[2.0.14] Distorted Audio

[rovas117]

I recently got back into Factorio and was excited to play it since the new expansion dropped but for whatever reason the audio just sounds distorted whenever I run the game.

I had this problem before and it was fixed by having this in the launch option.

--audio-driver allegro

I don't know what changed but that option is no longer available and thus I now have distorted audio because of it. Is there something I could do to help fix this issue?

I am playing on a Windows 10 Laptop.

Attached is the audio recording of the game as I am playing it on default settings while it's just idling on the main menu.

[Donion]

Hello,
Please post a log file.
You might want to try resetting your audio settings to default.
You can try changing the preferred audio driver from default to DirectSound (in Sound Settings, requires restarting the game).

[rovas117]

I switched the game to default settings, then switched the audio driver to DirectSound.

I then restarted the game, let it run for a bit on the main menu and the audio was still distorted. This was the log file generated during that time.

I know it might be obvious, but Factorio is the only game I have this issue with thus far. I can listen to music, play other videogames with no problem whatsoever.

[Donion]

What is the output format for your speakers/headphones?
Do you use any additional audio software?
Do you happen to have a different audio interface available for testing by any chance (for example headphones with their own USB sound "card")?

[rovas117]

Alright, I managed to get some headway into it.

I do have additional audio software running on my machine: VoiceMeeter Banana.

The good news is, when I turned it off, the audio was finally playing fine. It was running on default audio driver and default audio out--which would be my laptop speakers.

The bad news is, I don't understand why. I've used VB before and played with Factorio and never had an issue. Only now did I start having it.

I primarily use VB to help with separating audio channels and used it in tandem with streaming.

Maybe it's part of the settings I have for it? Maybe the game audio doesn't play well when it's getting pushed out at 48khz?

[Donion]

I'm not familiar with VoiceMeeter Banana so this will be a guessing game.
I wouldn't think 48kHz is a problem.
I would try different buf size and the "r" which I'm guessing is the bit depth? to 16.

[rovas117]

OK, after doing some testing I was able to determine what was causing the issue, able to fix it most importantly, but I don't understand why it was happening.

By sheer dumb luck, I noticed that the audio magically fixed itself when I happened to open the Sound Settings on the PC without literally touching anything. It would come back when I closed the window. After a few trial and errors I realized it was the microphone causing the issue. For whatever reason, having the microphone present in the Sound Settings would fix the issue and since it would be absent when the window was closed, that was somehow causing the audio to get garbled.

After seeing this lead, I saw that VoiceMeeter was apparently using my microphone but I didn't have it connected to any of its applications in it. On a whim, I decided to connect it to one of the hardware inputs and voila, the problem fixed itself.

I don't know what was going on. I don't even even remotely know why my microphone (an input device) was causing issues with an output device (the speakers) when Factorio doesn't even need voice input right at the main menu.

But you know what, I'm happy this was fixed. XD Maybe you guys can look into it further. Maybe a bug somewhere in the audio processing or something. Who knows.

Thanks nonetheless, Donion!

[Donion]

Well, I'm glad you figured it out!

I will make a note of this and at some point I can try reproducing it.

[feoranis26]

So I'm having this issue with VoiceMeeter Banana as well but for me the posted workaround does not seem to solve the issue. But I think I can see why that seemed to solve the issue: when you change audio devices VoiceMeeter restarts the audio engine with the new configuration. When I restart the audio engine manually by selecting this menu option after Factorio has started the issue goes away until I restart VoiceMeeter usually. I think VoiceMeeter goes into some kind of compatibility mode when it realizes something is wrong while the audio engine is starting up. However occasionally this workaround does not work and I have to restart Factorio to try again.

"factorio-current.log" is from a session where this workaround did work, while "factorio-previous.log" is from a session where it did not.

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