We did attempt some improvements in this area for the 1.5.4 release, but obviously they have been unsuccessful. I’ve been away for a couple of weeks, but I’m seeing where we’re at now.
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Hi all. This may seem irrelevant, but could you share the name of the headset or microphone you’re using with me please?
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I am using Xbox Wireless Headset. It works just fine with everything else.
It was very strange after the latest update: it didn’t work for me for the first game right after the update, it worked for the second one and now I can sometimes hear other people but I cannot say anything myself.
Darktide loves picking random audio devices for the voice chat.
Disabling audio devices that are not the correct one through Windows audio properties and restarting the game has fixed it for me and anyone else I have spoken to about this.
Worked it out for myself recently due to other issues causing me to unplug and replug devices with speakers in them.
I bet this would solve half these complaints.
Would be nice if we could PICK the audio devices the game uses, as it apparently has the option code wise to use two separate ones…
I think I figured out what’s happening here because it’s an old issue so I’ll jump in and show everyone how to fix the Windows side of this.
For reasons we’ll never know because they don’t make sense, Microsoft decided to not carry over all of the old sound settings into the “modern” settings app seen in Windows 10 and later. You’ll need to navigate to the old settings to fix this.
Before doing this, plug in any microphones or headphones you use as well as any xbox/playstation controllers (it’s relevant, trust me).
Open your Windows settings → system → sound and scroll down to “More sound settings.” I don’t know if this is the same on Win10 but you can also search and open control panel → hardware and sound → sound.
It should look like this
Right click and device and make sure these two settings are checked:
You’ll be doing all of the following steps for both the playback and recording tab:
To keep navigating your audio devices simple, right click and disable every device that you know you’ll never use. I never run audio through my displays for example so I’ve disabled them. Your controllers you plugged in? PS4/5 controllers both have speakers on them. Unless you ever play the odd PS game that supports those or you use the audio jack on them, you can disable them. Xbox controllers likewise should show up here. The PS5 controller also has a microphone built in that will show up in the recording tab. Do you have a standing USB desk mic with an audio jack on it? That will show up in the playback tab and unless you plan on using it you can disable it (only in the playback if you still use it as a mic).
If you’re like me and use the Steam streaming feature sometimes, those will show up here and you should leave them. Devices labeled not plugged in are empty audio ports on your PC and empty HDMI/DisplayPort ports that aren’t connected to a monitor, . These also don’t matter and you can leave them if you like. They don’t show up in games/apps unless something is plugged in.
Now that your devices are narrowed down, right click the ones you will use, hit properties, go to the advanced tab, and uncheck the box under exclusive mode. You have to do this for every device you plan on using and switching between. This is why some games or apps like discord won’t swap audio properly unless it’s closed and reopened.
One last thing to change (or be aware of at least)
Windows lets you set the default communication device to something different than the regular default device. Sometimes plugging in something new changes it for you even if you don’t want that. This is intended for having call/chat audio come through a different device than is used for regular audio but it hasn’t been moved to the new windows settings.
Right click whatever you want all your sound to come through and there’s an option to set it as the default communication device. In my example above regular audio would come through the speakers but voice audio would come through the controller and not be heard at all unless I set my speakers to also be the default communication device. Don’t forget to do the same in the recording tab.
Changing this stuff might make your audio not work until you restart every app you were using so I recommend just restarting your PC instead to make it simple.
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I’m using the Xbox wired headset. Seems to be working fine on other apps. Just Darktide is not working at all.