Crackling audio

[Microblitz]

CRACKLING AUDIO

Fault
Not really a bug per sae but very very annoying. I had my suspicions that this fault was caused by the audio decoding being stopped by an interrupt triggering and delaying the playback momentarily causing a click at a high rate leading to the perceived crackle noise. This became more apparent when the video was under stress like docking bays etc.

Cause
In my case I had purchased a set of Corsair 7.1 surround sound headphones. These came with a software application which takes 2.0 stereo and "splits" it to simulate 7.1 surround sound if its not directly supported by the software. Now here's the interesting part. If you select either fo the two other modes apart from simple stereo (I'm padding because I can't remember the names of one of them but one is called night time mode), the crackling problem occurs.

Solution
So in my Corsair headset software I selected 7.1 surround but in the program I selected the source I had selected nighttime dynamics mode. Set the Headset to straight stereo and the crackle persists. Set the source from the game to Stereo and the issue vanished.

Comments
As I said before any delay of the processed audio will create a crackle, so this may not be the only way this issue is caused. One very good idea is to minimise extra processing of the sound stream by accessing the sound control panel and making sure that any software controls like "Loudness", "Spatial sound", "Room Volume correction" Echo effects Et cetera is turned off.

USB headsets are a curse because they are generally not "hardware accelerated". I guess if you have the option to switch to a sound card try it and see if the crackle goes away. If so either your machine doesn't have the horsepower to process the sound stream fast enough so reducing the workload by shutting down any software that may be taking up cycles in the background (Somebody mentioned Skype is a prime suspect).

 

[SharkH]

CRACKLING AUDIO

Fault
Not really a bug per sae but very very annoying. I had my suspicions that this fault was caused by the audio decoding being stopped by an interrupt triggering and delaying the playback momentarily causing a click at a high rate leading to the perceived crackle noise. This became more apparent when the video was under stress like docking bays etc.

Cause
In my case I had purchased a set of Corsair 7.1 surround sound headphones. These came with a software application which takes 2.0 stereo and "splits" it to simulate 7.1 surround sound if its not directly supported by the software. Now here's the interesting part. If you select either fo the two other modes apart from simple stereo (I'm padding because I can't remember the names of one of them but one is called night time mode), the crackling problem occurs.

Solution
So in my Corsair headset software I selected 7.1 surround but in the program I selected the source I had selected nighttime dynamics mode. Set the Headset to straight stereo and the crackle persists. Set the source from the game to Stereo and the issue vanished.

Comments
As I said before any delay of the processed audio will create a crackle, so this may not be the only way this issue is caused. One very good idea is to minimise extra processing of the sound stream by accessing the sound control panel and making sure that any software controls like "Loudness", "Spatial sound", "Room Volume correction" Echo effects Et cetera is turned off.

USB headsets are a curse because they are generally not "hardware accelerated". I guess if you have the option to switch to a sound card try it and see if the crackle goes away. If so either your machine doesn't have the horsepower to process the sound stream fast enough so reducing the workload by shutting down any software that may be taking up cycles in the background (Somebody mentioned Skype is a prime suspect).

I have a good quality creative 2.1 speaker system and I had similar experience with realtek onboard HD audio so I bought an asus xonar dsx and the problem still the same... The sound in this game is amazing but this crackling noise is annoying . I tried both the stereo and hometheatre and the problem persist with both. Anyone have any idea what does this and how to fix it? I am not sure but this "crackling" seems to happen in sync with HDD activities.

 

[Saadia]

I'd definately call this a bug. Playing ED for three days now and find this most distracting. Toyed around with the game's sound processing options, doesn't change a thing. As soon as the game gets under I/O load (eg entering a space station, where all of the interior has to be loaded), sound starts to crackle. I really hope Frontier is going to fix this, it is so very simply to reproduce (play on something not overpowered, say a standard I5 class laptop), that it can't be hard to debug the thing. I'd bet it is a priority clash with data I/O.

 

[Feretro]

I'd definately call this a bug. Playing ED for three days now and find this most distracting. Toyed around with the game's sound processing options, doesn't change a thing. As soon as the game gets under I/O load (eg entering a space station, where all of the interior has to be loaded), sound starts to crackle. I really hope Frontier is going to fix this, it is so very simply to reproduce (play on something not overpowered, say a standard I5 class laptop), that it can't be hard to debug the thing. I'd bet it is a priority clash with data I/O.

I have the same exact issue. I've got a pretty beefy system with a dedicated Creative SB X-Fi sound card, and this is the only game in which I get issues with crackly/popping audio. It occurs mostly when the game is under load, as you mentioned, and is not resolved by changing any in-game sound or graphics options. This affects all sound playing (e.g. music/VOIP in the background), which is particularly obnoxious. I've tried fiddling with all my sound settings through Windows'/Creative's panels to no avail.

If someone is able to resolve this, please post your solution.

 

[Aquila Oculus]

I get this crackling wen I've alt tabbed... not sure if that helps with the brainstorming

 

[Tenshi]

Not heard any kind of strange noise. I have a 5.1 surround sound and a 7.1 headset both run off the onboard sound card of my pc.

The speakers are Logitch and the headphones are ShogunBros

 

[oO Para Oo]

I thought you meant cracking, as in amazing! The audio is ace in this game and on 5.1 ... space heaven.. anyone else got 5.1 headphones?

