AMD sound distortion-Recent(ish)

[Izuela]

I have a Radeon RX 590. NOT over clocked. I recently started getting some crackling sound distortion when playing CoH. Worse in groups but some occasional crackling while solo, too. It may have started happening after I updated my GPU drivers, about a month ago, but not sure. I am NOT having any sound problems on youtube, amazon video's or the other game I am playing, Enshrouded, as far as I have noticed. In fact the reason I updated my drivers was because Enshrouded asked for it. As I prefer to leave things as they are as long as everything works.

Googling the issue "distorted sounds  after AMD driver update" it seems to not be a too uncommon occurrence with AMD graphics cards the last couple of years. Some blame graphics drivers, some blame Microsoft updates. Is it a known issue for City of Heroes and are there any recommended fixes for it? With all the settings you can have for each game I was hoping there like one thing I can turn off and all will be fine again. So far I tried doing a clean install but was still some static noises.

Edited February 18 by Izuela
details

[GM Tock]

The only way that sounds would matter for a graphic driver is if the graphics card is being used as an audio device (via your monitor speakers on the HDMI audio channel.)  Is this the case? 

 

• No/This is a Laptop/I don't know: I'd check your Audio Drivers and see if an update occurred instead.  If it did, you should be able to roll back the audio driver in Device Manager and see if that relieves the issue. 
• Yes: If you are using your Monitor speakers--
  • See if the Monitor settings matches up with Windows (PCM vs. RAW, turning Dolby Atmos off, 44100 Hz vs. 48000 Hz, or if it's a 96K device, etc.  It's also very possible NONE of these apply and the Monitor On Screen Menu only has "Speakers On/Off" and Volume Control as a choice.)
  • Try using your sound jacks instead and see if audio is working better there.  If so, you may consider using headphones or desktop speakers instead of the Monitor Speakers as an alternative/short term fix until you have a better answer.  You can also see if the Monitor has a 3.5mm Input Jack for sound and patch it directly from the computer Sound Card as well.
  • At the very worst, you can uninstall the Radeon Graphics Driver (Adrenalin) and reinstall the last known working version where the speakers did work.  If that doesn't resolve the issue, it's possible it's not the graphics driver causing the audio problems at all.

The audio setting in-game is a little simplistic for troubleshooting:

• Recommended enables the Creative Environmental Audio Effects (EAX) library that most sound chipsets are fully compatible with (if otherwise supporting it explicitly).
• Compatibility disables EAX and falls back on Sound Blaster emulation, supported by 99.9% of the sound cards still working today.

Edited February 18 by GM Tock

[Izuela]

It's a desktop computer with separate speakers. And like I said, not having static noise playing videos, or the game Enshrouded. This might possibly be what I am talking about when I say it may be a graphics card driver causing the problem.

 

https://community.amd.com/t5/drivers-software/adrenalin-22-2-3-or-22-x-x-driver-audio-stuttering-in-games-with/m-p/516063#M153722

 

Or it could be something else completely. Or even just a coincidence it started happening after I updated my drivers. One other suggestion said turn off AMD Audio CoProcessor in device manager, but I can't find any such process, so <shrug>

I'm gonna try and see if vsynch OFF or enhanced sync ON is causing it. Once I locate those settings, either in game or in AMD Adrenalin settings. Since it doesn't make static noise all the time it can be hard to tell. Aaaand I can only stand doing so much trouble shooting. If I find a solution I will report back.