10, as expected.

Windows 7 has the most stable drivers still.

[MrMcSwifty]

Are we sure this is really a latency/driver issue? You have another audio source (Realtek), so assuming your reciever can accept a digital out from the onboard chip, why not try that? Simply enabling/disabling it in the BIOS isn't going to affect anything since you're not even using it. The Realtek chip is almost undoubedtly superior to whatever's crammed onto the R9 anyways, and will be less prone to interference and heat from the GPU. I'd be willing to bet it's the AMD drivers, or just a crappy audio chip itself, that are causing the problem.

[Sam88FPS]

Does it all of a sudden get louder and louder whilst being distorted?

[Bad 💀 Motha]

It is the Windows 10 Audio Drivers. But I don't see how you are going to fix that if using HDMI Audio from a GPU, as there is no real driver update for those.

Try the Realtek, and update that Driver from here:
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads
* Click on High Definition Audio Codecs (Software) and then download the one for your OS.

If clean Win10 Install, first do all the Windows Updates before updating your other Hardware Drivers such as GPU or Audio. It should be fine after driver updates and a reboot; again after the Windows Updates finish. Be sure to go to Control Panel > Programs and Features > Turn Windows Features On/Off and install all the addons for .NET Framework an ASP; as those will be required for various drivers & software.

Before playing games in Win10 be sure to install Visual C++ Runtimes and DirectX Runtimes from Microsoft's website.

[Khaaaaan]

Originally posted by McSwifty:

You have another audio source (Realtek), so assuming your reciever can accept a digital out from the onboard chip, why not try that?

I don't have an optical cable around to try this but will once I get hold of one

Originally posted by TehCreepyCreeper:

Does it all of a sudden get louder and louder whilst being distorted?

No, volume remains the same

Originally posted by Bad-Motha:

Try the Realtek, and update that Driver from here:
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads

Will do once I get an optical cable to hook it up, I've already done the windows updates and most up to date drivers

Just thought to try removing the R9 and going with the on-board graphics/sound later and see if that works, while I wait on the cable to test the advice above.