How to Fix Audio Crackling and Popping in Warlord: Awaji (PC Guide)

Warlord: Awaji has a lot going for it. The combination of samurai warfare, strategy, base building, and first-person combat is exactly the kind of thing that can keep me glued to a game for far longer than I originally planned. There is something incredibly satisfying about watching a large group of warriors collide while you are right there in the middle of it, sword in hand.

That is also why the Warlord: Awaji audio crackling and popping problem is so frustrating. When the game is running properly, the sound of blades, horses, shouting soldiers, and battlefield chaos does a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to atmosphere. When those sounds suddenly turn into static, buzzing, popping, or brief dropouts, the whole experience feels broken.

Since the PC version launched, some players have reported distorted audio, crackling during battles, sound interruptions, and strange buzzing that becomes more noticeable when the game is under heavy CPU or GPU load. I have dealt with enough PC game audio problems to know that there usually isn’t one magical setting that fixes everything. Sometimes Windows is the culprit. Sometimes it is an audio driver. Sometimes a fancy headset application is making things worse instead of better.

The good news is that most of these problems are relatively easy to troubleshoot.

This guide covers the best ways to fix audio crackling, popping, buzzing, and sound dropouts in Warlord: Awaji on PC, starting with the simple changes I would personally try first.

Why Is Warlord: Awaji Audio Crackling on PC?

Before changing half of your Windows installation, it is worth understanding what can actually cause the problem. Audio glitches in PC games are often caused by several things interacting at once rather than a single broken component.

One important thing: don’t assume your headset is dying just because Warlord: Awaji sounds terrible. If music, YouTube, Discord, and other games sound perfectly normal, the hardware is probably fine. Start by treating this as a software or configuration issue.

Fix 1: Set Windows Audio to 48,000 Hz

This is the first thing I would try.

Windows lets your playback device operate at different sample rates, and while higher settings can look attractive on paper, there is rarely a practical reason to force everything to 96 kHz for gaming. A standard 48 kHz output is a much safer choice for modern games.

To change it:

1. Press Windows + R.
2. Type mmsys.cpl and press Enter.
3. Open the Playback tab.
4. Right-click your active headphones or speakers.
5. Select Properties.
6. Open the Advanced tab.
7. Find Default Format.
8. Select a 48,000 Hz option, such as 24-bit, 48000 Hz.
9. Click Apply and then OK.

Restart Warlord: Awaji afterward and test the exact situation where the crackling normally happens. In this case, I would deliberately jump into a busy battle rather than simply standing in the menu for five minutes. If the problem only appears when the battlefield gets chaotic, that is the scenario you need to test.

Fix 2: Disable Windows Audio Enhancements

Windows audio enhancements can be useful, but gaming headsets often come with their own layers of processing as well. Add Windows enhancements, headset software, virtual surround, EQ, and spatial processing together, and suddenly your audio signal is passing through a small army of software filters.

That is not necessarily good for compatibility.

Go back to your playback device’s Properties and look for Enhancements or Audio Enhancements. Disable the available enhancements and test the game again.

If your headset uses software such as Razer Synapse, Logitech G Hub, or SteelSeries Sonar, temporarily turn off features such as:

• Virtual surround sound
• Extra bass processing
• Third-party EQ profiles
• Voice or environmental effects

Personally, I always prefer testing with the most basic audio configuration first. Once the crackling disappears, you can start turning features back on one at a time.

Fix 3: Turn Off Spatial Sound

If you are using Windows Sonic, Dolby Atmos, or DTS Headphone:X, temporarily disable spatial audio and see whether Warlord: Awaji behaves differently.

Right-click the speaker icon on the Windows taskbar and look for Spatial Sound. Set it to Off.

On Windows 11, you can also open Settings > System > Sound, select your playback device, and look for the spatial sound controls.

I know this isn’t an exciting solution. Nobody buys a gaming headset because they want to turn off half its features. But troubleshooting is about finding the cause first. If disabling spatial audio fixes the popping, you have identified a software processing conflict rather than a faulty headset.

Fix 4: Reduce System Load During Large Battles

This one deserves more attention than it usually gets.

Warlord: Awaji can become considerably more demanding when a large number of warriors, AI routines, physics calculations, animations, and effects are happening simultaneously. If your CPU is already struggling to keep up, audio processing can suffer as a side effect.

You do not necessarily need to start messing around with CPU affinity immediately. Before doing that, try lowering the overall workload.

