[BUG] Audio sample rate preferences ignored and forced to 44.1 kHz

[04meta]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues and none matched.

Operating System

macOS 15 Sequoia

CPU

M1 Max (MacBook Pro 16-inch, 2021)

GPU

No response

Storage

1 TB SSD

Game Version

5.0.0-042

Game Mode

kbx

Theme

I have observed this on both of the themes (alphav-dance and Soundwaves) that ship with 0.5.0-pre042, and that this does not occur when using Soundwaves on 0.4.19 LTS (after manually correcting improperly auto-configured preferences). Additionally, this issue happens even before the game mode is selected on a clean reinstall of 0.5.0-pre042, so I have observed it in dance and more as well.

Describe the problem

On the latest dev version (0.5.0-pre042) on macOS, all audio is output in 44.1 kHz, regardless of preferences like SoundPreferredSampleRate (I have not been able to find a workaround for this). You can check if this has happened by opening Audio MIDI Setup and looking if the "Format" of your sound device's output has been changed to 44,100 Hz upon opening the game.

This issue is benign on the built-in speakers of the laptop I'm using; however, AirPods (don't judge) do not support 44.1 kHz audio, and attempting to play it anyway without transcoding causes the audio to play 9% faster for a moment (as 44.1 kHz samples being played back at 48 kHz) before cutting out—this also somehow configures the headphones to stay in 44.1 kHz, meaning this issue persists until they are disconnected and reconnected (or 0.4.19 is opened with preferences set for 48 kHz).

I have observed this issue on previous versions of macOS; however, finer details (like whether initial setup on 0.4.19 incorrectly detects audio devices as 44.1 kHz while still allowing manually correcting it) may have changed.

Describe what should happen

The game should respect preferences such as SoundPreferredSampleRate and its (new to 0.5.0?) library-specific variants, and ideally should auto-detect the device's current sample rate instead of simply defaulting to 44.1 kHz.

Relevant Log output

This issue has consistently persisted even after cleanly reinstalling the latest version, so I'm not sure how important it is, but here we go.
ProjectOutfox.SoundLog.2024-10-27--20.19.25.log - observe that the output device is being reported as 44100 sample rate despite all configurations to the contrary
ProjectOutfox-default.ThemeLua.2024-10-27--20.19.25.log
ProjectOutfox.Crash.2024-10-27--20.19.25.log
ProjectOutfox.MainLog.2024-10-27--20.19.25.log
ProjectOutfox.Network.2024-10-27--20.19.25.log

This is what my Audio MIDI setup panel looks like before launching OutFox:

This is what it looks like afterward:

[tvjctr]

I also have this same problem. It stops all sound output on my external speakers.

I installed Outfox on my M1 Mac. After doing so, my Mac lost all sound. I find that Outfox changes the audio format (located in MacOS's Audio MIDI Setup utility). It changes it from the default of 2 ch 24-bit Integer (48.0 kHz) to 2 ch 24-bit Integer (44.1 kHz). This breaks all sound to my external speakers. If I go into the Audio MIDI Setup utility, and change it back to 48 kHz after starting Outfox, the sound returns and the game runs with sound, as does the rest of the system. But it sucks to have to go into that utility and change the format every single time I start this game.

I tried setting in the preferences.ini, SoundPreferredSampleRate=48000, but Outfox seems to ignore this setting and always switches the Mac's audio to 41.1kHz.

(Note the same issue happens with ITGMania, although in that program I can set the preferences.ini to 48000 and this fixes the problem permanently for ITGMania)

Like above, the audio format for my DisplayPort connected speakers is changed to 41.1 kHz, breaking all sound on the Mac (not just in OutFox) until I change it back to 48.0 kHz:

[shredsonic]

This is happening for me as well. Would be nice to use my audio interface and not have Outfox disable all audio on my Mac.

[JoseVarelaP]

This would very well be as the macOS version has rtaudio as the audio driver by default as it provides low latency.
Try changing the audio driver to AudioUnit in the preferences file (SoundDriver=AudioUnit), as it should make a difference as it communicates directly with macOS's own audio libraries (we had a similar situation when users wanted to use Airpods on the game, and had to use AudioUnit for them to work).

If this is the case, we can change the default to either AudioUnit or portaudio to see if that remedies it, but I'll also give it some tests on my end.