Sound issues - "clipping"
by CybmaxOriginal Post
Sound issues - "clipping"
Posted this on the regular forums, but got no feedback, so going an attempt here:
I have found and read a gazillion threads about this.. however none really recent from what i gather. i KNOW i had this problem a few patches back, but havent really been playing much BF4 during summer.. but alas, we had a week of pissing rain here, and fired up BF4 again 
Now.. There is a couple of videos out on youtube that have this problem and they are mostly from around 9 months ago. Solution then is to edit PROFSAVE_profile and change the line with GstAudio.AudioQuality from 0 to 4.
I have ofc. tried this to no avail 
If i delete the file BF4 autogenerates it again, and it sets the GstAudio.AudioQuality to 1 by default.
I have tried the following to "fix" the sound clipping/disappearing:
Uninstall and disable my onboard VIA HD audio card and swapping to my old Creative X-Fi card. - Same problem
Editing the PROFSAVE_profile file with various attempts at GstAudio.AudioQuality from 0 to 4, and GstAudio.SoundSystemSize from 20 -> 100 of various values found on the web - no help there
Tried setting different audio ingame from headphones and stereo to Home Cinema and surround. - No fix
Tested different sound card tweaks both with the VIA HD drivers when i used those, and now with the creative drivers (also tested a "fan based" driver that ppl say are better than creative drivers - PAX) - No help in that
I have asked around on various servers if anyone have any sound problems, but noone seem to be having issues..
Now i ask here: Does ANYONE have sound glitches/sound "clipping"/disappearing while they play as of 16. aug. 2014?
C
PS. I use a 5.1 sound system, and NOT headphones. It is a "true" 5.1 system with 5 satellite speakers and a bass (and no "emulating stereo" thingy).
Update: 18/8-14
Noone experience ANY sound problems? Meaning it HAS to be my system thats totally borked..
The funny part is that i downgraded my ATI drivers back to 13.12.251 as Mantle doesnt work that well with my 270x card anyway, and the sound bugging is not that awful atm, but still on the annoying part.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQU-X0dDujY [youtube.com] Is a lot like what im experiencing. Also gunfire sounds kinda "cut out" in the middle of the sound.
Like when you are a sniper and hear that "echo" sound after firing a round, but for me 1 out of 10 shots the sound just seem to be "cut" before the whole echo plays. If i play on the test map, i can hear the plane overhead with positional audio and seemingly working good, but the sound stops 2-3 seconds randomly while i hear it..
Its very annoying to sneak around town and hear someone fire a gun at the other side of a wall, for the sound to just disappear and suddenly the footsteps you were listening for are right behind you with a knife in front of it :P
Accepted Solution
Re: Sound issues - "clipping"
Weird one indeed.. Even with cam enabled again, the sound seemingly work.
"One of those weirdnesses" i guess.
Well.. hopefully it will keep like that for some more killing!
Thx for your help Zorlacc
All Replies
Seeing as there is no answers here, it means EVERYONE has pristine sound, and no problems? And its just me and my crappy computer?
C
Holy 
mileyfrustrated: I am not sure this can help you but it can rule out windows helping to make this issue..
Test your windows for errors
This works in all windows O/S vista Win7, Win8 and Win8.1 windows system file checker :] Copy and past this to note pad and put it on your desktop. As open programs can give you errors when you run this.
...... sfc /scannow ..... ever hear of it if not your going to love this .... it will inspect all the important windows files as well as the windows DLL files. If windows system file checker finds any issues with the windows files and windows DLL files it will replace them. This little tool as well as the event viewer saved me and fully helped me fix my BF4 issues as well as saved my .... many a format since I found it. This is the best toy they ever put in windows :]
For win7 go to start left click in search type cmd and right click cmd pick run as admin
For win 8.1 right click start bottom left of screen and pick command prompt admin
1 - Open administrator command prompt and close web pages and programs like origin.
2 - Type or copy and paste in sfc /scannow and hit enter, This takes 5 min to 15 min SSD vs HD
3 - This can go one of a few ways ..... no errors ... it fixed some errors ..... could not fix all errors...... does not finish checking and errors out ....... and the last one could not fix errors at all :/
4 -After its done reboot and do it again even if you had no errors the first time or had errors, could not fix ... run sfc /scannow again and when its done a second time reboot. You need to do this a and get no errors 2 x in a row ...
