Hello, I'm having a strange sound issue. 

Whenever I fly MSFS I will get several loud pops from my speakers. Maybe a few times a minute.
This started happening just lately, and I haven't heard it while running other games / applications. 

At first I thought it was a bad connection, but this doesn't happen with any other applications. 

I'm running sound like this: PC -> DAC -> Digital Amp -> Speakers

Any thoughts?

 

I have had this for some time now (only in MSFS) and I am trying to fault find it.  I have an Audigy 5RX sound card and a GTX1018Ti graphics card.

I have been told it may be due to interference from the graphics card when it is working hard.  It does seem to happen more when the sim is 'busy'.  I don't get it at any other time, but nothing works the GPU as hard as MSFS.

Up to now I have tried (mainly by other peoples suggestions): -

1.  Reinstalling both sound and graphics drivers.

2.  Switching to motherboard sound output.

3.  Changing from Gen3 to Gen2 for the graphics card in the bios.

4.  Turning off all sound inputs.

5.  Uninstalling the motherboard sound drivers and disabling it in the bios.

6.  Uninstalling the NVidia high quality audio drivers and disabling it in device manager. 

7.  Swapping the sound around in MSFS (from Windows spatial etc.)

I think it might be motherboard related.  Can you go direct from PC out to speakers like me to prove it isn't your intermediate equipment?

I will keep trying things.  If you solve it, please let me know. 

 

23 minutes ago, bobcat999 said:

I have had this for some time now (only in MSFS) and I am trying to fault find it.  I have an Audigy 5RX sound card and a GTX1018Ti graphics card.

I have been told it may be due to interference from the graphics card when it is working hard.  It does seem to happen more when the sim is 'busy'.  I don't get it at any other time, but nothing works the GPU as hard as MSFS.

Up to now I have tried (mainly by other peoples suggestions): -

1.  Reinstalling both sound and graphics drivers.

2.  Switching to motherboard sound output.

3.  Changing from Gen3 to Gen2 for the graphics card in the bios.

4.  Turning off all sound inputs.

5.  Uninstalling the motherboard sound drivers and disabling it in the bios.

6.  Uninstalling the NVidia high quality audio drivers and disabling it in device manager. 

7.  Swapping the sound around in MSFS (from Windows spatial etc.)

I think it might be motherboard related.  Can you go direct from PC out to speakers like me to prove it isn't your intermediate equipment?

I will keep trying things.  If you solve it, please let me know. 

 

Thanks for the advice!

In one way it's good to know it's not just me it happens to. 
I too think it has something to do with the GPU or power draw. I recently got a new RTX 3070 GPU, maybe that has something to do with it? With my RTX 2080 Super it wasn't happening as far as I remember. But the 3070 should have about the same power draw.

I use an external DAC for the sound, and then a normal stereo amp and bookshelf speakers. I don't have the option to connect directly to the sound output on my motherboard. 

It is a bit weird, because the DAC is connected to the motherboard by USB, via a USB-hub.

Could it be the audio signal from the sim itself that's being warped by something? I'm only running Plan-G and TrackIR while flying. 

My motherboard is an Asus ROG Strix X570-F. 

 

Hmm, I just thought of something. Maybe it's because of the USB hub. That's where I have all my peripherals connected to as well. I will have to test if it's the same directly connected to the motherboard. 

Hmm...thought it was just me as well. Get minor popping every once in a while (noticeable over the engine sounds). It sometimes has to do with latency and bus saturation, but I'm going to do some troubleshooting with the drivers and devices as well.

Righto!  I just did a couple of flights with no popping/static.  Unfortunately I changed too many things at once due to impatience, so I don't know which one solved it now! 🙁 Although I suspect it might be number 1.

1.  Found an input had turned itself back on - it was called 'what U hear' and is normally used to record anything playing through the sound card.  I disabled it again.

2.  Increased the power to the card by to 110% as I saw it was topping out at 100% power demand most of the time.  Temp increase of only 2C, so still not too bad.  Runs at 78-80C now.

3.  Switched to windows voice/ATC instead of Azure.  No lag in ATC now.

4.  Turned off photogrammetry.

I  did the last two in case it was my internet access/downloading was causing the problem. 

