Title screen, Varric doing his monologue and character creation all play sound with no problem but the second I got to the first cutscene with my rook and then into Mintrathous the sound is constantly crackling and cutting out.
Have tried every possible audio setting in game and updated drivers.
(On windows 10)
Glad to know that I'm not the only who feels this way. Like you said the title screen, monologue and cc are all fine till the game actually starts and the crackling i so bad i can't handle it. Doesn't matter what sittings I had and nothing I did to the settings on my laptop help :/
Yeah I'm glad to hear I'm not alone even though I feel bad for all of you also having this issue.
I've also tried all the stuff in the video linked above and it didn't fix my issue. I'm also skeptical that the things cited in that video would be the problem for so many different people anyways. Most people aren't going to have spatial sonic sound on by default or have out of date sound drivers or issues with their sound card. I can't speak for everyone in here but I'm guessing most of you have zero issues with audio in other games.
Whatever is going on in here is very much a DAV issue unfortunately. I haven't had anything remotely like this in any other game I've played including modern ones like BG3.
See my new post below on this subject. I have discovered that the issue, for me at least, is the processor I am using. After updating my chipset drivers, my Realtek chipset drivers (from the motherboard website), and my BIOS, I have eliminated most, but not all, of the problem.
HUGE Edit: So, I decided to download the game on my husband's computer. It works absolutely fine on his. Major differences are that his computer has an older video card than mine (I have an AMD 7900XT and he has an AMD 6700XT) and the processor. He has an AMD Ryzen 7 3700 8 Cores, 16 Threads @3.6GHz, Zen2 and I have an Intel i-5 8600K 6 Cores, 6 Threads @3.6GHz, Coffee Lake. Sound is the same for both machines. His just works right after install with no messing around with the settings....mine just doesn't after spending hours messing with the settings. What are the processor types of the others here having a problem? The DX Diags that have been placed below - of the 3, 2 of them are Intel i5s and one's an old 4 core Ryzen. I am going to try to update my BIOS and see if I have any luck. If not - I'm off to buy a new MOBO and CPU (I've wanted one for a while anyway).
So, I've been having this issue since launch. Everything is fine until the very end of the first cut scene where the audio starts to crack and pop a little, then I get out to the street and it's absolutely terrible. Unplayable. I've tried all of the fixes and they don't work. What I did realize, though, is that the sound is popping while I'm looking into the city or down at the street. If I turn my character around and look up, the sound evens out and I hear no issues. If I walk while looking up, the sound is a lot better. As soon as I look at down it starts to spit, pop, and stutter. I have tried running the game at the lowest possible video settings and that hasn't helped. The only other thing I have noticed is that my processor is pegged. It's a little down on the list of acceptable CPUs, but it is on the list, and I have more than enough ram and GPU power (my GPU is only running at 50%). I have tried making the game take CPU priority. So, I'm now going back to wondering if there is a graphics issue causing my sound issue. Still searching for the solution. I would really like to play this game.
HUGE Edit: So, I decided to download the game on my husband's computer. It works absolutely fine on his. Major differences are that his computer has an older video card than mine (I have an AMD 7900XT and he has an AMD 6700XT) and the processor. He has an AMD Ryzen 7 3700 8 Cores, 16 Threads @3.6GHz, Zen2 and I have an Intel i-5 8600K 6 Cores, 6 Threads @3.6GHz, Coffee Lake. Sound is the same for both machines. His just works right after install with no messing around with the settings....mine just doesn't after spending hours messing with the settings. What are the processor types of the others here having a problem?
Adding on to my thoughts from above. I think it's a bad shader or something along those lines. The stuttering performance doesn't happen when I look up at nothing in particular. If I look at the ground, the stuttering comes back. I have been able to make the game playable by setting my vsynch to 1/4. Sometimes I can get away with 1/3, but most of the time I need to be at 1/4. It doesn't seem to be related to how good I set my graphics though. I am working on changing my settings based on the CPU usage (like I turned single strand hair physics and such). Will continue to test.
Testing continues: Taking off strand hair physics seems to have helped a lot. Dropped my CPU usage down and I'm not having as many issues. Could be where I am, though. Will continue to monitor.
