Audio Bugs or Design Choice?

[GNTsquid]

I think its been a well documented bug since day one that occasionally the audio for your characters footsteps cuts out for long periods of time, but I'm starting to notice even more audio bugs. Maybe these have been around since day one but I didn't play the game much after release until recently with the release of 1.2.

Now I'm noticing various audio related issues.

• There is no sound effect at all for landing when dropping from higher locations. Its essentially a silent landing or the same SFX used for a walk.
• Walking on metal like tanks, cars, and shipping containers doesn't have a metal sound but the same SFX as walking on dirt or gravel.
• Some locations seem to me missing various ambient SFX like fire crackling or noise from NPC's hitting things.
• Sometimes ad videos in elevators don't play sound or VO. Maybe intentional?
• NPC's when grabbed from behind half of the time don't seem to make any noise. Its silent. Id expect at least some grunting or moaning.
• Cars are very quiet unless you're in the car. I can barely hear any car I summon until its nearly next to me and NPC cars don't seem to have sounds directly from them but just exist in a weird ambient car sound bubble where a generic traffic SFX is assigned to groups of cars. It feels disconnected. Maybe this is on purpose like they're some hybrid electric motor fused with a gasoline motor?

I cant tell which of these are possible bugs, and which of these are design choices, and which of these are things they just never got around to adding or fixing.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

Weird, i have never had those sound bugs/problems. (maybe du of my XBSX version)
For exemple :
All the time, when i grab a enemy, he growls or else.
When i walk on contener or a metallic element, it's clearly a different sound.
I clearly hear my car/bike when i summon it (most often the bike).

 

[AikoHayashi]

Weird, i have never had those sound bugs/problems. (maybe du of my XBSX version)
For exemple :
All the time, when i grab a enemy, he growls or else.
When i walk on contener or a metallic element, it's clearly a different sound.
I clearly hear my car/bike when i summon it (most often the bike).

Also no problems on PC.

 

[AlienSpaceBats]

I'm on PS4 (Slim/installed on an SSD), most of my sounds play correctly; except:

Missing audio from elevator ads sometimes happens. There is a Weldon Holt election ad that I have never had sound for.
Cars seem to be very quiet for me since 1.2, and the radio is much louder.
Missing ambient/environmental audio cutouts can occur, seems like a bug.

But I always get grappled enemies making noise, in fact I often wonder if they're too noisy, like how is this guy not alerting his choombas? "rrrggn, nnng uhhhrk"

 

[LeKill3rFou]

But I always get grappled enemies making noise, in fact I often wonder if they're too noisy, like how is this guy not alerting his choombas? "rrrggn, nnng uhhhrk"

Oh, yes
Animals make a lots of weird noise.

 

[GNTsquid]

Weird, i have never had those sound bugs/problems. (maybe du of my XBSX version)
For exemple :
All the time, when i grab a enemy, he growls or else.
When i walk on contener or a metallic element, it's clearly a different sound.
I clearly hear my car/bike when i summon it (most often the bike).

Also no problems on PC.

I think Ive discovered some of the issues are on my end. I was using an audio software that's supposed to improve sound but I noticed when I disable that software I can hear some of the "smaller" sounds like guys grunting.

My car still sounds too quiet at some distances though and there's no landing "thud" for any surface. I do hear metal sometimes when walking on cars or other vehicles but its not the sound I would expect. It sounds more like I'm walking on a solid block of metal instead of what you would get walking on a car or shipping container. Hearing dirt or gravel sounds when on metal is still a bug I'm noticing but its not 100% of the time.
Ive also noticed sometimes when footstep sounds disappear its because your character is stuck in a falling pose and feet arent actually touching the ground, you're just hovering inches above.

Despite all volume levels at max ambient sounds still feel too quiet or too even with one another. If I'm next to a huge fire I'd expect to hear that over the people talking to each other 20ft away. I'd also expect some augmentations to make more noise than they do.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

I agree, the sound are not yet super well added, but i think it will be fix
Like in some place (like Tyger's claw BD bar, the music is really too loud and drowns out the noise of the guns).

 

[NorseGraphics]

Yeah, I noticed this as well. Footsteps fading. One thing I noticed is when you run, there's no sound playing at all.

 

[RMDrunkenRat]

Footsteps are definitely the one I notice the most. They seem to disappear after combat for me, or at least I notice it after I've started looting the bodies. Maybe V is trying to be quiet so they can hear the noise of the Geneva Conventions shattering into a thousand disappointed pieces.

With the car noise, I noticed having the correct audio setting does make a difference. If I use my headphones but forget to flip the audio setting, I lose a lot of the smaller sounds.

 

[DC9V]

I can't remember having any of these issues.


Things you could try:

• WINDOWS
  • Sound device: Switch to a lower sample rate, e.g. 16bit 44.1 KHz (44100Hz) or 24bit 48KHz
  • Disable or unplug unnecessary sound devices
  • Set CPU power plan to High Performance (watch temperatures in idle)
  • If not using the mainboard sound interface:
    • avoid USB hubs
    • use a different USB port for your audio device
    • Update your BIOS
      • Ryzen: Make sure the BIOS update has the latest version of AGESA, otherwise install a beta from April 2021 or newer
• BIOS
  • If you don't want to update your BIOS: at least enable the XMP profile
  • If you don't use custom DRAM timings: Update your BIOS and enable the XMP profile
  • If you do use custom DRAM timings: Flash your BIOS and enable the XMP profile
  • Ryzen: Make sure the BIOS update has the latest version of AGESA, otherwise install a beta from April 2021 or newer
• HDD/SSD
  • defrag your HDD if game is not installed on an SSD
• GAME:
  • reinstall

 

[LeKill3rFou]

If it's for theNope, same here on XBSX. It's appear in 1.21, if i'm right
(sometimes footsteps sound too low or not here at all, musics way too loud in some place,...)
The sound management in 1.21 is bad (i don't know why)

Nothing to do, apart from waiting for a future patch/hotfix.

