Teamspeak,...Ventrillo ..

[KarnEvil9]

I know that tere are many enjoy these programs and they are kinda fun, but why is the VOIP that ships with UT not used? The short of it is, I know I'm kinda hanging it out there but, Vent cost too much for most to run, Teamspeak seems to have a mind of its own on my machine, and I have never gotten any greif out of the stock program. So ,...whats the deal? Any and all input would be greatly appreciated! Thank you.

[DW_e_aLpHa]

- Well .. There's no problem using the ingame voice chat, other than sometimes people on one team might join the wrong channel and or speaks on the public channel , some servers will not allow voip , added to this is the fact that using the voip will eat up everyone listening or talking bandwith specially when the server is full and on those maps that might get laggy at times.. -

- Ventrilo is such a nice lovable little program , I myself run a small server for 'family' comunication isues , this came to replace heavily the phone , wich now seems really useless :) - I still have not found a single thing wrong with ventrilo - IT will not eat up Computer Resources either bandwith that much .. compared to any other comunication program I have tried so many of those outhere .. I dont understand when you say it costs so much to run === ? === oh and the voice quality is just so nice on Ventrilo , Well of course it all depends on the server setup , wich can be at 4 different levels!! - 0 = 8khz-- 1 = 11khz 2=22khz < the one thats just perfect Imo , and 3 = 44khz -- the highest! for the best sound quality on the Clients!!
-- Just got to love ventrilo -- wish it was open source to make it do file transfers -- :albino:

- About Team Speak , well I think you asked for opinions, and In my opinion is an anoying little piece of crap .. I dont even like the way they made it , your Client is constantly sending 'messages' to the TS webserver --Its all done in a Big ugly ax single windows form and you got to deal with it , comes with the most anoying sounds , and for some reazon is just a program that freaks me up to have in my computer .. Most of the TS servers outhere have tons of client conection slots , so the sound quality is just on the ground if not burried .. - of course everything depends on the server but that does not make me like the client software -- :pukeright:
- Must admit didn't know about ventrilo till I heard some DW's talk about it .. :cyclopsani: :idea:

[DW_Snaggle]

One of the biggest issues about in-game chat is that there is a bug where if people change teams they can still hear the original team's 'team chat'. This is uncool in the public server games and totally untenable in a competition. So, in addition to off-loading the cpu & bandwidth usage, the voice servers came to replace in-game chat for UT.

A lot of games don't even have in-game voice chat so this is another reasson for the appearance of distinct voice systems.

Snaggle.

[DW_KarmaKat]

Hey, KE!

Sorry you were having such a bad time wtih TeamSpeak! I'm not crazy about their client side software either...but as the saying goes...ya get what you pay for! LOL!

I've experienced the in-game chat bug often enough to relegate myself to non game critcal chatter most of the time. I'll issue warnings to teammates about incoming stuff, but I sure won't "broadcast" any of my team's positions! It's an annoyance...and one I hope they get ironed out in UT2k7.

Biggest issue with the in game voip, as aLpha and Snaggle have mentioned, is the potential for lag. You don't notice it much with just a few people making comments, but when you get the regular amount of talking combined with a few motor mouths, I definitely notice the difference. Also..and this is entirely subjective on my part, but I think the audio quality suffers on the in game stuff.

Ventrilo isn't free...but it's not that expensive either. $11.99/month will allow 25 users. I've previously offered to spring for a Vent server for the SVAs (offer is still open!), since at the inception of our TeamSpeak use, we were having some technical difficulties. Most of those have since been resolved, although I'm still trying to puzzle out the differing audio levels we've been having. In any event, since I've experienced both, my personal preference is for Ventrilo. I think it's a well written little piece of gear, functionality is excellent and of all three voips...I think it has the best audio quality.

Having chucked in my two cents worth...are any of the rest of you having issues with TeamSpeak?

KKat

[DW_Hornet]

ventrilo also has the audio level problem.

[DW_e_aLpHa]

- What audio level problem if I may know cuz , im still not aware of such a thing .. - ==?==

[DW_KarmaKat]

- What audio level problem if I may know cuz , im still not aware of such a thing .. - ==?==

Well...in TeamSpeak the audio levels have been all over the place. One time you log on and you're so quiet no one can hear you and other times you're so loud it hurts! It's seemingly random...not settling on any one person specifically. It's particularly frustrating because people have been telling me that they haven't changed anything on their systems, the server is up all the time and I'm guessing that the routing stays much the same. In fact...that's the only thing I could think of, (changes in routing) that would explain the variables we've been experiencing. My lack of knowledge on VOIP is not helping here either.

In the short amount of time we got to use UT99Vet's Vent server, I didn't notice any huge differences. But then...that was only for a few weeks. So..not enough data really to make a good comparison. How many other DWs have this problem with Vent? And where is your Vent server?

KKat

[DW_e_aLpHa]

-- Ah! -- Well you wont never see that with ventrilo UNLESS you are messing up and down with your input volume on your System for Evil knows what reazon .. Never! that just never happens with ventrilo , you know a machine can be controld by a program but not in such a way with ventrilo .. I have more than 5 months using it to talk to I only care who ... and neither I or them have noticed such a thing , You can control your outbound Volume , your Inbound volume and it will stay where your left it forever .. Again unless your messing with your volume controls on your OS .. or you put the microfono on your ear instead of your mouth haha!! .. --Sry --

- The internet part! : With Ventrilo :: well it wont make your voice louder or softer , The only thing it can do is cut off your voice messages if you have crapy conection to the server or' if the server is the crapy one - Then your message will be delivered in 'parts' - but with the same volume. - I have even used it over a phone line conection from here to Mexico and it didnt do anything other than the a little delayed message arrivals cuz of the poor bandwith of the dialup -

- I will pm you the info if you still have the vent client and want to try it out - :) ..

[KarnEvil9]

Thanks for all the info! First, I need to say I really do appreciate the efforts of Bryon and Toxic to set up TS servers for us to use, as I think communication can be one of the most valuable tools used to defeat an opposing team in this game. I mean no disrespect but I cannot get the progam to work without using at least four loudly shouted explitives, sometimes five! I have not noticed in any lag while using the stock client, but it is very likely that being on the public server not that many voices have been on at one time for it to be noticed. I do now understand how this as well as inter team chatter are the reasons for using external programs. I did find it inreresting that no one reallly tryed to defend or promote TS. Once again thank you for taking the time to explain.

[zeus]

Well, the problem is that there are not a lot of alternatives out there. Using VOIP software such as Skype and others usually don't allow for the conferencing capability that we need. Plus, they are more like "real phones" where you are constantly live vs. hitting a button to talk.

I don't know if we play around with the codecs if that will help at all.