difficult-to-diagnose audio issue is ruining my game streams >:-[

[NattyKathy]

So, I've been streamin'. It's fun. What's less fun is when my ability to entertain & engage with viewers is destroyed because my damn audio keeps cutting out. I realize gaming and streaming from the same machine is sub-optimal but it's what I've got to work with right now.

What I hear on my end: Starts with a bit of distortion on game sounds, gradually increases until there's steady pulsating static at all times (like a sharp & crunchy static, not a soft static if that makes sense), eventually the audio (and static) drops out completely but the source is still available and unmuted in OBS. This happens over a period of anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes between the first distortion and the audio dropping out entirely. Mic (which I'm directly monitoring thru the audio interface) is unaffected on the monitor end but goes silent along with the game audio in OBS when it all finally cuts.

What is heard on the viewer end: No static, game & mic audio just starts intermittently cutting out together before going away for good

When the issue begins: Usually the issues crop up between 1-3 hours of the stream/recording beginning however it's all over the place. On one end I've had it happen within 30mins on-stream a few times and today I did a test recording and the audio crapped out within under 10mins. On the other, last week I had a Cyberpunk stream going for 14 hours straight (I took many breaks!!!) with zero audio problem at all so it's no way consistent.

Hardware setup:
i7 10875H (-100mV, 105W PL1 / 135W PL2, slight Turbo tuning)
32GB DDR4 (stock, 3200Mhz CL22- shit latency, I know)
RTX 2070 Super 115W (+80Mhz core, +335Mhz memory in Clevo GPU Overclocking app)
1TB WD Black NVMe (OS, apps, games)
2TB Seagate HDD (saved recordings, downloads, warm storage etc)
512GB Inland Pro NVMe (Lightroom library, probably not relevant to this)
Focusrite Scarlett Solo audio interface (2nd Generation, firmware 1052)
condenser mic connected via XLR (with 48V phantom power)
alternate audio- Realtek-based "SoundBlasterX" branded internal audio with microphone array
Intel AX201 internal Wi-Fi
Realtek 8812BU USB Wi-Fi
Logitech M705 wireless mouse
XBone & PS5 wired controllers

Software setup:
Windows 10 Pro 20H2 build 19042.985
OBS Studio 26.1.1 64-bit (using Quicksync encoding on UHD630, 720p30, 3200Kbit/s video / 192Kbit/s audio)
iV Cam camera interface 6.2.2.985 (connected to LG G6 via USB-C, audio disabled)
alternate camera interface- Iriun Webcam 2.65 (connected to LG G6 via USB-C, audio disabled)
Nvidia Broadcast background removal & noise cancellation 1.2.049
alternate background removal- XSplit Vcam 2.3.2105.2001
alternate noise cancellation- OBS "Noise Suppression" filter
Nvidia graphics driver version 466.27 (no GFE)
Focusrite driver version 4.65.5
ThrottleStop 9.3
HWiNFO64 6.42-4360
RTSS v7.3.0.24467
Clevo Control Center v3.08

when streaming I lock all games to either 30 or 60fps with RTSS and adjust settings so that the dGPU generally stays below 80% usage and my in-game rendering frame drops are low to nonexistent. CPU usage depends on game but I've never seen higher than 70% even in busy areas in Cyberpunk and it's generally below 50%. iGPU hovers around 70-80% usage. dGPU stays around 70*C and around 1900Mhz when floating or around 1700Mhz when under heavy pressure, and CPU generally stays around 80*C and clocks stay at whatever I've set ThrottleStop to allow (generally 4Ghz when all cores are hit like in 2077 or 4.5Ghz in more lightly-threaded games) with zero throttling.

The audio problems only happen while I'm streaming, never when playing offline.

All audio stuff in OBS seems to be set up reasonably and according to recommendations I've seen. All global audio inputs are disabled and inputs are handled manually thru separate sources.

LatencyMon when run during a test stream/recording indicates the system may have trouble with real-time audio (no duh) and shows Wdf01000.sys as the worst offender with nvlddmkm.sys and dxgkrnl.sys vying for second place... which doesn't tell me much other than "congrats, you're using an NVidia GPU and Win10? good f**king luck fixing your sound you idiot"

Things that I tried during stream that sometimes provide a temporary fix to the audio:
- alt-tabbing out and back into the game
- restarting the game
- unplugging the audio interface and plugging it back in
- switching from audio interface + XLR mic to Realtek/"Soundblaster" audio + internal microphone array
- shutting down cam background removal software
- changing the buffer size in the Focusrite control panel (up or down, either seems to momentarily fix the audio but it always breaks again)

