Hello! So I recently replied to issue MC-252546 hoping that it'd get solved - and while it's marked as resolved, I still seem to be having this issue. The audio is no different on pre4 vs pre5 or even pre6.
It's the exact same issue as described in MC-252546 - sounds are noticeably degraded in 1.19+ compared to 1.18.2 and below, and the videos that the other issue links show the exact same audio differences that I hear.
Another detail to note is that the setting to change Directional Audio seems to have zero effect on audio quality whatsoever - I'm not sure if its just a matter of that setting simply not enabling or disabling properly or what, but i can turn it on and off and on and off and nothing changes.
The sound issue is also noticeable even in the main menu when clicking buttons as well - which I wouldn't think should be affected by 3D directional audio, but I suspect you guys will know better on that one.
Once again - really hoping to get some fix for this at some point, as for me right now 1.19 is actually uncomfortable to play for my ears.
— EDIT —
I've further tested the issue under Windows 11, and am experiencing the same problem there as well. As such, I can only assume this has something to do with my hardware, so I'm listing it here:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700x
Board: ASUS x570 Phantom Gaming 4S
GPU: NVIDIA RTX 3080
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy FX PCIe 5.1
I'll also note that while I do use the sound card as my primary audio device, I've also tested the issue with onboard audio and still encounter the same issue (though all audio system-wide is a bit worse generally than my Sound Blaster).
— EDIT 2 —
As requested, I've recorded two videos demonstrating audio quality on MC 1.18.2 and 1.19.1-rc2
1.18.2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgY8hzpozPc
1.19.1-rc2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0vbz2armWE
— EDIT 3 —
I've done some additional research and it seems the actual root of the issue has to do with whether or not an OpenAL system configuration exists. I posted a comment below detailing the issue. The relevant portion of that comment is as follows:
If there is an alsoft.ini that exists at the system level, then the in-game option is ignored. If that file does not exist, then the in-game setting is used instead.
I renamed my alsoft.ini to something else so that OpenAL wouldn't use it anymore - and now the in-game toggle switch works as expected. HRTF turns on and off, and I can actually hear the audio change with it.
On Windows, the alsoft.ini is located in %AppData%\alsoft.ini. I can't say for sure where it is on Linux, but according to the Reddit post I linked in my previous comment, it should be located at ~/.alsoftrc.
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I'm not so sure it is, seeing as MC 1.18.2 works just fine (and so does literally every version prior) - so it seems like it's some kind of issue with 1.19 that just doesn't play nicely with something in my hardware?
To me that still sounds like a software issue with MC, not a hardware issue.
Additionally, this was attempted to be fixed before, so no, not a hardware issue.
Similar to MC-252546, could you please provide video examples comparing the sounds in 1.18.x and 1.19.1-rc2?
Videos are recorded and added to the description.
Hey so I've done some more research and I've found a workaround that allows me to play without my ears hurting - and I figure it might be helpful in solving the issue properly.
I found a [Reddit post|https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/1fzonq/psa_for_games_using_openal_including_minecraft/] instructing users on how to enable HRTF audio system-wide for VR purposes, and it instructs users to locate and modify a file called alsoft.ini. For 3D sound that works well in VR, the author instructs adding
hrtf = trueto the configuration. This was already set to true in my case - as I've played MC in VR before using Vivecraft - and as a test I changed it to false. Turns out, setting it to false properly disables HRTF within MC and it sounds identical to 1.18.2 and prior.
I should also note that the issue of the in-game toggle button not having any effect is still present - this time, it just doesn't enable since it's been disabled system wide. I'm not sure if this is intended behavior - it doesn't seem like it is, it really seems like the in-game option simply doesn't have any effect and it just uses whatever alsoft.ini says.
Either way, I hope that extra info is helpful to you guys regardless so that other people don't have to deal with this in the future.
Alright I did a bit more testing and I think I've absolutely confirmed what the root of the issue is:
If there is an alsoft.ini that exists at the system level, the in-game option is ignored. If that file does not exist, then the in-game setting is used instead.
I renamed my alsoft.ini to something else so that OpenAL wouldn't use it anymore - and now the in-game toggle switch works as expected. HRTF turns on and off, and I can actually hear the audio change with it.
On Windows, the alsoft.ini is located in %AppData%\alsoft.ini. I can't say for sure where it is on Linux, but according to the Reddit post I linked in my previous comment, it should be located at ~/.alsoftrc.
I'm not sure if that's something that's fixable or if that's just a bug with how OpenAL itself works - but I wanted to once again let you guys know that detail as I bet it'll probably save you guys a ton of time and effort.
@haloman30 , check my comments on MC-249275
I think what would be good is for MC to create and use it's own alsoft.ini file (if it's in the games java dir I believe it's settings would take precedence over the appdata one) and expose certain options like stereo mode etc in MC's gui options.
@Chaos Ophy Yeah if MC had it its own alsoft.ini that might do it - and yeah it'd be pretty cool if it made some of the other settings configurable in-game as well.
still an issue in 1.20
I don't have an alsoft.ini file it seems, using the filepath says that it couldn't find anything. So what do I do about this? If I can't change that, I don't know what would be causing this to happen...
Also experiencing degraded sound quality in 1.20.5
this is a hardware issue