I have to say the sim does hold a steady 30 FPS now and no stutter without photogrammetry - a trade-off I suppose, but smoothest I have ever flown! 👍

I will test again later to make sure this wasn't all  a fluke! 😄

Edited November 16, 20205 yr by bobcat999

9 minutes ago, DylanM said:

Hmm...thought it was just me as well. Get minor popping every once in a while (noticeable over the engine sounds). It sometimes has to do with latency and bus saturation, but I'm going to do some troubleshooting with the drivers and devices as well.

Yes Dylan, it is a bit irritating because the severity goes up and down.  I think you may be onto something with the motherboard busses and I/O, but I am just not technical enough to sort that bit out. 

PS.  I left this so long to mention it on here because I though it was just me, or maybe it was supposed to be static though the ATC! 😄 I know there is a bit of simulated static - normally a click at the end of transmission.

Edited November 16, 20205 yr by bobcat999

45 minutes ago, DylanM said:

Hmm...thought it was just me as well. Get minor popping every once in a while (noticeable over the engine sounds). It sometimes has to do with latency and bus saturation, but I'm going to do some troubleshooting with the drivers and devices as well.

Interesting! Tell us what you find.

 

39 minutes ago, bobcat999 said:

Righto!  I just did a couple of flights with no popping/static.  Unfortunately I changed too many things at once due to impatience, so I don't know which one solved it now! 🙁 Although I suspect it might be number 1.

1.  Found an input had turned itself back on - it was called 'what U hear' and is normally used to record anything playing through the sound card.  I disabled it again.

2.  Increased the power to the card by to 110% as I saw it was topping out at 100% power demand most of the time.  Temp increase of only 2C, so still not too bad.  Runs at 78-80C now.

3.  Switched to windows voice/ATC instead of Azure.  No lag in ATC now.

4.  Turned off photogrammetry.

I  did the last two in case it was my internet access/downloading was causing the problem. 

I have to say the sim does hold a steady 30 FPS now and no stutter without photogrammetry - a trade-off I suppose, but smoothest I have ever flown! 👍

I will test again later to make sure this wasn't all  a fluke! 😄

I'm glad to hear you sorted it out!

I seem to have sorted it out as well:

I disconnected my USB DAC from the USB hub, and reconnected it directly to the motherboard instead.

I loaded up a flight in the same aircraft as before, running the same background apps (TrackIR & Plan-G). It was a different location though. But no clicks or pops. 
I don't know if it has anything to do with the GPU, but mine has been running on 105% power and +200 MHz on memory and +135 MHz on the chip all along, I didn't change that. 

However the first flight with the issue was in the Puget Sound area with bad weather and loads of traffic. The last one I did was in the desert east of Las Vegas. So maybe I need to recheck and try to reproduce the same environment as the first flight. 

I do have one theory regarding the USB hub though:

I have my Thrustmaster M16000 joystick, my Saitek Rudder Pedals as well as 2x Saitek Throttles connected to the USB hub. And when moving the joystick it lights up, it's just a fancy function of the stick. What if me manipulating the joystick caused a disturbence to the audio signal? 

I think I have to confirm by loading up in Puget Sound.

Okay, I've tried to verify the solution by doing three more flights. But I got caught up having some fun!

It's actually hard to reach the power limit of my card, I rarely get anything over 95%, and the most urban and laggy areas just result in less GPU use because I become CPU constrained instead.

Anyway, I did reach PerfLimit (Power / Temp) in GPU-Z a few times, and no clicks or pops.

So the solution for me was to plug my DAC (external sound card) into the motherboard USB port, not in the USB hub. It is likely my peripherals causing some kind of disturbance when connected through the same USB hub. So I would recommend anyone with this issue to remove, or connect peripherals into different USB ports or a USB hub to see if it helps.

Edited November 16, 20205 yr by Republic3D

2 hours ago, bobcat999 said:

1.  Found an input had turned itself back on - it was called 'what U hear' and is normally used to record anything playing through the sound card.  I disabled it again.

Reporting back - reinstalled the sound drivers and tried step 1...it worked. No more pops. Brilliant Bobcat!

1 hour ago, Republic3D said:

So the solution for me was to plug my DAC (external sound card) into the motherboard USB port, not in the USB hub. It is likely my peripherals causing some kind of disturbance when connected through the same USB hub. So I would recommend anyone with this issue to remove, or connect peripherals into different USB ports or a USB hub to see if it helps.

Awesome. Good info as well... 

Edited November 16, 20205 yr by DylanM