Push to talk causes stutter in Steam Games

Didn't know exactly where to put this.

This has been been bothering me for a while. In Rocket League, Insurgency Sandstorm, Killing Floor 2 and Strange Brigade, whenever I press the voice chat button, the game freezes for a split second. Every single time. But in Battlefield 1 and Modern Warfare it doesn't happen.

It doesn't happen if the mic is not plugged in or the Realtek drivers are not installed. But I need them installed.

It's a Realtek ALC1220P-VB2 on the motherboard. Using a 3.5mm mic. Some suggestions I tried were turning off the microphone audio enhancements and exclusive mode. Using latest version 6.0.8858.1 from MSI website but also tried the latest version provided by Microsoft 6.0.8874.1, with and without Realtek Audio Console. Tried front and back audio panel.

Does it happen to anyone else?

 

disable the nahimic service.

 

Don't have Nahimic installed.

 

its a component of msi's realtek drivers.

 

It is a separate installation from the Microsoft Store. I had it installed before but removed everything when I tried the new Realtek driver version and testing. There is no Nahimic service installed in the Services and no Nahimic process running.

 

It's not seperate.

and if you're using a version of the realtek driver without nahimic, you aren't usin the one made for your boards specific customized implementation of the chip.

 

The Nahimic driver is a separate installation under On-Board Audio Drivers https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/MPG-Z390M-GAMING-EDGE-AC#down-driver&Win10 64

Anyway it doesn't really matter. I installed the Nahimic driver. Issue occurs. I disabled the Nahimic service as you suggested and it still occurs. I think my last try will be an older version of the Realtek drivers. Can't remember if this was always a thing or started happening from a certain driver version.

The strange thing is that it doesn't happen in all games.

 

Realtek drivers it could take them YEARS if it bug specific to there drivers. reading this all just bring back the nightmare issue I had with realtek drivers causing my old system to freeze when certian type programs are running. that was fixed with one or realtek drivers, from that point on I stop updated realtek drivers, on that system

 

Ok I found a workaround which in any other circumstances I wouldn't have even tried by how ridiculous it sounds but I ran out of suggestions and had nothing to lose. After searching a lot if someone had the same issue I found a post in the Rocket League reddit about push to talk freezing the game for 1 second. The last reply was someone saying that it doesn't happen to him if he has the Windows Sound window open on the recording tab. I was like you've got to be kidding me! So I opened the Sound window, changed it to the Recording tab, fired up Insurgency, went into a match, pressed the push to talk button and lo and behold. No more freezing! Does it only work on the Recording Tab? Yes it does. Alt tab out of the game, change to another tab, back in the game, press the push to talk button and freezes again!

This has got be be something with Realtek driver and Steam since it isn't happening in non Steam games.

 

Makes you wonder how they managed to happen on that solution/work around like specifically the recording tab? Bizarre.

 

My guess is that he was troubleshooting and trying all kinds of stuff and one of those things were messing around with the Microphone in the Sound window options and maybe inadvertently left it open while playing the game and found out it fixed the problem.

 

I need someone to check this for me please. You know how Windows 10 shows the microphone icon in the Notification Area whenever an application is using the microphone? Using windowed mode to check, in BF1 and COD, as soon as I start the game, the microphone icon appears and stays there until I close the game even though they are both set to push to talk. And it's the game that is using the microphone. Meanwhile with Steam games, the mic icon does not appear until I press the push to talk button and disappears when I release it. Besides that, it's the Steam Client Bootstrapper that is using the mic and not the game itself. Is it the same for anyone else?

 

I saw this by one game. I was like spy much? XD

Even though i have it set to not use the mic. I think it was forza4, not sure atm.

 

Ok I did some more testing. The Sound Window Recording tab is not the miracle workaround. As long as the mic is in constant use by any application, there will be no stutter/freeze in game. An example would be Steam's Microphone Test. The Steam Client WebHelper in this case will constantly use the mic until manually ending the test resulting in no stutter/freeze in game.

So in essence, I want the Steam Client Bootstrapper to constantly use the mic while a game is running.

 

Ok. I got a friend to show me his Steam microphone access behaviour. PUBG and CS:GO were both using the mic (and constantly) and not Steam client itself. Now I don't have those games installed but I think this is the problem. That in my case for some odd reason, it is the Steam client that is using the mic and not the games.

 

Upgraded Windows to 2004 hoping it will fix it. Nope. Still the Steam client is using the microphone instead of the games. Only option is to format but too lazy to do that.

 

I have this problem in Deep Rock Galactic.
Only in that game as far as I know.
Yet, in that game, my mic simply doesn't work.

It just stutters for a second and then it's done.
Board is a Asus B450-I and I use the Audeze Mobius USB headset.
Onboard sound is disabled by bios.

Might be completely another problem though.

 

I get the same in division 2, freezes when you push to talk on mic.

 

It is probably a different problem since you are stating that the mic doesn't work at all. But please check which application is using the mic from the Windows Mic settings while playing Deep Rock Galactic like I show in the video.
I haven't encountered anyone else who has the problem as Iwhere Steam.exe is using the mic instead of all the steam games. It has always been a single game with others.

 

This fixes it for me too. I just installed a creative ae-5 and whenever I push to talk in quake live I get a second stutter in game after I release the key to talk. Never happened before when I was on onboard audio. Any other fixes?