Skill sound effects don't always play

dzugarueb17_ESO

This is not a bug when some sounds completely disappear like shealthe/unshealthe after some heavy PvP - this can be fixed by client restart. I'm talking about skill sound cutting off randomly.

For example - puncturing strikes, even if it does hit the mob all four times - sometimes the beginning of the sound is completely cut, or the is no skill sound at all.

This problem exists for me and my friend since beta. First I thought it is somehow related to lag, that existed in beta and shortly after launch (before Megaserver was moved to EU). But we've resubscribed recently - lag is almost gone, skills are fired and damage is done the instant I press the button almost always, but the sound cutting problem is still there.

I've tried client repair and audio drivers reinstall - doesn't make any difference.

Maybe there is setting somewhere like max sfx channels, maybe my friend's sounds are given priority over mine, idk?

ZOS_GaryA

Hey there @dzugarueb17_ESO,

Just a couple of quick questions!

1. Are there any other skills you can think of that have this issue? We'd be happy to look into the sound cutting out, and more info is always better than less

2. This one is kind of a compound question. So first, are both you and your friend playing Templars?

a. If so, does the sound always get cut out when using Puncturing Strike? And if yes to this, who's sound ends up getting cut (you, the friend, or both)?

b. If your friend is a different class, does the sound cut happen for both you and your friend, or just for you?

Thanks for your patience and for reporting this issue!

dzugarueb17_ESO

Hi, GaryA!

1. Well, I notice it on Puncturing Strikes most of the time, but sometimes Piercing Javelin sound is missing too (or comes later than the visual effect, should've mentioned it - sometimes sound is not cut, but "lags") Can't remember about other skills.

2. She's Dragon Knight, but she has a skill with long sound effect to - namely Flurry - and sound of it gets cut (beginning or end) for her sometimes to.

I can't say if her skill sounds is cut for me or vice versa because it's prominent when you do something yourself and get no immediate audio feedback and less noticeable when someone doing something and stays silent. Also it usually happens in heat of the battle.

Btw frequency of this random sound cut is fluctuating - yesterday evening it happened very often, today - it barely happened at all (we're still killing same usual questing 3mob packs).

Taleof2Cities

My sorc will not get the purge sound effect in PvP maybe 3 out of 4 times. Not a huge problem, but relevant to the topic.

ThisOnePosts

I have this happen across ALL 4 classes at times. It seems the faster the ability the more frequent it happens. However even more annoying, is when sound doesn't work and you need to step inside a building in order to fix it (ie, any light/heavy attacks, walking, etc..). I know that's the work around and it's typically related to logging out of one character and into another however it does happen for no reason sometimes when I've been on just one character since I opened the game for that session.

Additionally, it also comes back sometimes, as if it had to "catch up" when outdoors and I leave it be for a while (although this is not always the case). Something is definitely off with the sounds in general. For the most part, ability sounds play but sometimes they skip.

Also, I know it's off topic and I have reported all of this in /bug, however weapons are invisible all too often or sometimes not responsive at all when there is no latency issues present.

dzugarueb17_ESO

Well, yeah, I've decided to PvP yesterday, though PvP is really fun (when you don't get shot by a Focused Arrow lol), sound problems there are way more apparent there.

Sometimes half of surrounding sounds disappear for a couple of seconds.

And after a while - some sounds don't play at all anymore even in quiet castle. Like unshealthe works and shealthe is silent.

dzugarueb17_ESO

Went to kill High Kinlady Estre on my second char. Oblivion plane there magically removes 3/4 of the sound effects there.

dzugarueb17_ESO

Well, since ZoS is not answering - I'll go wild guess mode on.

I think this is related to low-end CPU's (I have AMD fx-something) and unoptimized sound or whole game CPU load. My 4-core CPU load for eso.exe stays at 35% in quiet, but goes up in combat.

I've tried to cut process affinity to 1 core - everything worked kinda fine, but sounds lagged and disappeared horribly.

Maybe the sound engine thread cannot use more than one core, maybe whole game cannot use more than 2 cores.

So, a question - can anyone say what settings can be lowered (even in UserSettings.txt, not just UI) to reduce CPU load? Since I'm not in the mood of buying new CPU (other high-end games like BF4 etc. work perfectly fine)

5L1C3R

Ok, well... this is my issue, i'm relatively new to forums and such so i'm hoping i'm putting this in the right spot to get some help, but the issue i'm having has gone beyond irritating...

This is how it breaks down:
Alot of the sounds in-game are almost horribly late or do not play at all, as well as alot of visual effects do not appear until well after i've attacked, casted, etc... (Example: I am playing a Templar and when I cast my "solar flare" i think it is, the fireball thingy i can throw at multiple enemies with the morph, I can cast it as many times as my magicka allows before it appears on screen which results in the enemy getting hit by 5 or 6 of them at once when they do appear, or a string of fireballs chasing after them... and also when I do a light attack on an enemy the sound won't play at first but after i've hit them 4 or 5 times all of the impact sounds play all at once resulting in this really loud and annoying sound... My heavy attacks also suffer from the same problem. Sometimes Dialogue with NPC's doesn't start playing until a second or two after i've activated them as well...

I have gone through everything i can think of to fix this issue... I.E. Sound Drivers/options, windows firewall options, repairing install, and almost any "fix" i have found online... ping reports i've done say something about an average of 38ms and nothing seems to work. I am running an older dual core pc, but all of the hardware I have seems to be what i need to play the game. 2.1ghz on the processor, 4gb RAM, and a NVidia GeForce GT 730 with 2gb memory, Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit... I can run the graphics on ultra and have very little if no lag at all in fps, but i'm having these really irritating issues with lag/latency whatever the hell it is... I am beginning to think that it's not really an issue on my end but maybe on ZOS's... I have seen posts online about people with similar problems, but noone in-game seems to have the issue...(which makes no sense, if i'm not the only one having this issue, how come no one in the game says they do?)