Things I've tried when setting up for a stream that sometimes correlate with having no audio problems the entire stream but then the audio problems come back the next stream:
- using Iriun cam interface instead of iV Cam interface
- using XSplit Vcam for background removal (uses UHD 630 + CPU for compute) instead of Nvidia Broadcast (uses RTX 2070S Tensor Cores for compute)
- disabling cam entirely

Things I've tried when setting up for stream / test that seem to have had no effect:
- using different USB cable with audio interface
- swapping audio interface between direct USB-A port, USB-A port on hub, USB-C port with adapter, and Thunderbolt 3 port with adapter
- disabling USB power saving features in Power Plan
- updating drivers for GPU / Audio
- unplugging USB WiFi
- unplugging USB WiFi AND disabling internal WiFi
- swearing and threatening to yeet my laptop out a window on-stream
- changing audio sampling rate between 44.1Khz/48Khz/96Khz (and ensuring sampling rates match everywhere they can be set)

I... realize that despite dumping all this info I may not have actually given much in the way of helpful detail due to the vagueness of the issue. But maybe by the power of the [H]ive mind I'll get suggested something I haven't thought of? If you've made it this far, thanks!

Things that are not solutions for various reasons:
- getting a new computer
- getting a dedicated streaming PC
- streaming with no cam / mic
- choosing a different hobby

 

[NattyKathy]

sorry for the freaking essay of a post, I'm bad at being concise and I wanted to dump all the details I have since I have no idea what's relevant and what's not at this point.

 

[Nobu]

Sounds like a buffer underrun issue, but I haven't had that issue in Windows in forever. Already tried uninstalling and reinstalling drivers, right? Do you have multiple devices with audio drivers? Have you tried changing the audio sampling rate?

Edit: bit of searching turns up a few results for underruns with some of Focusrite's other products, but can't seem to find any related to the solo, specifically. Still, might be able to get some help from them on this issue. And I see you changed the sample rate, dunno how I missed that...

 

[NattyKathy]

Yeah, I've updated my GFX & audio drivers and messed with the sample rate and buffer settings. I'm inclined to think it's something other than the audio interface since its happened when using the internal Realtek audio as well.

God, why is audio stuff still so wonky. It's like printers- you'd think with the march of technology things would get more reliable and easier to troubleshoot but in fact the opposite is true...

 

[NattyKathy]

More unsuccessful troubleshooting to add to the list
- disabling all unused audio devices in Windows sound control panel
- removing Desktop Audio capture source in OBS and instead using a splitter on the headphone output of the Focusrite to run a cable into the Microphone jack of the internal Realtek audio
-unplugging the Focusrite and only using the internal audio (I've tried this before but thought it prudent to double check)
-setting process priority of OBS to "High" both in the app settings and Task Manager
-running OBS with cam unplugged and no cam software at all running
-closing RTSS and HWiNFO before starting OBS

nothing helped. I'm testing using Unigine Heaven benchmark with framerate uncapped to maximize system load and the audio glitches begin much sooner than in framerate-capped games.

 

[toast0]

nothing helped. I'm testing using Unigine Heaven benchmark with framerate uncapped to maximize system load and the audio glitches begin much sooner than in framerate-capped games.

If you can get it to happen regularly that's a step in the right direction; if you can reproduce it, you can fix it. Maybe check if there's any clues in Event Viewer. It's always a mess in there, but occasionally there are clear indicators of what exactly is breaking, and that can help fix it.

 

[NattyKathy]

If you can get it to happen regularly that's a step in the right direction; if you can reproduce it, you can fix it. Maybe check if there's any clues in Event Viewer. It's always a mess in there, but occasionally there are clear indicators of what exactly is breaking, and that can help fix it.

thanks for the tip! Unfortunately I didn't find anything in Event Viewer that correlated with the audio dropouts, just looked like housekeeping stuff. It was worth a check though.

 

[NattyKathy]

More unsuccessful troubleshooting:
-disabled Nvidia HDMI audio device in Device Manager
-tried using Twitch Studio instead of OBS
-installed latest GeForce Studio driver (462.something)

The one thing that did work- but isn't actually a solution- was going to extreme lengths and disabling driver installation on the 2070S via Group Policy, DDU'ing the Nvidia drivers, and testing with the iGPU only.

This pretty much confirms my initial reaction when this started weeks ago:

"congrats, you're using an NVidia GPU and Win10? good f**king luck fixing your sound you idiot"

Wish this idiot luck

 

[DoubleTap]

Are you doing all of this over Wifi? Not Ethernet?

