Game audio broken after hot fix

[twinklegalaxy]

Hi there,

I am playing on PC and have a brand new gaming laptop. I installed the new hot fix today and also installed the Snowy Escape EP as well. I am running my game without mods. When I initially loaded my game, the audio was fine for about 5 minutes then it started to go crackly. I've restarted my game and repaired my game in Origin and it is still happening. It happens immediately as the game loads. Please note I never tried the audio hot fix, so I don't think it's to do with that. I have also tried running videos on my computer and the audio is fine so it is just the game.

I also have an issue where the game says my Sims are at work when they are not. Their faces are greyed out at the bottom.

This is what my audio sounds like now: https://twitter.com/umbrellagalaxy/status/1329446916279717889

Please let me know if you need any more info.

[puzzlezaddict]

@twinklegalaxy  These aren't necessarily related, but on the driver page for your laptop, Dell lists both a BIOS update and a firmware update for the graphics card.  So it's a good idea to install both.  I can't tell from your dxdiag whether you have the firmware update, but you definitely don't have the BIOS update.

https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/product-support/product/g-series-15-5505-laptop/drivers

The driver for your graphics card is also a bit out of date.  Restart after installing anything and before testing the game.

For the audio issue itself, try disabling Nahimic in the Task Manager.  I think your laptop comes with it pre-installed, and it can cause problems with Sims 4, although usually an issue prevents the game from loading in the first place.  It's still worth trying though.  Find Nahimic in the Task Manager's background processes list, End Task, and test the game.  Nahimic will restart when you reboot your laptop.

[twinklegalaxy]

Thank you Puzzlezaddict. Just wanted to report back that I’ve tried all that you suggested and still have the audio issue. I can play for hours without it happening, then it will just start all of a sudden. Restarting the game sometimes fixes it, but other times when I restart the game the audio is messed up immediately. Very strange.

[puzzlezaddict]

@twinklegalaxy  In the other thread where you posted, another player fixed the issue by setting a different sound device as the default:

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-PC/Sims-4-audio-crackling-and-popping-PC/m-p/9766707#M197...

You could try that as well.