Anyway, i hate that my first post on the forums had to be about a problem i'm having because I thoroughly enjoy the game and have been an Elder Scrolls fan since "Arena", but this issue has really begun to get on my nerves and even have me considering cancelling my sub because I know and have played quite a few other MMO's that are not only free to play, but have nowhere near the amount of issues that I've seen and dealt with on TESO... So if I could get some help with this I would not only greatly appreciate it but it would probably help get me more involved in the TESO community...

Thanks for any and all help! -Slicer

dzugarueb17_ESO

I am running an older dual core pc ... 2.1ghz

I'm more convinced this is CPU related now

I've tried to change process priority from Normal to High - doesn't matter.

ZOS_GaryA

Hey there folks,

Thanks for all of the additional info. It sounds like this is part of an ongoing sound issue that we are currently investigating. This is a known issue that was partly addressed in patch 1.4.5 on September 20, 2014. However, the hotfix we deployed was only targeted at the locations players teleport into in Cyrodiil (specifically when doing so via the UI, and only this method of entering the zone) and cannot account for character swapping. As such, it is still possible for this error to occur in other locations. Future updates to help address this issue are planned.

To work around this on your affected character, enter a nearby "indoor area" (buildings or cave entrances that cause a load screen to happen) or quit and restart the client.

Again, thanks for all of the responses. We appreciate your patience while a solution is found.

dzugarueb17_ESO

Well, things got worse in Update 5.

Palidon

Sound Effects not playing is also in PvE.

Dual Wield Rapid Strikes plays no sound when hitting a target
Unsheathing weapons (In my case Dual Daggers) plays no sound

Did a repair and that did not change anything. The above problems happened after the installation of Update 5.

Muizer

Palidon wrote: »

Sound Effects not playing is also in PvE.

Dual Wield Rapid Strikes plays no sound when hitting a target
Unsheathing weapons (In my case Dual Daggers) plays no sound

Did a repair and that did not change anything. The above problems happened after the installation of Update 5.

This I can confirm. Happening since the patch, not before. There does seem to be a "woosh" like sound, but it's almost too faint to hear.

On another matter, even before the patch I had a problem with hoofbeats. On my main character they work fine (gaited horse), but on my alt (light horse) sound cuts out intermittently.

born2beagator

dzugarueb17_ESO wrote: »

Well, things got worse in Update 5.

A lot worse. A ton of my FX don't play now

stierlitz

The workaround suggested above by ZOS_GaryA did not bring any change for me. I can also confirm the issue is not related to specific area (and happens everyhere) and started just with update 5 - not before.

Master_Fluff

Yep, the non-playing of skill sound fx (Dual Wield most notable for me, as I use that skill set a lot: only the last part of the animation has any sound played, the rest is silent) is the same for me since 1.5.2 was installed. And probably for a lot of others as well.

Razzak

ulrik.igerupb16_ESO wrote: »

Yep, the non-playing of skill sound fx (Dual Wield most notable for me, as I use that skill set a lot: only the last part of the animation has any sound played, the rest is silent) is the same for me since 1.5.2 was installed. And probably for a lot of others as well.

Same here. It doesn't matter where or when, first five hits of Flurry are always done in silence.

Praseodyme

Palidon wrote: »

Sound Effects not playing is also in PvE.

Dual Wield Rapid Strikes plays no sound when hitting a target
Unsheathing weapons (In my case Dual Daggers) plays no sound

Did a repair and that did not change anything. The above problems happened after the installation of Update 5.

I've got exactly the same issue.

@dzugarueb17_ESO : I don't think that issue is low-end CPU related, because i can observe this by using an I7-4790K @4.0 GHz.

Razzak

Razzak wrote: »

ulrik.igerupb16_ESO wrote: »

Yep, the non-playing of skill sound fx (Dual Wield most notable for me, as I use that skill set a lot: only the last part of the animation has any sound played, the rest is silent) is the same for me since 1.5.2 was installed. And probably for a lot of others as well.

Same here. It doesn't matter where or when, first five hits of Flurry are always done in silence.

I have to correct myself. Just done a few more tests and there is a sound effect with first 5 hits of Flurry. It's just barely audible "windy" sound. It's obvious they have changed it, but I think it needs a few more tweaks.
Like I said, it's barely audible and also strangely different than other sounds. It feels like it wants to sound different but hasn't the vocal cords for it.

dzugarueb17_ESO

I don't think that issue is low-end CPU related, because i can observe this by using an I7-4790K @4.0 GHz

Flurry and some other sounds - yes. This issue is constant and appeared after Update 5. My issue is random occuring sound lag and cuts that existed always. I doubt any considerable amount of people have it, I've watched streams etc.

This is the only thing I really really hate in the game - no other games have any sound issues for me.

Palidon

What I don't understand is how ZOS has to look into this issue of sound when the problems being reported were working just fine prior to their update. That tells me one thing. The majority of their staff do not know their arse from a hole in the ground. ZOS get your house in order or make this game free to play. You require folks to pay for constant bugs, issues and problems which you are creating with each of your updates.

dzugarueb17_ESO

were working just fine prior to their update

Lucky you. I'd sell my immortal soul for how sound works on streams - and never worked for me.

Btw tested
SET RequestedNumJobThreads "0"
SET RequestedNumWorkerThreads "0"

it seems sound got better? I don't get it.