A new patch is inbound for Apex Legends early next week, and it’s full of fixes for various audio issues players have been reporting. The patch will reportedly make the game’s audio engine 30% more CPU efficient, which will help reduce the frequency of sound distortion and dropout.
Respawn community manager Jay Frechette posted the patch notes to the Apex Legends subreddit Friday. As mentioned above, it’s heavy on improvements to sound, and it makes several quality of life changes to menu volume and ambient effects. The volume for sounds in the character select screen through the drop sequence will be reduced, and the ambient effect of Wraith’s kunai knife will be lowered as well, to improve things for players who are sensitive to that sound. Respawn says it may remove that effect altogether if it still proves bothersome to those players.
For PC users, the patch will also include a workaround for an issue Respawn has identified with Intel CPUs. Under certain circumstances, Intel CPUs aren’t correctly executing a function and crashing, and thanks to help from the PC player community, Respawn says it’s found that lowering the clock speed – even for non-overclocked setups – solves this issue. Respawn says it has notified Intel about the problem, but for now they’re including a workaround in the upcoming patch.
Tragically, the patch will also make it impossible for players to attach items to Gibraltar’s shield, which means that we will no longer be treated to the wonderful sight of Gibraltoad.
GIBRALTOAD from r/apexlegends
“Admittedly it’s been fun to see the results of this but the behavior is not intended by design and could get out of control,” Frechette wrote. “Items will no longer stick to Gibraltar’s Gun Shield, however, it will now deflect Arc Stars.”
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The patch also includes some fixes for hit registration, as well as some “behind the scenes” bullet damage tracking that will help Respawn better identify where and when hit tracking problems are happening.