Deadlock steam background recording progressively has asynced audio

[washroomAccessFor.30]

I currently only play Street Brawl with some game sessions going hours without restarting Deadlock. I started playing the game again several weeks ago now and since I've noticed audio sync issues to the video recording. The game itself is fine while playing.

It's took me a while to decide to type up this report up as the first question is: "is it a steam issue, my system issue, or an actual Deadlock bug?" Well, I started over time testing with steam recording settings. Testing them all: every toggled on & off etc. When steam background recording released I played alot of Team Fortress 2 and at first I recorded to a HDD which caused audio sync issues due to improper speeds before I switched to a SATA SSD for storing recordings. Thus I even thought maybe the SSD is becoming faulty and for testing purposes even changed the recording folder to one on the OS NVMe.

I Type all of the previous paragraph to show that I have testing it as a steam/system issue as much as possible. So with that ticked off, what evidence is there that this is a Deadlock issue? As absence of evidence of one is not proof of the other.

Well, anytime I keep getting an issue playing Street Brawl I test out numerous bot standard matches. Just today I loaded up 5 bot standard matches in a row, leaving back into hideout after shooting near base (to avoid noise pollution) with Krill's gun & Mo's scorn (ability 1, it's instant audio with the visuals is useful here for demonstration). There was no audio issues at all in the recording.

I also confirm that loading into a party hideout does not cause this, as it was a question at a time whether it was Street Brawl and hideout loading together (both solo & party hideout tested). Booting up the game and waiting 20 minutes on the hideout did not have audio lag when I then abused the hell out of hideout Abrams (deserved btw).

Yet it only takes a 2nd round of street brawl for it to become noticeable in recordings. Hours later, the audio can be tens of seconds behind. I have attached 3 clips that demonstrate this with Mo's scorn ( is not scorn specific, just a good demonstration cue ) (headphones recommend):

1. Deadlock_audio.01.mp4: Simply shows scorn as it should be (new game session straight into hideout); included for comparison so readers/devs need not look up how it should be as they read this report.
2. Deadlock_audio.02.mp4: Shows that during round 1 of match 1 of street brawl in a new game session there is no noticeable audio recording delay with scorn. I believe the first round does not trigger anything, only subsequent rounds.
3. Deadlock_audio.03.mp4: While subtle, round 2 of the same match already has scorn's audio cue lagging behind the visuals. Rewatch if not noticed at first view with the chaotic noise pollution, it is there.

Further, Deadlock_audio.04.mp4 shows crackling in the audio. I am certain this crackling is recording only & not in-game. While devs will know for sure, I bet this is when the game "segments" Street Brawl rounds and something about that causes the recording to... be weird. To say the least.

There is one more thing to mention before I end by sharing the one extra test I have still to do (it's a workaround test, not a fix/information gathering test): I am on Linux Mint 22.3, 'steam -> settings -> background recordings -> record audio from... ' only allows system audio. However, by using the pipewire visual frontend UI qpwgraph (that is the name, yes) I can sever the connection between my output device & the recording, then create a direct line from Deadlock to the recording, thus making it only record game audio & nothing more.

Well, this does not make a difference to the recording. The audio async still occurs. Thought I should still share despite no difference. It was another test that I did after all.

Lastly, the next & final test I am to do is play Deadlock with background recording disabled but manually start/stop recording per match. While lag may start between Street Brawl rounds still, in theory it should reset the lag per match thus allows clips to still be 'good enough' in sync. I currently have clips from the last couple weeks that are... tens of seconds out of sync & probably will be deleted due to how annoying watching them are.

 

[washroomAccessFor.30]

I played last night manually start/stopping for each street brawl match, it went exactly as the theory about it was: it does reset the audio lag at the start, but each new round adds lag to the point where rounds 4-5 are really bad, but even the 2nd round of recording is there akin to the Mo scorn examples.

I could train myself to record each round as its own clip, but that's alot of effort for a workaround to a bug that shouldn't exist in the first place. I've already forgot some first rounds on this first session of manual recording.

If a dev desires I could upload a whole match recording to show rather than tell that each round is consistent in its own audio async, it really is each new round adding more audio lag to the steam background recording. I don't think this ought to be needed though, seems excessive to share such a large video file just so others can confirm for themselves that new street brawl rounds is the only and consistent trigger adding audio lag. Especially with the aforementioned test where I stood in the hideout for 20 minutes then abused hideout Abrams to no audio lag in the recording.

Finally, disregard the claim that Deadlock_audio.04.mp4 is recording-only. It is heard while playing the game itself. Why the audio crackling exists idk, may be connected to this big, or is its own. This is why I continue to test any bug I report on: to confirm hunches; or unconfirm them.

 

[washroomAccessFor.30]

I'm not really sure of the consistency of this anymore. I have continued to try different steam background recording settings, yet regular matches also do this thus it isn't street brawl new rounds as I thought.

The thing is, I genuinely have done recordings in bot matches + exploring NYC map and it never goes out of sync. Meaning, as far as I have witnessed, any live match does this.

Just last week I intentionally spent 15 minutes exploring NYC to test this again. The was no audio async by the end (it takes a matter of a few minutes in live matches). While my theory has changed since the start, I genuinely believe it has something to do with actually live games... maybe connecting to a datacentre server instead of local hosting as you do in a solo hideout/bot match/explore NYC. That's why there initial bot standard matches didn't have this, yet now I have started playing live standard matches as well as street brawl: it is there too.

I do not know what else to test for this. I have trained myself to mostly remember to start/stop manual recording at the start of matches, but if it is a long enough match the end is recognisablely asynced. & sometimes I miss a few minutes still at the start.

I don't know how this makes any sense, but something to do with recording live PVP matches connecting to a non-local server causes my steam recordings of Deadlock to do this. That statement really is the only accurate observation after all this time.