crackling audio issue

I have this issue too. Auzen X-Fi Prelude with latest drivers (checked last night), Win 7/64, using analog output. Some sounds seem to become "corrupted" and just produce a sort of static white noise. Taking items from inventory, clicking some menus, and my fireballs / rain of fire spells do this now.
It's to note the game used to work perfectly until last patch.

So, I also had this problem while playing PoE. Occasionally I even wound up with a nasty Blue Screen of Death after the audio went bazerk. The problem is with Sound Blaster (Creative) sound cards. I have the X-Fi Fatal1ty card as well.

SOLUTION:

*You will need to have an alternate audio output on your PC

To change the audio output in Windows:
-right click the volume icon in your task bar (bottom left of your desktop)
-select "Playback Devices"
-right click an output (other than your sound blaster card)
-select "Set as Default Device"
-click OK
-unplug your speakers from your Sound Blaster card and connect them to whatever output you selected.

If this doesn't work for you or you don't have an alternate audio output (most laptop users), I'm really sorry I can't be of more help. Here's to hoping this gets patched up quick!

Also, Andrew from GGG has been addressing issues with this stuff :P

"

Andrew_GGG wrote:

Audio does work for 90% of our player base.

Are you using a creative x-fi card? Or a SPDIF output?

We have had issues with these things, but they will get fixed when our lead programmer has time.


There are a few ways you can get around these problems. To fix the X-fi issue you add
--softwareaudio to the end of your client shortcut path.

To fix the SPDIF problem... you'll have to use the analogue out instead.

Sorry for the double post, by the way! D:

Just found this thread...

I have been having this crackling sound issue as well, playing sound from my Creative headset (usb). My sound card is Realtek though, so I was wondering if the issue is Creative-generic?

The issue occurs every play time, sometimes just random, sometimes getting worse little by little, and just moments ago it finally resulted in a game crash.

The sounds in the game are awesome (when not crackling) so I hope there is a fix for this eventually. :)

Hey, i have the same Problems, all sounds in PoE are broken and it just cracks at any time i use a sell or some npc talkes to me.

I also have the problem, if i want to hear normal musik, the sound gets really bad, with hard cracks and so on.
Another problem apeared then i try to skype while the game is open.... if someone talkes in the conversation he sounds like an androis from starwars O.o never had this befor with another game!!
Hope it get fixed.

Seems like this issue persisted for me at Act 3 :(

Well....since someone else bumped it....

I get the cracking in Act 5 town. Vilenta is particularly bad. Her "Research" monologue just cut out completely about half-way through.

Interestingly, it doesn't happen on headphones (SPDIF interface)...yet.

Thanks for letting us know about this.

We're now able to reproduce the problem, and should have a fix patched in soon.

Same here!

First time this issue occured was after todays patch.
I never hadthe crackling before, in all the years I played PoE.
No change in hardware.

Cheers!

I also have had a static problem, since 3.0 dropped. Normally everything is fine. Occasionally, though, I'll have static suddenly start when I'm moving around. If I stay still, no static. I start moving, I get intermittent static. It stops temporarily if I turn off PoE's Master Volume, but comes back if I turn sound back on. It won't "permanently" stop until I reload the PoE program entirely.