Audio Stuttering

Changed Status to Known Issue

Changed Redmine to https://redmine.klei.com/issues/3464

Just to add - I have started having this same issue. Doesn't seem tied to length of time played for me, it can occur from fresh load or after a few minutes play.

Any news on this @Cheerio / @jambell

I think it may be tied to critter sounds - and the old "stacking sounds" issue.

Enclosed my save file - hopefully you can reproduce it.

 

Colon Ease.sav

Looking into this today, thanks for the saves and ideas!

Here is a clip from tonights stream @jambell / @Cheerio

Apologies for the frustration, however i'm pretty sure you guys are trying to make me stroke out...

https://clips.twitch.tv/UninterestedWrongOtterBleedPurple

In this clip you can clearly hear the distortion = and its remedied (albeit for a short while) upon save/load.

Much love.x

@Lifegrow ah man, no worries re: the frustration! I understand where you're coming from, particularly when you're trying to put a show on. This is turning out to be difficult to track down, but I've got a lead on where the issue is. Continuing first thing tomorrow morning back at the office with some possible fixes.

<3 thanks again for the helpful reports, you two.

(actually, does it happen for you on a brand new base or only one of decent size?)

I've been having it very recently, like just today after adding in some looping automation.  Though I suspect it is more likely a critical mass of critters I have running around.  It takes 4+ seconds for critters to queue up an action.  Even critter death takes several seconds.

1 minute ago, jambell said:

@Lifegrow ah man, no worries re: the frustration! I understand where you're coming from, particularly when you're trying to put a show on. This is turning out to be difficult to track down, but I've got a lead on where the issue is. Continuing first thing tomorrow morning back at the office with some possible fixes.

<3 thanks again for the helpful reports, you two.

(actually, does it happen for you on a brand new base or only one of decent size?)

Nah, much love for the good work you do to be honest, was praising your little cotton socks on stream for the sterling work you do on audio.

I've only had it happen to me on an established base thus far. PURELY FOR SCIENCE we killed off approximately 50 excess critters, leaving (excuse the pun) a skeleton amount left in my base. Alas, it made no difference. The stuttering sound could still be heard over the soft sizzle of bbq...

Genuinely baffled by this - a quick google search showed other games have had a similar plight, however I've tried all troubleshooting that I can do at my end - according to my chat tonight quite a few other viewers had experienced the same issue...

-Life.

1 minute ago, 0xFADE said:

I've been having it very recently, like just today after adding in some looping automation.  Though I suspect it is more likely a critical mass of critters I have running around.  It takes 4+ seconds for critters to queue up an action.  Even critter death takes several seconds.

Automation and critters both seem to contribute to this, yeah... would you mind posting your save and I'll add it to the other two when I'm testing possible fixes? When you say it takes 4+ seconds for critters to queue up an action, you mean sound-wise or gameplay-wise?
 

2 minutes ago, Lifegrow said:

Nah, much love for the good work you do to be honest, was praising your little cotton socks on stream for the sterling work you do on audio.

I've only had it happen to me on an established base thus far. PURELY FOR SCIENCE we killed off approximately 50 excess critters, leaving (excuse the pun) a skeleton amount left in my base. Alas, it made no difference. The stuttering sound could still be heard over the soft sizzle of bbq...

Genuinely baffled by this - a quick google search showed other games have had a similar plight, however I've tried all troubleshooting that I can do at my end - according to my chat tonight quite a few other viewers had experienced the same issue...

-Life.

I CANNOT ABIDE BY THIS RUTHLESS SLAUGHTER OF MY CUTE LIL PALS

NO CRITTER IS "EXCESS"

FOR THIS, I'LL NEVER FIX THIS BUG

Nah I'm jk <3 I appreciate your kindness and your patience with this bug, Life. I've definitely said it before, but I really mean it: seeing you and other folks play the game and enjoy it (even when it's frustrating like this case) makes it so easy for us to strive to do cool stuff, so I'm glad some of that effort shows through.

If it's interesting to ya, I think what's happening is a CPU overload on the audio system's event manager. Something in the world is firing off a ton of untrackable events when it shouldn't be, which is using a ton of CPU as the audio system is trying to figure out what it should be doing with all of these triggers. That's why the music particularly is stuttering: the music is streamed from disk rather than loaded into memory, and the CPU can't keep up because it's trying to figure out what the crud to do with all of these ghost event instances.

(maybe it's the ghost of all of the critters you killed, CRYING OUT IN HAUNTED PAIN)

I'll keep looking into this tomorrow morning and report back here if I track it down. Thanks again y'all.

