So, I jumped into Starfield, right? Hyped up, ready to explore the galaxy, and boom – the audio started cutting out. Like, imagine hearing an epic space battle and then…silence. Talk about a mood killer. It was happening on and off, making the game pretty much unplayable. I messed with the in-game audio settings first, you know, turning stuff up and down, switching between different output options, but no dice. The audio was still all messed up.
Then I thought, maybe it’s my headphones? So I unplugged them, plugged them back in, made sure they were selected as the default playback device in my Windows settings. I even tried a different pair of headphones, just in case. Still, that annoying audio kept cutting in and out. It was driving me nuts!
Next, I figured it was time to check my drivers. I went to my motherboard manufacturer’s website and downloaded the latest audio drivers. I uninstalled the old ones first, you know, to make sure there were no conflicts. Then I installed the fresh drivers, restarted my PC, and crossed my fingers. Launched Starfield again, hoping for the best…but the audio was still cutting out! Man, it was frustrating.
Feeling a bit defeated, I decided to look at the game files. I verified the integrity of the game files through Steam. It took a while, but it found some corrupted files and replaced them. I thought, “This is it!” Booted up Starfield again, and…yep, the audio was still cutting out. At this point, I was starting to lose my mind.
Changing Audio Format
After that, I went deep into the Windows sound settings. I went into the properties of my default playback device, then to the “Advanced” tab. There, I saw the “Default Format” option. It was set to something high, like 24 bit, 192000 Hz. I figured maybe Starfield couldn’t handle that. So, I dropped it down to 16 bit, 48000 Hz (DVD Quality), which is a pretty standard setting. Saved the changes, restarted my PC again for good measure, and launched Starfield one more time.
And guess what? It worked! The audio was finally stable, no more cutting out. I played for a couple of hours, just to be sure, and it was smooth sailing the whole time. I was so relieved, I almost did a backflip.
So, yeah, that’s my saga of fixing the audio cutting out in Starfield. It was a pain in the butt, but I learned a lot about troubleshooting audio issues. Hope this helps someone out there who’s pulling their hair out over the same problem!
