Alright, let me tell you about this Starfield audio problem I ran into. The sound just kept cutting out, totally killing the vibe, especially during firefights or when landing on a new planet. Super annoying.
First thing I did, standard procedure, was just restart the game. Nope, didn’t fix it. Okay, next step, reboot the whole PC. Still nothing. The audio would play fine for a bit, then just silence for a second or two, then back on. Sometimes it would crackle first.
So, I started thinking, maybe it’s my headphones? Unplugged them, plugged them back in. Tried my speakers. Same issue on both. Ran some music, watched a video online – audio was perfectly fine outside of Starfield. Definitely a game or maybe a driver thing.
Checking the Obvious Stuff
Went into the Starfield settings menu. Checked all the audio options. Master volume, music, effects… everything looked normal. Toggled a few things off and on, like voice chat, even though I wasn’t using it. No change.
Next up, Windows settings. Made sure my headphones were the default device. Checked the default format under properties, tried changing the sample rate and bit depth. You know, switched it from like 24 bit, 48000 Hz to 16 bit, 44100 Hz. Still cutting out.
Digging a Bit Deeper
Okay, time for the usual suspect: drivers. Opened up Device Manager, found my audio device. Realtek on my motherboard. Went to the manufacturer’s website, downloaded the absolute latest driver they had. Installed it, rebooted the PC again. Fired up Starfield… and nope. Still the same annoying audio drops.
At this point, I was getting a bit frustrated. Went back to the sound settings in Windows. Speaker properties again. Noticed the ‘Enhancements’ tab. Had stuff like ‘Loudness Equalization’ checked. Disabled all enhancements. Tested again. No luck.
Then I remembered the ‘Spatial sound’ setting. I had it set to ‘Windows Sonic for Headphones’. On a hunch, I just turned Spatial sound completely OFF from that dropdown menu. Clicked Apply.
Figuring It Out
Launched Starfield one more time, not really expecting much. But then… I played for like 30 minutes straight. Went through a big fight on Neon, flew to Jemison, walked around New Atlantis. Not a single audio cut out. Played for another hour. Still solid.
That was it! For whatever reason, Starfield on my setup just did not like Windows Sonic being enabled. Turning off spatial sound fixed the audio cutting out completely.
- Checked game audio settings.
- Checked Windows default device and format.
- Updated audio drivers.
- Disabled audio enhancements.
- Finally, disabled Spatial Sound (Windows Sonic/Dolby Atmos). That did the trick.
Took a bit of poking around, but glad I got it sorted. Hopefully, if you’re having the same issue, maybe checking that spatial sound setting helps you too. What a relief to have the sound working properly again.
