Guild Wars 2

I don’t know if is it only me but everyday I play gw2 sooner or later the sound engine breaks. On my notebook the game mutes completely. The solution is to modify the buffer size/latency in F11 panel.

I am music producer/sound engineer and when I play in the studio, the sound becomes distorted (sometimes only a part of the sound, for example environment). And often it seems like distortion feeds itself and keeps raising louder. In this case moving the sliders in F11 do not reset the sound engine and I need to do it by changing the latency at my audio interface.

Sometimes it happens at a sound effect (for example gw2 mutes/distorts right after a explosion sound or something like that). Sometimes I minimize the game and when I come back it is muted/distorted.

Never heard of anyone else facing this issue but I do face it in two different systems so probably there is some kind of problem causing gw2 sound engine to break randomly. And it’s been happening for as long as I remember.

I’ve had the same thing for a while. I did mention it in a thread about another widespread audio issue (the “woo woo” ringing/alarm replacing all sound), but I’ve not heard any other complaints about it.

It’s like a huge portion of the audio just doesn’t play. It’s similar to listening to a 5.1/7.1 surround sound system and disconnecting one of the front 3 speaker channels. Some sounds will still play, but lacking a part of the body of the effect. Like a sword impact only being the metal clash sound, missing the airy sound of the swing, or the boom/thud of the skill itself.

I’m not sure if this is actually related/the cause, but I’ve noticed this happening a more when I play thief, or if I’m playing with a guildie that’s on a thief. I can play on my own or with others for hours without a problem, but if a thief joins, my sound will break within minutes.

You said you had this issue on a notebook, I’ll assume you’re using whatever audio chipset it has integrated. I’m using a SoundBlaster X-Fi Elite Pro (PCI version), so I don’t think it’s a hardware-specific problem.

I don’t know if its the same issue but my sound occasionally changes but for me I love it.

When Im in WvW and a large battle is going on sometimes most of my sounds get quieter and all ambient sounds and music stop and mainly its the big sounds that I hear.

Its like in an action movie when something blows up and all sounds get muted except the person yelling at the dazed person.

Usually the muting has perfect timing for me to concentrate better and it almost is like the world slows down to allow me to better react to the goings on around me.

I Don’t care if Anet fixes it but PLEASE give us the option to have it as a feature.

mrstealth, I am palying also on my studio’s desktop with an external audio interface as stated on first post. So I am sure it is no hardware issue.

Darkorical, it is not the same issue. What I am reporting is that it breaks and doesn’t come back to normal until I manage to reset the sound someway. On my notebook it mutes. On my desktop it distorts and distortion sometimes (rarely) feeds itself somehow.

My sound has had this issue since I installed the game last month. It seems to happen more underwater or in small areas.

After I do Loadins or in WvW… Sound just goes away for a minute or two…. No effects… music….

Talking in Music that happens alot sometimes I play in an area for hours and the music of the game wont start, only after change map. ^^

I’ve had it happen to me on occasions in the underwater, like a flapping sound but really, really loud where i’ve had to mute the game until i got out of water. That was a while ago and haven’t heard it recently, however, just today, i was doing a personal story segment with my Ele and while in this cave a really bad, deafening noise started happening. I couldn’t figure out what it was, but then the fire elemental i had summoned died and the noise went away. So to check I summoned another one and sure enough, the noise came back. It was like a distorted, very loud wing flapping noise. Once i was out of the cave i didn’t notice it anymore. But boy, that was really grating on my ear.

Here I am having it more often with the step sounds. So when walking on wood or when jumping around it becomes highly distorted. When the distorted aspect of the sound is something continuous then it starts feeding itself.
Yesterday my GW2 completely muted on my desktop for the first time and moving the buffer size in F11 made it comeback. This happened in Sea of Sorrows Borderlands. Right before the map crashed and everyone got kicked out and unable to come back for a few minutes.

I forgot to say that the rest of the sounds (Ventrilo and Skype) continue to play properly even while GW2 is not sounding/distorting.