Ok, it's not necessarily when I'm looking up....it appears to be when I'm not looking at the back of my character. If I swing my camera around to look at the front of my character when the sound starts to stutter, the stutter stops. Not sure what that means. Will continue to monitor.
I am still getting the same issue with Patch 1 that was release today.
Downloaded the new patch and can confirm I'm still experiencing the issue :(
Confirmed still an issue after the first patch today. Just played through Fire and Ice and had horrific crackling the whole way through after loading into the area.
I'm downloading the patch now but sounds like nothing was done to address this.
Would really love to hear from Bioware that they're at least aware of/looking into it. Very frustrating. It's clearly not a performance issue because the game works fine on Steamdeck and SD is far weaker in terms of cpu/gpu etc than my or anyone in this thread's PC.
Exactly the same issue as everyone else. The only thing that even remotely helped was rolling back my NVidia driver but it seems like this might be a CPU issue. After rolling back the driver the crackling is there, but mostly when the load on the CPU is obviously high. When I tried streaming the game to a friend, it got much, much worse, and improve greatly when I stopped - I tested this a few times.
Considering what I paid for the game and the total lack of acknowledgement of this issue in the patch notes or the note on updates prior to the patch, I expect an update this week or I'll be petitioning Steam for a refund and advising others not to buy the game in this state. Irritatingly, your note says to share a save file and DXdiag, which can't be attached here, and I had to upload both to drive.
I was hitting about 60% usage tops, cut everything down to lowest setting, turned 4k off went 1080p. I can run cyberpunk in 4k ultra. Its not your processor.
I can't run Cyberpunk on Ultra, but I can smoothly run it on high, as well as other comparable games, so I'm totally with you. Right now my money is on something wrong between some Nvidia cards and the game, since I'm not seeing anyone with AMD reporting the same issue.
interregnumrexI have noticed on my end when running my Geforce overlay that CPU usage is close to 100% in Minrathous and obviously the crackling is at its worst when in cities or really densely populated areas. I haven't seen it much at all when I'm in areas with less things going on.
But what I don't get is if this truly is a performance issue then why is it that cranking settings to low does not fix it? Also, I haven't noticed any fps or video lag in Minrathous or other cities and I maintain a respectable fps even if I boost settings to high. There's basically nothing to suggest poor performance by my pc except for the audio distortion.
Finally, I do have a Steamdeck and I tried it on there. The game runs without any audio issues whatsoever even though my Steamdeck has a weaker cpu/gpu than my PC. And cranking all settings on my PC to the same ones I run on my Steamdeck = audio issues still on PC.
So I don't get it. If the audio distortion is an issue with lower end pcs for VG than I would think that the Steamdeck would also be unplayable, but it's not. And my pc is still a fair bit stronger than the min recommended settings. For example min recommended VC = gtx 970 and I've got a 1070.
I dunno. Submitted my dxdiag and a clip of the distortion in another thread on this issue. I hope Bioware fixes it because it's a bummer to only be able to play it on the Deck where I get low fps and ugly graphics.
Entirely agree - I experimented with exactly the same, kicking the settings to low, and it did nothing. I think the fact that streaming through discord made it demonstrably worse on my machine is interesting, however.
Same problem, no fixes work. Just commenting to hopefully encourage a fix ☹️
I'm having this issue as well. Tried every audio setting in game and I'm still getting it. It's making the game unplayable. Has anyone found a fix?
I'm also having this issue, it makes it very hard to hear and understand the characters, and in battles it's so loud it's a distraction.
To edit this: the problem persists after the patch, and I'm inclined to believe it actually got worse.
This issue is still not fixed for me either, come on Bioware...Running on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060. This is getting ridiculous.
Exactly same issue, constant crackling in the first cutscene with my character and as soon as i am in control of my character, too obnoxious to put up with so I haven't played further yet. Happens both on speakers and headphone, which use different jacks in the PC.
Windows 10
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER
Followed the steps in the youtube video shared above ^
Reinstalled and updated graphics card, no joy yet.
Can only assume at this point it's a problem with the game ? I don't get it in any other game