Can you / have you tried looking at your sound device sample rates? Can you make them all 16 bit / 44.1? (or something else that is all the same)

Could any of this be some kind of ground loop / mic feedback?

Does it happen on lots of games or do you only stream one game?

If you turn off the game, does the sound come back?

Any chance you can make a crude MS Paint diagram of how everything is connected?

It's a bit hard to picture from the posting...

 

[NattyKathy]

Are you doing all of this over Wifi? Not Ethernet?

Thanks for the reply
Yes, Wi-Fi only as I don't have access to wired internet. However I have tried unplugging the USB Wi-Fi, disabling the Internal Wi-Fi, and performing an offline recording with OBS and issue persists

Can you / have you tried looking at your sound device sample rates? Can you make them all 16 bit / 44.1? (or something else that is all the same)

I've made sure the sample rates match everywhere they can be set, no effect

Could any of this be some kind of ground loop / mic feedback?

I doubt it, because it doesn't sound anything like a ground loop- and the issue persists even when audio interface is unplugged and I use the internal audio with laptop's microphone array

Does it happen on lots of games or do you only stream one game?

Happens any (but not every) time I stream or record with OBS or Twitch Studio while running a GPU-intensive 3D application (any game, also tried Unigine Heaven and it did it)



After my last troubleshooting round I'm fairly convinced it's the Nvidia GPU driver that's pushing the system over the edge, see my post:

The one thing that did work- but isn't actually a solution- was going to extreme lengths and disabling driver installation on the 2070S via Group Policy, DDU'ing the Nvidia drivers, and testing with the iGPU only.

Any chance you can make a crude MS Paint diagram of how everything is connected?

Yes
I just realized I omitted the AC adapter on the pics. Assume the laptop is plugged in at all times while streaming

Using External Audio Interface - >>>NOTE: I've also alternatively tried connecting the Audio Interface to the USB Hub and Directly to a Type-A port and no change<<<

Using Internal Audio

 

[NattyKathy]

The next step, which I'm super not looking forward to, is nuking everything and re-installing Windows from a fresh 21H1 image and meticulously testing and re-testing as I install drivers and appz. About to get started on that now

 

[NattyKathy]

TL;DR disabling every CPU power saving feature in BIOS and enabling the "Ultimate Performance" power plan seems to be the way despite the tradeoffs. Rest of post kept for the record.

Disabled the dGPU in BIOS (yes I have a laptop whose BIOS actually has options to configure other than boot order! Thanks Clevo!). Wiped the system disk & reinstalled from freshy-fresh 21H1 USB. Installed all drivers with a mix of DL'd packages and Windows update as appropriate to get the latest. Windows doesn't even know the dGPU exists yet so it can't do any dumb shit like auto-installing some random Nvidia drivers that were released when GoT Xena was still on TV. I DDU'd the automatically-installed iGPU drivers and installed the latest package from Intel. Installed a couple basic appz (like WinRAR) and the stuff for streaming (OBS, iV Cam, XSplit). Looped Heaven for over an hour while streaming into the void (bandwidthtest=true) and simultaneously recording to disk. Was unable to reproduce the audio issue despite the poor UHD630 getting utterly demolished and dropping frames all over the place. However, LatencyMon was still showing poor values and suggesting imminent audio problems.

Ok, yolo, time to re-enable the dGPU and see what happens. Disconnected from 'net before shutting down, turned PEG detection and Switchable Graphics back on in BIOS, installed latest NV Game-Ready drivers before Windows Update could slip in something fresh drivers from the Detonator 56 branch, and now I could reproduce the audio issue again. Not as readily- instead of losing audio after ~5mins looping Heaven on dGPU like before it was taking ~30mins but it's still consistent and repeatable. Presence or absence of ThrottleStop/HWiNFO/RTSS made no difference in behavior nor did switching between Balanced/High Performance power plans and disabling USB/PCI power savings.

So at this point I decided to do what I probably should have tried from the beginning but didn't want to because sometimes I like to actually use my laptop as a laptop. Went on a rampage in the BIOS disabling every CPU power saving feature I could find. No more C-States, no more SpeedStep, no more Race-to-Idle, probably other things that aren't at the top of my brain at the moment. In addition I used the Powershell commands to enable the "Ultimate Performance" power plan.

