PC game audio stutters, buffers and crackles

[queerbunny]

This is an issue that has been happening for a few months now, ever since the OBS v28 update i believe. After a while streaming PC games, say a couple hours on each occasion (although it's not consistently the same), my game audio will suddenly start to crackle and stutter and glitch out. My voice will remain fine, and the issue is always fixed by exiting the game and restarting it. I won't be able to hear the issue on my end, but my viewers can, and have to let me know when it happens.

I used to use a 3rd party plugin for separating my desktop audio sources before OBS integrated it into the main software, but the same thing happens whether I choose to use my plugin or OBS's beta application audio feature. The issue is never immediate, it only happens very randomly after a while, and doesn't happen for my capture card/nintendo switch audio. It seems strange to me for it to be related to the plugin, since the issue is not present all the time. Once or twice I haven't realised and the problem has fixed itself after less than 30 seconds, however most of the time I have to manually reset.

Multiple times I have tried deleting sources and re-adding them, with both the 3rd party and internal methods of capturing the audio, and it has not fixed the problem. I did try reaching out to OBS discord support and they seemed to not really understand the issue and were unable to help.

Interestingly, this problem does not appear to happen during local recordings. It's live streams only, and due to the inconsistent sporadic nature of the issue, makes it very difficult and inconvenient to reliably test and produce crash logs for.

If anyone can help me with this I would appreciate it very much. I prefer the 3rd party plugin to OBS's own function and since the latter is still in beta I have been hesitant to remove the plugin altogether, however if someone who has experience with this thinks it will help I will try doing that. Thank you!

 

[timnl]

Hi,

I don't have the solution (yet). I only can tell I have the same issue, and a friend of mine has as well. The same issue also happens in streamlabs OBS, which I believe uses the same plugin.

We switched between the two programs for test purposes and it happens on both.
I also did a clean re-install of both softwares and adding all scenes from empty, same issue.
The logs indeed don't capture the problem as we checked that as well.

Me and my friend both have the same headset. I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with that, we still need to test with a different headset if the same issue happens as well. But just making sure you don't have the same headset as well, it's a Logitech g733?

 

[queerbunny]

Hi,

I don't have the solution (yet). I only can tell I have the same issue, and a friend of mine has as well. The same issue also happens in streamlabs OBS, which I believe uses the same plugin.

We switched between the two programs for test purposes and it happens on both.
I also did a clean re-install of both softwares and adding all scenes from empty, same issue.
The logs indeed don't capture the problem as we checked that as well.

Me and my friend both have the same headset. I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with that, we still need to test with a different headset if the same issue happens as well. But just making sure you don't have the same headset as well, it's a Logitech g733?

Oh interesting, I'm relieved it's not just me. I've been unable to find anyone else with the same problem up until now.

I also use those same headphones, although my mic is different. It's the Blue Yeti. I wonder if the headphones are related? I don't see why they would be though, because it's my chat that hears the audio issue and not me. That definitely is a strange coincidence though.

Let me know if you find a fix, equally I'll let you know if I find one. It's been months of frustration and affected let's plays :(

 

[queerbunny]

Bump

 

[BaroqueKitten]

I also use those same headphones, although my mic is different. It's the Blue Yeti. I wonder if the headphones are related? I don't see why they would be though, because it's my chat that hears the audio issue and not me. That definitely is a strange coincidence though.

I do think it has something to do with headphones, though I am not sure how or why. A friend recommended me to try this to stop the random spurts of static and crackling.

Do this on your computer and write down exactly what you did to go back on it if this isn't a solution.

Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound -> Sound-> Speaker Headphone-> Properties-> Advance and turn off (uncheck) Enable Audio Enhancements.

I haven't tested it out, but I will try and reply back after a week or two of streaming to let you know if anybody has noticed the static or not.

Another person said to me, that OBS or my computer is doing to much and that's where the static comes from, but I don't know for sure about this one since the static doesn't happen all the time and there doesn't seem to be anything specific causing it.

 

[BaroqueKitten]

So, I followed the steps above ^^^ and after a couple streams, so far nobody has noticed static. :)

 

[LeonesDelPatio]

Hola amigos, a mí también me pasa con cualquier entrada de audio, con la del micrófono y al separar el audio de los juegos y apps. No es constante pero alrededor de 20 minutos por hora, estos ruidos y nubes de ruidos aparecen y no sé como solucionarlo. Tengo claro que el problema está en OBS porque mi pc no usa más del 2% de la CPU y solo me pasa cuando uso OBS.
De igual manera corta la salida del audio de mi interfaz pasado un rato y tengo que reiniciar para volver a escuchar. Esto no pasa si pongo mis auriculares directamente de la salida del pc.
Si encuentran alguna solución por favor díganme, he escrito un hilo en el foro hoy mismo y subido un pequeño video de los ruidos.

Gracias.

 

[Amkzul]

So, I followed the steps above ^^^ and after a couple streams, so far nobody has noticed static. :)

Hello, I was wondering if your issue is still sorted out? I want to give it a whirl but the audio crackle got so bad I started using twitch studio

 

[LeonesDelPatio]

Hello, I was wondering if your issue is still sorted out? I want to give it a whirl but the audio crackle got so bad I started using twitch studio

Hola, no sé si con Twitch Studio arreglaste algo, pero a mí no se me solucionó el problema, ya probé...