Guild Wars 2

Couldn’t find topics on it so I’m creating my own.

For the last few days, I’ve been getting REALLY loud ‘bang’ noises randomly. Like a gun, or a drum or sorts. It’s just one bang, and it sounds like an in-game effect somehow, it’s got a very short echo at the end of it. My actual game volume is around 40%. This seriously sounds like someone smacked my head against a drum and banged a symbol in my ear lol.
Only happens in GW2. All drivers are up to date.
Any help/suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks

Woah it’s amazing what you find out on the bug forums!
I thought this was my TV playing up haha

+1 to this.

Yeah it has happened for ages. Some nights it does it more than other nights. Can only confirm that it happens in wvw. It’s a hard sound to describe. It’s between a ‘click’ and a ‘chunk’ sound.

It’s been happening to me for about two months. Definitely in PvE and possibly in WvW as well.

It’s sort of a popping/clicking sound and it happens seemingly randomly, only while I’m playing GW2.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Loud-Popping-sound

Yep, has been happening for quite some time, though the last few days it has been happening very frequently.

I though it was my computer… someone actually knows what this is then?

Has been happening to me more frequently recently, though I’ve been bugging this since launch.

Been happening since launch for me as well, though it’s not so frequent that it bothers me, maybe once every 2 weeks. And it doesn’t seem to be a pattern of what triggers it. I’ve heard it while just rooming the land and exploring (was not in combat), and time in a story quest just after killing a creature, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard it underwater.

At least it’s not the BEEEEEEEE sound I got ages ago (before they fixed it) when I was fighting Jormag. THAT was annoying and loud. But thankfully fixed.

Well, if there is no way to fix this or any clues as to what it might be, I might have to set gw2 aside for now since the noise has given me a panic attack. Shame because I had just gotten back into the game. It’s a pretty big issue, I hope it’s dealt with soon.
Wish the issue was on my end so nobody else has to deal with it lol
Thanks all

is it really that loud?

try setting you enviornmental/terrain sound effects down. That helped for me. (also, because for some reason waterfalls or water effects is super loud sometimes, so another reason I have my enviornmental/terrain sound down about 2/3-1/2).

Aerin Dark Water.6283:

is it really that loud?

try setting you enviornmental/terrain sound effects down. That helped for me. (also, because for some reason waterfalls or water effects is super loud sometimes, so another reason I have my enviornmental/terrain sound down about 2/3-1/2).

It is extremely loud and piercing. The loud noise still occurs even if the Master Volume slider is all the way down to zero. We’ve also tested with each individual slider controls turned off and the sound still happens. It isn’t attributable to any area of game sound as it completely ignores any volume slider. We’ve also tested with every level of Sound Quality, Music Interval and Mixing Buffer Size to see if it could be attributed to one of those and it still would occur.

I’m still doing other tests to see if I can pinpoint what it might be related to, though I still think it may be related to the awesomium_process.exe that is created in a temporary folder and is used by GW2 for the TP to function. I’m working on some tests relating to that process now to see if I can go at least a few hours without the bang happening.

Thanks, StinVec. I hope you find something more on it.
Please do post an update if you find anything. Thanks kindly

It’s probably from the bad optimizations in the game engine giving priority to what’s going on on screen rather than the audio given to the cpu. I’ve noticed it happening almost exclusively when in very lag intense situations.

It’s almost as if the cpu doesn’t process the audio in favor of rendering graphics, and then the queue for all the delayed sounds comes in and plays them all at once, making a terrible piercing sound.

Huh… didn’t think it was that loud, at least from what I’m experiencing. Wonder why mine is quieter than yours? Maybe if I remember to take a screen shot of my sound settings, and compare them to others that have the bang issue, maybe figure out how to mute it :?

Miflett.3472:

It’s probably from the bad optimizations in the game engine giving priority to what’s going on on screen rather than the audio given to the cpu. I’ve noticed it happening almost exclusively when in very lag intense situations.

It’s almost as if the cpu doesn’t process the audio in favor of rendering graphics, and then the queue for all the delayed sounds comes in and plays them all at once, making a terrible piercing sound.

Oh yea… I get that ALL THE TIME with SB. There’s no sound through most of the fight due to lag with everyone in such a small area, then once SB is dead and I loot the chest, the sound and spell effects finally kick in… And SB’s annoying high pitch screaming. Luckily, it only last about 5 sec all crammed in, so I got a little bit of time to dash out of the are before the sound wave hits. lol.

Aerin Dark Water.6283:

is it really that loud?

Not trying to single you out or anything Aerin, no worries, but yah, it cracks my headphones occasionally and comes out of nowhere, even with master volume + everything set to 0. As someone with anxiety disorders, I can totally see this giving someone a panic attack in the right circumstances. It CAN be like a gunshot in your ear.