Anything really.  One baby will sit there frozen for several seconds before starting to animate.  After killing something everyone walked away and a few seconds later it goes through its death animation.  Stuff like that.  It seems like a pretty good system considering the alternative would be unplayable.

Save file included.  The critters got out of hand.

Burrow.zip

I'll go quite awhile without it happening and then it will happen almost instantly when I have automation(making automation noises) on screen while I am in a dupe menu(like setting door permissions)

Hey @0xFADE, @Lifegrow, @crypticorb - spent the whole day yesterday sorting through the project trying to pinpoint the issue. Found a handful of other undetected issues as an unexpected surprise, and also narrowed this down a lot. The lousy part is that testing a single fix attempt - or even a pass on identifying the issue - takes about 20 minutes of sitting and watching the profiler because that's how long it takes for it to repro on my machine.

I'll be back at it on Tuesday, since our studio is closed Monday for a Canadian stat holiday.

In the meantime, if you turn music off temporarily is the issue less noticeable? Believe me when I say disabling sound/music is the last thing I want y'all to do, but until we get this hashed out I still want y'all to be able to enjoy the game!

Thanks for working on this with me, will update when I know anything!

3 hours ago, jambell said:

Hey @0xFADE, @Lifegrow, @crypticorb - spent the whole day yesterday sorting through the project trying to pinpoint the issue. Found a handful of other undetected issues as an unexpected surprise, and also narrowed this down a lot. The lousy part is that testing a single fix attempt - or even a pass on identifying the issue - takes about 20 minutes of sitting and watching the profiler because that's how long it takes for it to repro on my machine.

I'll be back at it on Tuesday, since our studio is closed Monday for a Canadian stat holiday.

In the meantime, if you turn music off temporarily is the issue less noticeable? Believe me when I say disabling sound/music is the last thing I want y'all to do, but until we get this hashed out I still want y'all to be able to enjoy the game!

Thanks for working on this with me, will update when I know anything!

Changing music levels did nothing to change the stuttering (or make it less noticeable) for me - however just today someone posted on one of my videos (the one where I'm raging about this very bug) and said that they too have the same issue.

They recommended killing off all their slicksters and that it fixed the problem for them. I know you're against the mass execution of your glorious oozelings, but considering this bug has reared it's head during the ranching upgrades, it makes sense that it might be tied to a critter sound maybe?

Thanks for the hard work you folks are putting into fixing this - sadly I simply cannot stream ONI until this is fixed, so I've yet to return to the colony. Hopefully fade and/or cryptic can help out with any tests you might need.

Much love,

-Life

With respect to critters it might.  I am pretty sure I heard some sleeping hatch offscreen.  Like way offscreen.  It was very faint but still.  Maybe things are still triggering sounds even when they are so quiet they don't make a sound.  Then when you combine hundreds of silent critter noises with some other audio it can't take it.

Hey gang,

We just pushed a hotfix that should fix this... we tested the fix with your bases on my machine and the stuttering issue never occurs. Please give this a try and let us know

Changed Status to Fixed

15 hours ago, jambell said:

Changed Status to Fixed

Might want to change this buddy - the bug is still there same as before.

 

Changed Status to Known Issue

Hi. I'm experiencing this too. In the beginning it was an on/off problem. It came and then next time I started the game, it wasn't there. Now it is always there. BUT, now I also experience it in Civilization VI. So I think this isn't solely an ingame problem, but must rather be something between the game and something outside the game. Maybe something with Steam...? Maybe something with DirectX...? Or something third...? I really don't know. But I think it must be in the use of some third-party software which both Oxygen Not Included and Civilization VI both use.

Edited January 12, 2019 by BangMadsen

*UPDATE* I tried to do some bug-hunting myself. I tried to switch to DirectX 12. No change. I uninstalled DirectPlay support in Windows. No change. I tried to use window's trouble shooting agent. It reported a problem with a AMDA interface. (AMDA = AMD Audio?). I tried to correct and restart. No change. Then I tried to change my standard output for sounds. I usually use headphones plugged into the computer via jack. But I've also got a monitor with speakers, which can play sound. And once I change to use that in stead, the stuttering dissapeared! Both from Civilization VI and Oxygen Not Included. I'm not sure what to deduce from this, but now you know.

Edited January 12, 2019 by BangMadsen

Got it! Well, at least for me.

I went through the various drivers, and I spotted that the NVidia software includes an audio driver.

It turned out was an update for NVidia Geforce Experience. I started it, and it updated. Problem solved. I hope it helps the rest of you too.