On my Windows 10 phone, my game’s audio sounds terrible. Every sound crackles and distorts to the point where the sounds themselves are barely recognisable, and it seems like the phone is struggling to keep up with the sound (it slows down somewhat). This does not happen with any other platform, including the same UWP build deployed to Xbox One and PC.
The only troubleshooting ideas I’ve found have been to ensure the game is deployed in Master config (it is), run directly from the device, not [playing via Visual Studio (I am doing that) and to use low-quality audio files (I am doing that).
The audio seems to start off working OK, then quickly gets more and more distorted/crackly over time. Other than that, the framerate doesn’t seem to be particularly low or uneven in the gameplay/graphics.
What else can I try?
I’m testing on a Lumia 735.
How’s the CPU usage like on the phone when that happens?
I’m having trouble getting the profiler to connect, so I need to get that working before I can check the CPU.
However, the poor audio happens pretty quickly even on the front menu screen, where I can’t imagine there is any strain on the CPU (it’s just a few UI buttons and a handful of sprites really).
Overall the game runs reasonably smoothly (given that the phone is quite low-end). I’d guess is close to 30fps (until I get the profiler working that’s just a guess). But the sound feels like there is definite power shortage.
I’m working on getting hold of a more powerful Windows phone, so that might give me better results.
Wow, I didn’t know about the device portal!
CPU usage is quite low (hovering around 20-25%)…but the GPU is at 100% the entire time the game is running. This is odd, as the game is quite simple (2D, very modest visuals, not much action, no effects or anything). I’ve also done a fair bit of optimizing (reduced draw calls, etc., albeit my testing so far has been on Android devices and desktop UWP).
Also, it’s worth noting that the game itself doesn’t feel like it’s running slowly apart from the audio. The framerate is a little low, which I’d expect from such a cheap, low-spec phone.
FWIW, memory usage seems fine (never gets near to 100%).
ALSO…
I’ve just downloaded and tested my previous game (UWP, built with Unity 5.1 I think) on the same phone, and it runs perfectly - no sound issues at all. The GPU is also at 100% the whole time (with a few drops in the menus). CPU usage is actually higher on the game that has no sound issues, and RAM usage is the same on both.
I will create a bare-bones project with nothing but some audio and see what I get from that.