 

[DC9V]

Nope, same here on XBSX. It's appear in 1.21, if i'm right
(sometimes footsteps sound too low or not here at all, musics way too loud in some place,...)
Nothing to do, apart from waiting for a future patch/hotfix.

Hm.. weird. I've turned down both music and sound effects to 70%, seems to be working fine to me. Some dialogues are misbalanced though. And some music seems to be controlled by the sounds, e.g. the radio volume at Finger's working place, when speaking to him together with Judy: I can't lower it by adjusting the music volume, but it goes away when turning down SFX volume.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

Wep
Before 1.21 the sound was not like that. I don't know what has been changed.
For the footsteps sound that disappear, it come back on their own after a while
Good new, the cartoon's music during "the hunt" is no longer there

 

[greeks]

I wonder if they adjust or correct any of those smaller and larger audio issues if nobody reports them...

 

[LeKill3rFou]

I wonder if they adjust or correct any of those smaller and larger audio issues if nobody reports them...

I have no doubt that it has already been done

 

[DC9V]

I have no doubt that it has already been done

The human ear and brain can compensate a lot. You would be surprised how many people are not sensitive to differences in volume, or audio in general. They might feel that something's not right, but they can't spot the cause. If you're French, it probably has something to with learning Solfège as a kid, which is why many French people are naturally sensitive to audio.
I'm pretty sure misbalanced audio is on the dev's list, too. But if an issue is not being reported, the devs won't put it on top of their todo-list. So I think It's always worth it to report it if it's something that bothers you, or even keeps you away from playing.
The issue of the original post could also have something to do with inefficient utilization of his hardware, which probably can be fixed within an update...

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[northwold]

I think its been a well documented bug since day one that occasionally the audio for your characters footsteps cuts out for long periods of time, but I'm starting to notice even more audio bugs. Maybe these have been around since day one but I didn't play the game much after release until recently with the release of 1.2.

Now I'm noticing various audio related issues.

• There is no sound effect at all for landing when dropping from higher locations. Its essentially a silent landing or the same SFX used for a walk.
• Walking on metal like tanks, cars, and shipping containers doesn't have a metal sound but the same SFX as walking on dirt or gravel.
• Some locations seem to me missing various ambient SFX like fire crackling or noise from NPC's hitting things.
• Sometimes ad videos in elevators don't play sound or VO. Maybe intentional?
• NPC's when grabbed from behind half of the time don't seem to make any noise. Its silent. Id expect at least some grunting or moaning.
• Cars are very quiet unless you're in the car. I can barely hear any car I summon until its nearly next to me and NPC cars don't seem to have sounds directly from them but just exist in a weird ambient car sound bubble where a generic traffic SFX is assigned to groups of cars. It feels disconnected. Maybe this is on purpose like they're some hybrid electric motor fused with a gasoline motor?

I cant tell which of these are possible bugs, and which of these are design choices, and which of these are things they just never got around to adding or fixing.

I find when footsteps disappear a simple restart will solve the issue.

I do wonder if issues like this don't increase the longer you play the game and the more complex your save becomes. Certainly, I'm having more issues over 100 hours in than at the start (nothing remotely game breaking though).

 

[GNTsquid]

Yeah, I noticed this as well. Footsteps fading. One thing I noticed is when you run, there's no sound playing at all.

I find when footsteps disappear a simple restart will solve the issue.

I do wonder if issues like this don't increase the longer you play the game and the more complex your save becomes. Certainly, I'm having more issues over 100 hours in than at the start (nothing remotely game breaking though).

I've noticed the footstep sound issue since day one. I've also known that simple reloading of a save will fix it. Sometimes though i've found a simple hop or jump with reset the footstep sounds. Its like the game is getting confused on the players position and for who knows what reason as far as the sound is concerned thinks the player isn't touching the ground so its not producing sound. Overall the footsteps are smaller part of the overall audio issues.

Its more than just technical issues too. I think there's some poorly made design decisions but its hard to say if those are on purpose or if something in the games code isn't working right. I just realized the other day the reason stores feel so off when inside. Its because there's no music or other ambient noises related to those store. In clothing stores there's no background music playing, which is something in nearly every store in real life. Ripper doc's dont have any related background noise there either. I went into a bar yesterday and there was no music playing, and the ambient noises didn't make sense either. No clinking of glasses, no people laughing, nothing you'd associate with a bar.
Even the ocean is quiet. I have to be standing maybe 5ft from the waters edge before I hear any waves hitting the shore. I've lived by the ocean before and even if its small dinky waves you can hear them hitting the shoreline from much further away than 5ft.
Our eyes are seeing one thing and expecting certain sounds based off real life experiences, but our ears are hearing something different and its breaking this sense of believably. Makes everything feel off in a hard to describe way.


I've done enough tweaking on my system I'm doubting its 100% related to my hardware and software setup. Either the sound design needs more polish or it needs fixing on the coding level.

 

[DC9V]

I've done enough tweaking on my system I'm doubting its 100% related to my hardware and software setup. Either the sound design needs more polish or it needs fixing on the coding level.

Well, it is related to your system because that's where you run the game at. Is there anything you already tried to solve the issue?

Edit: You wrote in another thread that your PC is "underspec'd". If that's the case then your problems are most likely caused by poor CPU performance, thermal throttling, or DRAM. Which makes my advice from post#10 even more important, if not pointless.