Killed Realtek and have a surround headset and Win 11 Pro 25H2 26200.7019, no sound issues any more 😇

Please don’t go uninstalling your audio drivers, that’s beyond ridiculous and doesn’t fix the issue. The problem isn’t your setup; it’s the sim itself. It’s most likely related to the servers and how data is streamed into the sim, because my stutters only happen in heavy PG areas. Furthermore, if I exit and restart the sim a few times, the problem usually resolves itself, which likely means I’ve reconnected to a server that isn’t having issues.

My advice: don’t mess up your PC trying to find a “fix,” because there isn’t one and most of what people post as a "fix" is nothing but snake oil.

58 minutes ago, usernamerequired said:

Please don’t go uninstalling your audio drivers, that’s beyond ridiculous and doesn’t fix the issue. The problem isn’t your setup; it’s the sim itself. It’s most likely related to the servers and how data is streamed into the sim, because my stutters only happen in heavy PG areas. Furthermore, if I exit and restart the sim a few times, the problem usually resolves itself, which likely means I’ve reconnected to a server that isn’t having issues.

My advice: don’t mess up your PC trying to find a “fix,” because there isn’t one and most of what people post as a "fix" is nothing but snake oil.

I’m inclined to trust one of the most respected devs on this. Now that it’s gone, I honestly don’t know why I kept bothering with Realtek all these years. I haven't lost any functionality and nothing else has changed except that the crackling is gone.

Edited October 29, 2025Oct 29 by outermarker

I have a usb soundcard in the closet that I should take out and give a try.  Bypassing realtek could make sense.  

2 hours ago, outermarker said:

I’m inclined to trust one of the most respected devs on this. Now that it’s gone, I honestly don’t know why I kept bothering with Realtek all these years. I haven't lost any functionality and nothing else has changed except that the crackling is gone.

Well of course it's always Realtek.  What else is there?  They are built into most motherboards aren't they.  I will say that no other application or game has this issue, so what does that point to?

Can I ask what audio devices / drivers other people are using that don't  have this issue? If it really is the case I would buy the device in a snip.

Edited October 29, 2025Oct 29 by bobcat999

9 minutes ago, bobcat999 said:

I will say that no other application or game has this issue, so what does that point to?

So what am I supposed to do? Just sit around for two years waiting for Asobo to fix this while my sim stays almost unusable in the meantime?

For now I'm using the default Windows 11 audio driver and that seems to be working perfectly fine.

 

Oh but it _is_ other apps Rob.  Or at least it was for me.

I now use a discrete sound card and ditched all of the Realtek stuff.

I never had any sound pops or crackles in MSFS itself, but I had problems with other apps like ATC programs running with MSFS.  I even had a sound problem in Civ4.   Since installing the new card, no problems.   My fingers are crossed.  I do not want this to happen to me in MSFS.

Probably coincidence, but I did a flight this morning and had loads of stuttering and sound popping.  Ran a disk cleanup and trimmed my SSDs, then repeated the flight with the same, time, weather and settings without a single stutter.  I can see how defragmenting a hard drive might help but doubt that an SD trim would - maybe it was the disk cleanup or maybe it was because MS servers were running faster, I have no idea.  I do suspect MS servers as well.

On 10/29/2025 at 12:51 PM, usernamerequired said:

 it’s the sim itself. It’s most likely related to the servers and how data is streamed into the sim, because my stutters only happen in heavy PG areas. 

This is the best possible answer I'd agree with. I only notice this happening in high PG, high traffic areas. AutoFPS helps with lower TLOD on descent or takeoff so it doesn't happen as often. 

My Asus Maximus IX Hero motherboard has RealTek audio codec. I have never suffered from any sound crackling or popping in the two years that I have used MSFS 2020.

Edited November 18, 2025Nov 18 by Christopher Low

6 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

My Asus Maximus IX Hero motherboard has RealTek audio codec. I have never suffered from any sound crackling or popping in the two years that I have used MSFS 2020.

Never had it in FSX, never had it in msfs2020 and only get it in msfs2024 sometimes.  That's one of the reasons I suspect ms server streaming performance or possibly the performance of our ISPs

46 minutes ago, cianpars said:

Never had it in FSX, never had it in msfs2020 and only get it in msfs2024 sometimes.  That's one of the reasons I suspect ms server streaming performance or possibly the performance of our ISPs

I feel your pain.  I made the switch 3 weeks ago to ms24 and went through these popping issues.  There's posts upon posts about them on the official ms forum.

I've never once had this issue with ms2020.  

Maybe a silly question but try

1.turning off fauna (just try it)

2. Make sure in the settings the sound is on the device not on default 

3. Put the application setting on "disable full screen optimisation"

See if any of these work, other than that I think it's one of "it's just normal everyone gets them" which I find incredibly annoying 

 

 

 

 

11 hours ago, fluffyflops said:

I feel your pain.  I made the switch 3 weeks ago to ms24 and went through these popping issues.  There's posts upon posts about them on the official ms forum.

I've never once had this issue with ms2020.  

Maybe a silly question but try

1.turning off fauna (just try it)

2. Make sure in the settings the sound is on the device not on default 

3. Put the application setting on "disable full screen optimisation"

See if any of these work, other than that I think it's one of "it's just normal everyone gets them" which I find incredibly annoying 

 

 

 

 

I've already done 1 and 2 but will try 3 if the popping returns (which I'm sure it will).  I'm not even sure if anyone realy knows what causes these stuters other than suspecting server and/or ISP performance.  Deleting the rolling cache and letting it rebuild appears to have helped some and I also ecall a remark about possibly reducing the rolling cache to its 16 Gb default as suggestions.  I also think it might be a good idea to purge the Nvidia and shader caches from time to time.  Thanks for your suggestions though.

I suspect that if anyone asked MS/ASOBO, they would probably say "we can't replicate the issue" and sweep it under the carpet.

Can anyone on SU4 confirm whether the issue still persists in the beta?

Threads like this are becoming more and more relevant to me, because I am reasonably certain that I will be switching to MSFS 2024 when my new PC is delivered. There are still a handful of reported items that I am concerned about, but decisions like this are generally a "gut instinct" feeling for me, and getting a new PC feels like the right time to do it. It looks like I will have access to MSFS 2024 versions of the vast majority of my payware addons, so I am looking forward to installing them one by one 

The only thing that I am not looking forward to is setting up my controls with the new user interface 

Edited November 19, 2025Nov 19 by Christopher Low

50 minutes ago, cianpars said:

 

I suspect that if anyone asked MS/ASOBO, they would probably say "we can't replicate the issue" and sweep it under the carpet.

 

they already have.