I'm having consistent troubles with sound crackling, and they don't seem to be the same as in most post on the topic in this forum.

I'm generally fine for about 10-15 minutes after launching the game, but then a loud crakling noise starts to overpower any other sound in the game (does not go away with time, or on alt-tab). This is NOT limited to static in NPC voices, and appears no matter what I'm doing ingame. I tried turning the ingame volume all the way down, but the crackling appears even when all game sounds are off. (Never had this issue with any other game or application though).

I tried the "frequency workaround" which seems to solve a lot of audio problems (tried all possible/avalable frequencies), and I've updated my audio drivers, but nothing seems to work. (I've got an onboard Realtek ALC885/889A/890 if it matters).

Is there any way to fix this problem? Since I can't even turn off ingame sounds and listen to music instead, it really renders the game unplayable for me (I don't care for sitting in a completely silent apartment while playing). I'm crossing my fingers for a fix, this is the only weekend for about a month when I have enough time off to actually play :/

Sincerely
Mattias

I have a similar problem. The crackling for me is intermintent, but occurs during conversation and I miss what is being said. This makes following the plot line very hard.

G

I am having the same issue. This happens in BF3 which was also a Steam purchase. I don't believe it is Steam related but some others have said it may be.

I am using a g35 headset by logitech but also have an Xfi platinum which I don't use and is disabled. The Realtek onboard is disabled at the BIOS level.

With BF3 I can just unplug my headset and plug it back in. Sound is fine, but I have to close Teamspeak/Ventrilo and Skyrim and reopen in order to get them to work properly again. The static is actually painful, even when the volume level is medium in Windows and in game. My eyesight is garbage so I'd like to keep my hearing intact!

I hope there is a solution soon, as nothing posted online seems to help.

Are you sure changing the frequency doesnt help?
I had the same issue and changing it to 24 bit, 44100 Hz (Studio Quality) worked like a charm.

Edit: Really seems to work for most so far until we get a real fix.
Also turning down hardware acceleration could help as well. Prince of Persia for example crashed completly with hardware acceleration.

Yes, I'm sure changing the freqency is ineffective :/ As for turning down hardware acceleration, I'm on Win7, and I don't think there is an option for that anymore... might be wrong though

Yes i think there is no option for that on WIN7 anymore. Quite a shame actually since it caused problems on WINXP back in the day.
Hm im sorry, if changing 44100 Hz does not work for you i hope someone else finds a solution for you guys.
Bugs in a game are normal but sound bugs like these could have been avoided right Bethesda?

I changed my frequency on my sound card to 44100 Hz cd quality and that cleared up the issue. I am running Windows 7. Go into the control panel and then go to sounds and hardware. From there you can get to the sound settings. I changed everything to 44100 Hz, speakers, digital audio, and NVIDIA. Not sure which setting is the silver bullet, but oh well the game works now and I can talk to other characters in the game.
g

Tried that, and no luck unfortunatley. However, somehow i finally managed to at least get rid of the crackling when turning ingame sounds off, so at least i can listen to some music while playing. Still a great game though, graphical performance is actually better than I expected with my setup, but playing without game sound really kills immersion Time to sleep now though, crossing my fingers for some enlightenment on the issue tomorrow