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Audio Distortion problems - Can't track down why

I am having audio distortion problems in End Space - at least according to reviews and I am having difficulty tracking down why.

As far as I know I setup every correctly in Unity, using the right Unity version and the DSP buffer size set to Good. I have a S6 for testing and haven't had a problem with audio before, some reviews say it happens on a S7. The latest version of the game was built using Unity 5.4.1.p1 and uses the Oculus Audio plugin v1.0.4.

I tried updating to the new 1.1.1 audio plugin and have been testing the game with both  Rift and a Gear VR builds and I can get some distortion problems in testing 
but I am having trouble in detecting why the distortion happens. I think it might be when there are too many audio sources?

Has anyone had problems with audio distortion and found some steps to track it down?
13 REPLIES 13

8bit
Protege
Hey I'm having same issue! I've heavily tested S6 AND Note 4 and had no audio problems. I went and got an S7 because I was told there is "audio judder". The amount of distortion was shocking to me because even my Note 4 holds up fine, seems to only be S7 that has this problem from what I can see. This is the USA S7 (Snapdragon). If anyone has clues it would appreciated! If I find anything I'll be sure to follow up here too.

I'm using Unity 5.4.1p1

Here's a recent thread on reddit about a user experiencing this issue as well: https://www.reddit.com/r/GearVR/comments/5b3s2b/crackling_audio/

The bottom of the thread talks about switching airplane mode on and off has something to do with it...

delphinius81
Rising Star
We had a report with Fearless about something similar on a S7. The user reported judder/echo. I do not remember the exact unity build of the app version that user was on, other than it was in the 5.4.1px range. We are using the default audio settings in our project (not using the oculus spatial audio at all, just built-in unity).

Petroza
Heroic Explorer
We did have some reports that Unity crackles when running in low latency mode. It might be worth changing the audio latency in the project settings and see if that helps.

8bit
Protege
@PeterStirling, yep that did it. I changed DSP Buffer Size from "Default" to "Best Performance" and the judder/echo went away. I'm assuming the buffer is huge now and latency not the best but clean audio is definitely preferable over crackling/stuttering audio. Thanks. I'm pasting a screenshot of my audio settings for others to reference and for y'all to poke at me in case something else is not set optimally. 43esdu5ldt9n.png

@8bit You don't have your Spatizalizer plugin set in the screenshot which means you also aren't using Spatialized audio.

Also according to the Oculus Utilities downloads page:
  • "Unity 5.3.4-5.3.6p3 and Unity 5.4.0b16-Unity 5.4.0p3: Do not set DSP Buffer Size to Best in Audio Manager in the Inspector for now or you will encounter audio distortion. Set it to Good or Default instead."

@PeterStirling We have tried that. The current version of End Space on the store is using the 'Default' latency option. As recommended in the documentation.

Petroza
Heroic Explorer
If you're getting crackling and it's not related to buffer size, could it be a performance issue? What are you seeing in the Unity Profiler?

I have had it happen in the Unity editor using my Rift as well. Then it has only been once or twice. But again not sure why as when it happened I wasn't looking for it so I couldn't track it down.

I don't think it's a performance issue as it's never happened on the S6. I think it's a S7 Edge issue. Going be the reviews it's not related to my game but a lot of other games on the store all with the S7.


8bit
Protege
Hey @justin.wasilenko . So I think the suggestion to not use "best" was referring to "best latency". The opposite side of the spectrum is "best performance". This really did fix most of my audio chop problems on S7, you guys should just test it out, I'd be curious to hear if it helps. Also thanks for prodding me to turn on Oculus Spatializer. I was hesitant to enable because 3D positioned sound doesn't add much to my game and I thought I would save some cycles by leaving it off but I think performance has actually improved after turning it on. Cheers.