Changing the Effects Quality restarts the audio system?

Development Audio
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1

I’m seeing a weird issue where changing the effects quality (either through scalability or using sg.EffectsQuality) appears to reset the audio system.

Steps to repro:

  1. Either import a long piece of audio or create a cue that loops a sample
  2. Open the level blueprint and start playing that audio
  3. Start to play the level and listen to the sound
  4. Change the effects quality in the in-game console using “sg.EffectsQuality”

The sound will stop and then start playing again from the beginning. It doesn’t seem to do that for any of the other scalability options, just EffectsQuality.

2

Hello Neil,

I attempted to reproduce the issue you are reporting here, but was unable to do so within my own project.

A couple of questions, which version of the engine are you using?

Also, how are you implementing the sound to begin playing within your Level Blueprint?

Here is how I set up my Level Blueprint to play a sound.

31168-levelbpsound.png
31168-levelbpsound.png815×273 44.2 KB

Thank you,

3

This was reported using UE 4.6.1. I’ve just updated the project to 4.7 today and, although it’s much better, there is an audible glitch the first time I change the EffectsQuality - but further changes didn’t cause any problems.

So… it’s much improved (it doesn’t restart now!) with 4.7, but it’s not “fixed” yet.

I suspect that the audio had to be a UI sound in order to reproduce this issue - I didn’t think to mention that in the bug report, I apologize.

31203-level+bp+-+ui+sound.png
31203-level+bp+-+ui+sound.png1505×205 75.4 KB

4

I take it back! The behavior is still the same in 4.7 - but it only seems to reproduce in packaged games. If I create a PIE window then, apart from a (rare…) momentary glitch, it’s fine. Even standalone is fine. But a packaged, cooked game? It restarts the audio.

So that’s an interesting one to track down… :wink:

5

Hey Neil,

Thank you for the extra bit of information. I will test this on my end following the set up you are using within an empty project. I will reply here with further information on my findings.

Regards,

6

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for looking into it! I can reproduce this by setting the EffectsQuality to 0 and then to any other value (ad infinitum). Setting it from, say, 3 to 1 doesn’t make this happen.

And it happens in our project when I package up a Shipping build.

Hopefully that gives you everything you need to reproduce this issue!

Thanks!
Neil

7

Hello Neil,

I have made the developers aware of the issue and would like to thank you for taking the time to report this issue. The bug report number is UE-11025 in our internal system.

If you have any further information that might help resolve this issue, or if you have additional questions please do not hesitate to ask.

Thank you,

8

Hi Andrew,

That’s great, I appreciate the update. Thanks!