• Cap the game at 60 FPS as a test.
• Reduce CPU-heavy graphics settings where available.
• Close unnecessary background applications.
• Disable overlays you do not need.
• Test without recording or streaming software running.

If the crackling disappears after limiting the frame rate, that is a useful clue. It suggests that the problem may be related to system load rather than your audio device itself.

Fix 5: Test CPU Affinity Carefully

This is where I would stop recommending random changes to everyone.

Some players experiment with removing CPU 0 from the game’s affinity because heavily loaded CPU scheduling can sometimes contribute to stuttering and audio interruptions. It can be worth testing, but I would treat this as an advanced troubleshooting step rather than a guaranteed Warlord: Awaji fix.

Launch the game, open Task Manager with Ctrl + Shift + Esc, go to the Details tab, find the game’s executable, right-click it, and choose Set affinity.

If Windows allows you to change the available processors, you can test running the game without CPU 0 enabled. Play for several minutes and see whether the audio behavior changes.

If there is no improvement, simply restore the original affinity. I would not start installing third-party process-management software just because of one audio issue unless you already know how those tools work.

Fix 6: Reinstall or Update Your Audio Drivers

If Warlord: Awaji is not the only game producing crackling, this fix moves much higher up my list.

Open Device Manager, expand Sound, video and game controllers, and locate your audio device. Depending on your setup, this could be a Realtek controller, USB headset, DAC, motherboard audio device, or another audio interface.

Try updating the driver first. If the problem started immediately after a driver update, rolling back to the previous version may also be worth testing.

For persistent problems, uninstalling the device and restarting Windows can force the operating system to rebuild the driver installation.

One extra tip: if you use a dedicated USB DAC or gaming headset, check the manufacturer’s software as well. Windows may report that everything is fine while the manufacturer’s driver or firmware is actually outdated.

Fix 7: Connect Your USB Headset Directly to the PC

This sounds almost too simple, but it is worth testing.

If your headset is connected through a monitor, USB hub, docking station, keyboard, or front-panel extension, move it directly to a USB port on the motherboard.

Then launch Warlord: Awaji again.

I would also test another USB port if the first one doesn’t help. You don’t need to obsess over whether the port is USB 2.0 or USB 3.x; the important thing is to eliminate hubs and questionable extensions from the equation.

If the crackling disappears when the headset is connected directly, you have narrowed the problem down considerably.

What About Editing Engine.ini?

You may see suggestions online telling you to add custom audio buffer values to Engine.ini or other configuration files. I would be careful here.

Configuration tweaks can sometimes help with specific Unreal Engine problems, but blindly adding an AudioBufferSize value does not guarantee that Warlord: Awaji will recognize or use it. Configuration names and supported parameters can vary between games and engine versions.

If you decide to experiment with configuration files, make a backup first. Never make the original file read-only until you know the modification actually works. Otherwise, you can turn a small audio problem into an annoying configuration problem of its own.

My Recommended Order of Fixes

If I had just installed Warlord: Awaji and suddenly heard crackling through my headset, I wouldn’t spend an hour changing twenty settings at random. I would work through the problem in this order:

1. Set Windows audio to 48 kHz.
2. Disable Windows audio enhancements.
3. Turn off Windows Sonic, Dolby Atmos, or other spatial processing.
4. Connect the headset directly to the motherboard.
5. Cap the game at 60 FPS and retest a large battle.
6. Update or reinstall the audio driver.
7. Only then experiment with CPU affinity or advanced configuration tweaks.

The reason I prefer this approach is simple: the first few changes are easy to reverse and can tell you a lot about where the problem is coming from.

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Final Thoughts

Warlord: Awaji audio crackling and popping is exactly the kind of PC problem that can make you think something is seriously wrong with your hardware. In many cases, though, the solution is much less dramatic. A mismatched Windows audio format, an unnecessary enhancement, spatial processing, an overloaded system, or a troublesome USB connection can all be enough to ruin an otherwise excellent gaming session.

My advice is not to change everything at once. That makes troubleshooting almost impossible because you won’t know which setting actually fixed the problem. Start with the 48 kHz sample rate, disable enhancements and spatial audio, then test the game under the same heavy battlefield conditions where the crackling normally occurs.

If the audio suddenly becomes clean, stop there. There is no prize for having the most complicated Windows configuration.

And honestly, that clean audio makes a huge difference in a game like this. The clash of swords, movement of troops, horse sounds, shouting, and general battlefield noise are a big part of what makes the samurai setting work. Once the static disappears, Warlord: Awaji can finally sound as intense as the battles look.

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