5- So if you ran it 2x and no errors your safe you can stop now for now lol, If you had errors first time but not the second then run sfc /scannow again and when its done reboot. You need to get could not find any errors 2 x to be safe. If it still finds errors try and run it a few more times until it finds no errors 2x AND ALWAYS REBOOT BETWEEN RUNNING sfc /scannow
6 - If you get a message indicating that it can not be repaired and you ran sfc /scannow more then 3x in a row on win vista or 7 mm you need a format or try repair win 7 :/ But after format or repair and all updates are done run sfc /scannow to make sure your windows is stable same deal 2x error free reboot between them.
If your O/S is Win8 or Win 8,1 then you can run this next command / line in administrator command prompt. Sadly this does not work for win vista or 7 :/ It will restore the health of your PC and you dont lose anything and it will also fix errors in the registry :]
dism.exe /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth ------- ONLY works for windows 8 and 8.1
7 - When its done reboot
Thx Zorlacc, but it did not provide any solution for me.
Did what you wrote and got no errors 2 times, rebooting between each time.
C:\Windows\system32>sfc /scannow Beginning system scan. This process will take some time. Beginning verification phase of system scan. Verification 100% complete. Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations. C:\Windows\system32>
Still same problem im afraid.
2 soundcards + 1 usb headset - Same sound **bleep**
Checked my dcplatency and its around 70-100, never seen it above 120 (which should be great..)
Am now running with x-fi soundcard and stereo headphones. Tried every setting possible ingame (home cinema - war tapes + stereo/surround) + tried a bunch of "tweaks" posted around the net.. absolutely 0 improvement.
Reinstalled bf4 and made sure to delete the "documents -> battlefield4" folder to reset all settings.
Read loads of suggestion on the net, also on the "tweaks", where its apparent that noone really knows what the different settings do :P
No other game i play have ANY sound problems, its only bf4
C
PS. I do mostly play TDM maps, and i know it was a lot of problems with sound + TDM maps in the january update, but this "should" have been fixed months ago..
It was just to rule out windows making the issue on a happy note its not windows. This may be silly for me to ask but since you have 2 sound cards did you disable on board sound in Bios? I will ask a friend to have a look at your topic as he may have more of a idea what is going on. mileywink:
Yes i did disable the onboard soundcard in the bios. It was mainly for testing in BF4.
What i did was that i uninstalled all drivers++ for the x-fi card, then removed it physically from the pci slot. Then enabled onboard sound in the bios, and installed drivers and tested. Same problem. Reversed this by uninstalling all drivers++ and disabling the onboard sound in bios, and putting back my x-fi card again.
When i tested the USB headset i did have both x-fi + the usb headset tho.
As a minor tidbit, i just had some fun testing today.. What i did was load up BF4 on the "test range" where i can notice the sound bugging. 1st thing happening is the plane that is flying overhead the sound "skips" as it moves around. No distinct pattern in when this is happening, but is more or less just random at times. 2nd thing i can do is load a LMG as support, and keep firing. It will "skip sounds" randomly when i do this.
While i was doing this, i ran in windowed mode, started a 1080p MKV movie (Avatar) using MPC-HC, started another movie using VLC, then started VMWare with a windows 7 host, and started playing a music video on youtube. Also started photoshop CS5 and a couple of other things.. totalling 7.6GB of used memory (of 8GB).
Now.. all other sounds were fine.. movie.. music in VMWare (although i could sometimes hear small "pops" while playing), switching back to BF4, i still had the sound "skipping" :P
Im at a totall loss here as to why this seem to happen for me, and not for anyone else. As ive said before, no other game has this problem, and playing 2 movies at once + running vmware playing a music video from youtube SURELY should produce some sort of horrible experience? Xept for BF4 everything was running
Well well.. happy hunting, and thx for the help so far
C
Smart testing I like it high five on that one mileyhappy: I did ask my friend and got this back....
If nothing works and his sound cards are fine and everything updated, there is nothing he can do.
This problem is happening to some old systems and even new ones, at not specific points, places and objects in the game.
There is really no way to fix it, if you have tried all the steps you usually take. As this will happen on some parts of the game without warning and will not happen the same every time.
On the good note, DICE is very well aware of this problem and is fixing it.
My system is rather old, so ofc that could mean issues
Just as a sidenote i tried to move the X-fi card to another pci slot just to rule out possible conflicts, but that did not help.
Thx for the help so far tho
C
Installed Windows 8.1 from scratch. As bare-boned as possible using the windows update drivers, and creative pack.. the problem is even worse than before.
Guess it is some weird hardware then Thought i might have some **bleep** sound dll's somewhere, but alas.. its useless on my hardware. Do i buy a new rig to play bf4? Hmm.. cant say i love the game that much, although my hardware is ripe for a makeover anyway i guess..
Well.. Maybe some patch will fix it, maybe not