 

[Anton_]

it's not a bug, it's a feature. Adds realism.

 

[khaitom]

I'd definately call this a bug. Playing ED for three days now and find this most distracting. Toyed around with the game's sound processing options, doesn't change a thing. As soon as the game gets under I/O load (eg entering a space station, where all of the interior has to be loaded), sound starts to crackle. I really hope Frontier is going to fix this, it is so very simply to reproduce (play on something not overpowered, say a standard I5 class laptop), that it can't be hard to debug the thing. I'd bet it is a priority clash with data I/O.

Don't know if it's an underpowered thing necessarily. I'm playing on an underpowered acer with a notebook SoC http://www.acerdirect.co.uk/AMD_A4_5000_1.5GHz

The A4-5000 processor is roughly (read - at best with well parallelized software) equivalent to the performance of a Sandy-Bridge-based Core i3-2377M.
No audio problems to report with external speakers, HDMI to TV or headphones, even when the system is under load playing TV recordings on a second screen and I've got firefox open with multiple tabs.

I've got understandable framerate issues, but no audio problems

 

[Turbo Puns]

New player here, wasn't sure if it was just me having this issue but seeing these posts makes it seem like a bug of some sort. I get the crackling/clipping audio also. I am using a Soundblaster Z sound card with my setup.

 

[Rei2]

Very annoying, im not recommending this game to anyone until this issues gets more attention from the devs. I like this game a lot but no one should have to dish out 60$ then deal with this. This is exactly why they dont have a Demo version, cause if people experienced this they wouldnt buy the game.

 

[zynaps]

If you're processing stereo audio into 7.1 for your 7.1 headphones you are doing it wrong. It's a feature of your 3rd party DSP software, one that was built just to sell "7.1" to clueless consumers.

The game outputs directional stereo, so select stereo everywhere and 48khz in Windows and disable your DSP effects.

 

[Anton_]

Very annoying, im not recommending this game to anyone until this issues gets more attention from the devs. I like this game a lot but no one should have to dish out 60$ then deal with this. This is exactly why they dont have a Demo version, cause if people experienced this they wouldnt buy the game.

Pffft...

 

[sqzbox1]

While this might be slightly off topic it is still about sound - I was wondering - I have noticed a drop in certain sounds since gamma release and it has not yet returned to its former glory. So while the sound in many respects is still amazing it is not as good as it was in beta. Can I ask those with "good" sound setups the following -

1. Is the computer voice inconsistent? I mean for example, "frameshift drive charging" is at a certain volume level and others are quite different. For example "fuel scoop disengaged" is quite soft, almost inaudible, and the countdown is somewhere inbetween. Different tonal qualities too - or timbre if you like.

2. In a station do you hear - a) a real deep-throated rumble of an Anaconda or Type 9 engines as they fly by, b) the crackle and pop of a Viper going by, and c) the buzz of an Eagle going by? I only hear a "whoosh", if you know what I mean, for all ships, whereas I used to hear all the different engine sounds.

I am convinced that there is still something wrong and that it happened at gamma release.

 

[sqzbox1]

*Bump* Anybody?

 

[Feretro]

1. Is the computer voice inconsistent? I mean for example, "frameshift drive charging" is at a certain volume level and others are quite different. For example "fuel scoop disengaged" is quite soft, almost inaudible, and the countdown is somewhere inbetween. Different tonal qualities too - or timbre if you like.

2. In a station do you hear - a) a real deep-throated rumble of an Anaconda or Type 9 engines as they fly by, b) the crackle and pop of a Viper going by, and c) the buzz of an Eagle going by? I only hear a "whoosh", if you know what I mean, for all ships, whereas I used to hear all the different engine sounds.

I am convinced that there is still something wrong and that it happened at gamma release.

The computer voice is consistent in volume for me. As for the other ships, I'm not sure.

By the way, I managed to find the source of the crackling audio. I was running Virtual Audio Cable, which was having a CPU war with Elite Dangerous and causing crackles in all audio sources run through the virtual cables. So if you're running VAC and have this problem, just run your audio sources through your primary sound device while you play this game. The game still crackles occasionally, but at least it's not affecting my music/VOIP programs.

 

[Feretro]

Well, folks, it looks like a lot of (if not all) our audio issues may be resolved. The new beta patch for 1.1 has a lot of fixes you can read about here.

 

[Kalpa]

Yeah, I too think there's something going on with Elitedangrousses (better than Esmiley) sound effect routine, most certainly. I get similar 'crackling' or 'stutter' at seemingly random. It is not so constant to be completely disruptive, but it is rather annoying to say the least.

EDIT: Took a look at 1.1 patch notes, seems like a ton of improvement is on its way. Might be this issue will be a non-issue soon enough.

 

[markusuk1]

Im still having this problem post 1.1

 

[cedekane]

After a month of Gameplay, I had this or something similar happen to me last night.

FYI. The speakers would make intermittent pops and long crackles. It didn't matter if I had my speakers or headphones on. It affected all applications outside of ED, ie., opening chrome would cause crackles, as well as navigating explorer, or changing a song in media player. It affected a complete jump through 40,000 LS of space, complete with crackles but accompanied by computer stutter, this is the only time it affected gameplay other than the sounds. When I exited the game, all crackles stopped. When I started the game again, they came back.