And?
Well now my CPU is stuck at it's max all-core turbo at all times like it's 1998 or something, my idle power consumption is garbage, and I can't go into N-core turbo states so I'm losing out on single-thread performance.
Ok, you long-winded jackass, but did it work?
I don't exactly want to say "yes" because I have trust issues but yeah I think it did. Been recording/void streaming Heaven loop for 90mins and so far no problem and LatencyMon is now finally claiming my system "appears to be suitable for real-time audio". Huzzah.
I'm going to continue to let the loop run for uhh many hours and if the audio doesn't drop I'll attempt to get my N-core Turbo levels back without breaking everything all over.
If the audio does drop again or if I even hear one (1) single snap crackle or pop out of my headphones I'm selling every electronic thing I own including my toothbrush and <redacted> and running away to the woods. If I was getting paid tech support rates for all the hours I've spent troubleshooting this f**king issue over the past month, I'd have enough money to buy a dedicated streaming PC and an actual capture deck.
Ugh. Sleep soon hopefully. Say a prayer or cyberbully Microsoft or something for me.

 

[NattyKathy]

naturally, I spoke too soon. I'm soooo f**king over this.

Made it 2.5hrs this test run before losing audio. No alert triggered in LatencyMon (weird) and reported latencies are getting better so I'm possibly creeping closer to a tolerable situation. For all I know it would be fine if the framerate was capped but I can't take any chances, it's gotta just work all the way.

More attempts...
- bcdedit /set disabledynamictick
- going thru Device Manager and disabling any power saving settings for USB, Thunderbolt, and networking devices
-disable Windows Update delivery optimization
-making sure Intel Display Audio and Realtek audio are disabled in Device Manager (they had re-enabled themselves)
-uninstall Bonjour (why was it installed in the first place?)
-updating Intel chipset drivers again, in hopes that the storage drivers will properly update this time (my NVMe drivers are from 2006? that sounds impossible)
-updating Bluetooth drivers
-updating Wi-Fi drivers

the next step is disabling ACPI entirely, I'm really grasping at straws here

 

[NattyKathy]

That last round of fixes plus
upping the Focusrite's buffer setting
disabling Windows telemetry via Reg and GP
seems to have finally pushed things into "usable" territory. I just did over 5hrs of continuous recording/test-mode-streaming Heaven Extreme loops and while I did get a bit of noise between the 3-1/2 and 4hr mark, the audio did not drop out fully and eventually made a full recovery.

What a nightmare of a situation.

Now because I can't leave well enough alone, I'm going to try and get my full Turbo table back because maxing out at 4.0-4.3Ghz even in lightly-threaded situations is just not it. Also looking into using ASIO for the audio which again is something I probably should have done to begin with but it's never too late.

At least now I have a baseline config that seems to be more or less functional for audio processing; it only took me several dozen hours of troubleshooting, doing an absurd amount of Windows tweaks, and disabling core functions of my microprocessor

Windows + Nvidia for anything audio related = bad bad bad bad bad times. It sucked like 7 years ago when I was attempting to edit A/V tracks on a Win8.1 machine with a GTX295 and it sucks now attempting to stream on a Win10 machine with a 2070S.

 

[Nobu]

I'm not super knowledgable about rt audio, but would a rpi or some other low power device be able to handle the workload? I'm sure it'd be more work, but it'd be worth it if it works.

 

[NattyKathy]

I'm not super knowledgable about rt audio, but would a rpi or some other low power device be able to handle the workload? I'm sure it'd be more work, but it'd be worth it if it works.

I'm not sure how that would work You mean like using the Pi connected to the PC somehow as an audio interface to capture the audio that's coming out of the Focusrite interface to avoid using Virtual Cables? Could be something there.

No way in heck the Pi2 I have could composite and encode the whole stream on its own if that's what you mean but OBS is available for ARM so I suppose a Pi4 + HDMI capture might work as a cheaper alternative to a dedicated streaming PC, if I could figure out the cam thing. When I have like $100 to toss at the problem I might give that a try...

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[Nobu]

Np. I'm sure someone would have documented it if it were possible. I wouldn't throw money at it unless you think you can make it work, honestly. Just throwing ideas out in case nothing else works, really.

 

[lopoetve]

Having had a different weird issue - if you're NOT using HDMI audio, disable the device. Had LOTS of issues with that on the one system that latencymon pinged me on. Worth a try at least (in device manager).

 

[lopoetve]

Also, if that somehow fixes it - you'll have to do it again on every driver update. Because Nvidia.

 

[NattyKathy]

Having had a different weird issue - if you're NOT using HDMI audio, disable the device. Had LOTS of issues with that on the one system that latencymon pinged me on. Worth a try at least (in device manager).

Tried that early on, along with disabling Intel wireless display audio, and disallowing driver install on both GPUs via gpedit policy. Also have been keeping the Realtek audio disabled.

Unfortunately I don't think there's going to be a single thing that causes a major difference which is why I've moved onto extreme Windows and BIOS tweaking. Thanks tho for the suggestion tho!