I’ve had this happen as well in the past. It happens randomly every so often, sometimes a few times a day for a few days in a row. Not sure why it happens but I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who noticed this before.

kitten is getting worse, and if it breaks my speakers I’m going to sue you.

I searched for “banging” and “Guild Wars 2” and found this posting, over a week old and no one has come from anet to answer this very disturbing bug or action?

This banging happens no where else, in no other program with no other programs open and quits/does not happen when the game is off.

The sound is jarring. I mean really jarring, especially when one has headphones on!

My take on this is that is it a bug and it’s in the sound modules. They could be trying to outsmart the sound card by using the same IRQ for sounds at the same time – uh, that doesn’t work.. never has, never will. The multithreading of the processor isn’t the same as the sound card which is still at a terrible disadvantage when it comes to processing sound to the human using that system.

Pandora has issues at times, they fix and fix and fix them. They are smart, they use twitter to get their tech to listen to their customers – they follow me and that’s the mark of a fixer who wants the kitten thing to work as fast as possible. Queues and tickets are a joke compared to the lightening fast fix I’ve had on Pandora by engineers. I’ve had several emails from Pandora – they don’t want even the “free” user to have issues since those issues reported are, as every manager/leader knows, for every one person reporting an issue there are ten who just won’t. The person reporting is doing the company a favor by keeping watch over the program and the integrity of that program and caring whether it improves or needs help at any time.

I feel valued by Pandora. They know how to use social media to do something that has made life hades for computer support and programmers alike, the blasted ticketing system that takes forever and doesn’t allow for personal communication.

We love this game so much that we will report that bugs that are not only annoying but dangerous, as this one certainly is.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1rm521/random_banging_noise/

Most of you sit with headphones so this noise is very jarring at the volume that many are setting their volumes. Lower your volumes and see if you still get the banging – mine went down when I turned down my volume. They are still there but they aren’t as frequent and they don’t jar my brain and body as much.

That kind of stress to your brain causes cortisol to be released – a HORRIBLE thing to do to your body unless you are under attack and running for your life, cortisol causes heart attacks, strokes, high blood pressure, and breaks down the immune system that is under enough assault already.

Just because a posting doesn’t have a lot of players up thumbing it doesn’t mean this issue doesn’t need immediate attention – and if that is the criteria for fixes, we’re sunk. This bug is dangerous to ears and to bodies.

Although it may sound a bit exaggerated, I DO agree very much with the post above. The sound from this bug isn’t annoying only, it CAN be scary depending on your volume level. The most of times it sounds like a shotgun (as others mentioned here) or an explosion. If your volume sliders are all almost at the same level, it got mixed with other sounds and so it’s not that scaring. But if your sliders are low, even Master sound level, it can be scaring.

I can’t recall how long I have been noting this issue, but I’m sure it has been months since I first noted it, even way before than this thread.

As a programmer and developer I know that random issues are hard to track and fix, but this one needs a high priority and a immediate fix.

This thread gave me some tips about when it occurs, so I’m gonna try to record game’s sounds and see if I can associate it with some event.

I often hear it and it scares the kitten out of me , it could be something with sfx channels. Really annoying though.

atheria.2837:

I searched for “banging” and “Guild Wars 2” and found this posting, over a week old and no one has come from anet to answer this very disturbing bug or action?

I am amused by this. At this moment it has been five months, not a week.

I changed from my onboard Realtek sound to a Xonar DG and now I get these loud pops/crackles with a slight echo to them.

After a lot of updating and optimizing I narrow my search to GW2 alone (since it is the only place I got them)….. and pages, pages, pages of people with the problem. One year old, seven months, five months. No answers, no fixes.

this bug has been ingame since beta..

It doesn’t happen to everyone and it doesn’t happen all the time. It’s not clear if it’s a single cause with a single symptom or if there’s a variety of unrelated issues with unrelated symptoms.

If you can reproduce it, please let ANet know so that they can find the root cause(s) and work on a fix.

LOL I thought it was my computer too!

It happens to me almost 2 times a week. I often play with the master sound low, while listening to something else on youtube and I hear a loud noise. The noise varies a lot but it’s always a loud bang much louder than anything else. It even happens when gw2 is minimized, with sound muted.

It happened to me today in Eotm, I was wondering where it was coming from…

This has been happening to be quite often since i play the game pre-released till now. Random bang sound.

lol! i thought something was wrong with my headset! Yeah have it too, usualy 1 or 2 times a week. Doesnt matter where i am, in dungeons, normal pve maps, cities.. etc..

Still happening to me, still frequently reported by people I play with.

Countless threads on this.

Getting this from time to time aswell, even when i put ALL music/sfx to zero. Could be due to lag?

When I was running GW2 on my old computer, I would often get the random, loud, heart attack-inducing bang. However, ever since I upgraded to a newer computer (back in December), I think I’ve had it happen maybe once or twice.