Sound issue, cuts out randomly for game, but not other applications

I am having the funniest issue! Somewhat recently, I have been having my audio crackle and randomly stop, but ONLY in Counter Strike 2 itself. discord (yes i have to use it as all my friends do and wont change) and background applications keep sound going fine, until I unplug and replug my headphones to get sound back in CS. Then It goes for about another 10 minutes until I have to do it again. It feels like its sometimes triggered by a certain gun or grenade sound, and i hear some fizzing and crackling before it happens. No other program does this.

Very weird. I believe I have pulse audio installed. I am not sure how to check if pipewire installed over top of it or what (i read maybe pulse is the issue?) I tried verifying game files which did not help.

Linux mint, newest stable kernel (i forget which)

Any help appreciated..I know linux doesn't have the best audio situation.