if your in-game chat mic sounds like your talking through a blender...read this

  • I know this may only help 3% of the people, but thought I would share in case they read this.

    I don't use in-game chat a lot. Normally talk with my crew in Discord. So, I don't know when this started... maybe when Season 8 launched.

    My mic in Discord sounds just fine - however, when I tried using in-game chat to talk with other crew this past week no one could understand me. My crew told me it sounds like I'm scrambled.

    While troubleshooting some issues with OBS screen recorder on my computer I found that my microphone HZ was not set to the same HZ that OBS wanted. In Windows 11 System ] Sound ] Properties my Input Format was set to 44100 Hz (CD Quality). OBS wanted it to match their setting of 48000 Hz (DVD Quality).

    When I switched windows to 48000 Hz my Sea of Thieves in-game chat started working correctly!!!

    So - I don't see a place in SoT game settings where it has a Hz setting. Not sure how my mic got changed to a Hz that SoT didn't like.

    Glad I got mine fixed and hope this helps someone out.

    I saw stream with HitboTC where he was trying to talk to a guy and no one could understand the other guys mic - it was EXACTLY what my mic was sounding like - so, I know I'm not the only one out there with this issue.

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  • @robert-mcsot

    Yep, basically, (as I mentioned in a similar thread today) Season 8's update broke support for 44.1KHz mics/inputs in-game.

    I would be very surprised, given Windows is usually very open to supporting legacy standards, if Microsoft dropped support for lower samplerates. I would have to look into OBS when I'm at home to determine what's going on there because they did at least used to support 44.1KHz as well.

    Windows might have switched the setting in an update, but 44.1KHz wasn't always a problem for Sea of Thieves - it wasn't before this update, at least.

    I use an old Digidesign MBOX 2 Mini for my interface on my gaming PC and it can only do up to 44.1KHz, which I never had an issue with in Sea of Thieves. In my own scenario, I recently started using Nvidia Broadcast on my mic, which upsamples to 48KHz anyway, so this didn't affect me personally. But it does show there are ways around it if you can't do 48KHz on your device.

  • @realstyli No need to check OBS. It works fine. I could have left that part out of my story. I was trying to figure out why OBS was eating all my system resources even when it is not recording... when I uploaded the OBS log to the OBS website it pointed out three things I should fix... one was the mic Hz. I listened to my recordings recently and audio was not an issue there. I just know that when I switched it to make OBS happy it fixed my SoT issue as well.

  • Does anybody have any solution for microphones without the ability to change the Hz?

    My microphone works great, at least pre-Season 8 it did. I don't have a way to switch the Hz in Windows settings.

    Will I ever talk in game again without sounding like I'm in a fishbowl?

  • @plump-pirat said in if your in-game chat mic sounds like your talking through a blender...read this:

    Does anybody have any solution for microphones without the ability to change the Hz?

    My microphone works great, at least pre-Season 8 it did. I don't have a way to switch the Hz in Windows settings.

    Will I ever talk in game again without sounding like I'm in a fishbowl?

    If you have an RTX GPU, just use Nvidia Broadcast - RTX cards have specific cores for this but you'll have to download the app from the Nvidia website. Set the input as your mic and then set Nvidia Broadcast as your Default Communication Device and Default Device in Windows (Recording tab in the Sounds window). It will be upsampled to 48KHz.

    Alternatively, if you don't have an RTX card, use Voicemeeter Banana. Though that may take a little more setting up - you'll want to set your mic as input (if it's only on the left channel, click Mono) and only send it to a Virtual Output channel (say, B1), which you'd then set as your Default Communication Device and Default Device in Windows (B1 will be listed as "Voicemeeter Output" in the Recording tab in the Windows Sound settings).

    You'll want to make sure the main preferred sample rate is set to 48000Hz in the Voicemeeter settings (Menu, then System Settings/Options), and check the sample rate is also at 48000Hz for the output in Windows. I'm guessing your mic is 16-bit, so just set the bitrate the same. So you'd be looking to set the Virtual Output to "2-channel, 16-bit, 48000KHz (DVD Quality)"

  • Alternatively, you could just buy a new and better quality mic.

    Edit: I've honestly never heard of a mic not allowing you to change the bit rate so that may be a driver thing.

  • @personalc0ffee said in if your in-game chat mic sounds like your talking through a blender...read this:

    Alternatively, you could just buy a new and better quality mic.

    This would be an ideal solution. Just got to remember though that not everyone has money to spare, especially right now with the cost of living. I know plenty of people who are just getting by.

    For a good entry level USB, you're looking at around €100-€150, any cheaper and the AD converters are going to be noticeably poor (Blue Mics, I am looking at you!). Ideally, an audio interface and XLR mic would be the way to go but, again, that's going to be a lot more money.

    If the mic was good enough when it was bought though, it might still sound good enough now... the difference between 44.1KHz and 48KHz isn't really large enough for most people to notice anyway, especially when it's going to be compressed by codecs for in-game chat.

    This issue is likely a mistake in any case, I doubt Rare intentionally removed support for 44.1KHz devices. I suspect they'll patch it, so no need for folks to spend money they don't have the budget for when free solutions exist (Voicemeeter Banana is donationware and free to use).

  • @realstyli said in if your in-game chat mic sounds like your talking through a blender...read this:

    @personalc0ffee said in if your in-game chat mic sounds like your talking through a blender...read this:

    Alternatively, you could just buy a new and better quality mic.

    This would be an ideal solution. Just got to remember though that not everyone has money to spare, especially right now with the cost of living. I know plenty of people who are just getting by.

    For a good entry level USB, you're looking at around €100-€150, any cheaper and the AD converters are going to be noticeably poor (Blue Mics, I am looking at you!). Ideally, an audio interface and XLR mic would be the way to go but, again, that's going to be a lot more money.

    If the mic was good enough when it was bought though, it might still sound good enough now... the difference between 44.1KHz and 48KHz isn't really large enough for most people to notice anyway, especially when it's going to be compressed by codecs for in-game chat.

    This issue is likely a mistake in any case, I doubt Rare intentionally removed support for 44.1KHz devices. I suspect they'll patch it, so no need for folks to spend money they don't have the budget for when free solutions exist (Voicemeeter Banana is donationware and free to use).

    Oh don't I know it.

    I just use a Vmoda Boom Pro Mic. It's 3.5mm jack into the back of the pc with Y adapter. I've got full control of volume and microphone mute right at my finger tip.

    It plugs directly into any heaphone that lets you plug in 3.5mm with/without adapter.

    Issue with VMB is it is a royal pain to set up ESPECIALLY for non audio and tech nerds. I'm a tech person and even I can't wrap my head around it.

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