Glenrhee Posted February 24, 2021 Share Posted February 24, 2021 This is an issue I noticed a long time ago, and it came up today: New Vegas seems to stutter depending on your audio setup. For reference, using New Vegas Tick Fix with a new stereo headset plugged directly into my case, .ogg files like ambient effects and dialogue would cause a significant stutter. Music didn't. Tried an old headset, same thing happened. Switched to a USB DAC rather than direct input, and lo and behold, the stuttering was gone. Same sound quality, same settings, just different connection method. For shits and giggles, I unplugged my headset and disabled all audio output, and the stuttering was even worse. Same if I only turned on my monitor's speakers. I'd never noticed this in any other game, just New Vegas. That I can use my DAC and do just fine means it's not a big deal, I prefer the USB's quality anyway, but still, is this a known issue? I just wanna make sure it's not something with my hardware. I found a few posts from years ago where people talked about having the same issue with bluetooth headsets, but this is just a regular stereo headset. Weirdly, one of the solutions one of those users posted - that he opened an .ogg file in Media Player then launched New Vegas - actually fixed most of the stuttering. It's very weird. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dubiousintent Posted February 25, 2021 Share Posted February 25, 2021 From what I can tell, the game just sends it's "audio" to the Windows OS via DirectX. (Evidenced by music continuing to play after the game freezes.) The DirectX driver determines how the output is directed and through what processing based upon your general OS "Sound" and DXDiag settings. This will involve processing by a "codec", and sometimes the default codec provided with your particular version of Windows needs to be supplemented (e.g. "Media Player Codec Pack", etc.). A "Digital to Analog Converter" (DAC) adds another "processor" to the sequence, and every added step tends to add some delay due to buffering, thus appearing to smooth out stutter. The more "direct to output" the connection, the more apparent the stutter from the source. -Dubious- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenrhee Posted February 25, 2021 Author Share Posted February 25, 2021 Very interesting. That'd definitely explain it. It may also be one of those things that becomes even more apparent at <60hz, not something you can really do without NVTF. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimboUK Posted February 28, 2021 Share Posted February 28, 2021 I had stuttering audio running the game up at 4K using the onboard sound, I have no idea why but it went away when I used a USB SoundBlaster instead, I would advise using a proper soundcard anyway, the audio quality is far higher and not just in games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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