Background Music/Ambient SFX Stutter 15 Times a Minute in Populated Areas(XBOX)

switch_deftwind

Operating System: XBox One
Network: Comcast, 30mb down, 10mb up
Megaserver: Xbox/PS4
Geography: California

Reproducible: Consistently

When in populated areas, the ambience and music cuts out about every 3 seconds. I am so sold on this game that I lave looped past 100% and I'm working my way back from -100%(that is to say, nothing can make me not like this game). However, this makes me not like this game. I cannot, in good faith, recommend a game where the soundtrack stutters constantly. It's incredibly jarring. It makes what should be a gloriously peaceful experience (Grahtwood, Vulkhel Guard), an exercise in denying Hircine's whispers to destroy everything in my living room.

Possible causes:
a) if the audio is being streamed, it is being streamed with the same priority as every other asset.
b) if it is being streamed with a higher priority, my distance from the east coast is causing sample stuttering. (this would, inconveniently, make it impossible to repro on your end)
c) if the audio is locally stored, it is being played in one of the 128/256/whatever channels made available for all the SFX in the game.

Possible solutions
a) give the audio/ambience it's own high-priority reserved bandwidth
b) serve the ambient sfx/music files to the client on update. this will increase the download size, i know. but it's better than having even your dedicated playerbase hate going to any place with other players.
c) reserve 2 tracks/channels for background music and primary ambience(local ambient effects should be prioritized lower than the overarching 'jungle background,' for instance)

Thanks for your time. Walk with Y'ffre.

I Remain,
Spinner Starlight, a curator, The Sages Guild

switch_deftwind

addendum: as there is no failsafe programmed in, the sudden stop/start of both the music and ambience(and all sound, for that matter) causes hard-clipping of the master audio.

LadyDestiny

This^^^^. The audio is really bad in this game. Been this way since day one and never been fixed properly. Constant stuttering, cutting out or no sound at all. Gets worse with each dlc.