Best Voice Chat Software For Gaming?

a-freeman writes "I frequently play Everquest and Quake III with some close friends that (now) live far away, and we've been looking for a solid voice-chat package to encourage trash-talking and taunting during our raid/frag sessions. We have variously tried Roger Wilco, TeamSound, TeamTalk, and Microsoft's Sidewinder GameVoice, and all of them have various limitations. TeamTalk has the best latency and sound quality but poor compatibility, TeamSound has terrible latency and requires lots of firewall holes, GameVoice requires a .net passport and Windows Messenger, and Roger Wilco is horribly unstable. This is a fairly simple problem, and I refuse to believe that these are the best-of-breed solutions. Can anyone recommend a solution that they are pleased with?"

Comments

Ventrilo

[EvilJohn]

I highly recommend Ventrilo.

// EvilJohn

Re:Ventrilo

[SaintElmo]

Surprisingly, it's legal in most (if not all, not sure about the games I don't play) leagues. I use it in Counter-Strike and red alert 2. It works fantastically for my friends. Unfortunately, my sound card doesn't support that many channels, so I can't use it. It's 3 years old, so what do you expect?

Re:Ventrilo

[Sparr0]

Ventrilo is definitely the LEAST dialup-friendly, offering no support for codecs at lower than 20kbps.

Re:Ventrilo

[iq in binary]

Funny, considering Counter-Strike has had in-game voice capability since 1.4. I used Roger-Wilco prior, and was quite unsatisfied with the results. Having tried Ventrilo I was still quite dis-sastisfied.

I usually got around all this by starting a voice conference in ICQ and plugging the hotkey through one of the F buttons.

Re:Ventrilo

[PainKilleR-CE]

Funny, considering Counter-Strike has had in-game voice capability since 1.4.

Last time I was playing TFC or dealing with it in leagues (it received the in-game voice capability around the same time as CS), very few people used the in-game capability in leagues.

That being said, most leagues had to choose whether to enable or disable it in their server cfg files, because some people were using it and many server admins were disabling it.

Re:Ventrilo

[DarthGreg]

Haha hey PK, long time no see.

My TFC clan uses Ventrillo. I have been more than satisfied with it since we implimented it into our practices and matches, and can say it is definitely more flexible and feature-rich than in-game Half-Life voice.

Anyone serious about online gaming competition has a broadband connection, that is how it works. Thusly, bandwidth is rarely an issue, I've not met anyone that has had problems with Ventrillo. Most of TFC's top clans use it.

Teamspeak

[errorlevel]

I know that quite a few of my friends that play America's Army: Online use a program called TeamSpeak from http://www.teamspeak.org . I can't vouch for its stability, but I haven't heard any complains from them.

For those that care, there is even a Linux client and server.

Jared Lash

Re:TeamSpeak

[DeathPenguin]

Teamspeak is probably the best one for Linux. It's fairly easy to configure, offers voice activation (So you don't have to press a key to talk) and calibration (So it doesn't pick up breathing), and high-quality codecs.

It works with Windows, too, so you and your buddies can all use the same voice chat program.

I guess some people don't like the forced upgrades. While I do find them somewhat annoying, I don't blame the Teamspeak developers for not wanting to answer tech support requests from people using out-dated software.

Re:Teamspeak

[wossName]

The Linux server for TS2 is rock-solid. It's running on my box 24/7 and I only have to shut it down to update.

The installation might intimidate some people, because this thing is built to scale. You have a superadmin who can set up several servers, all with their own admins, channel ops and whatnot, but you can configure all of that through the web interface, or the client.

Re:Teamspeak

[duggy_92127]

I second his remark about the super-solid Linux server, and add that it also has a super-solid and mature Linux CLIENT. I played NWN natively on my Linux box, using TeamSound, with both the TS and NWN servers running on a Linux server, and my friends connecting to both with their Windoze clients. Not a single problem.

I've since used the Windows TS client to connect with friends while playing PlanetSide, again with the Linux TS server. Super solid. It also lets you choose from several audio codecs, which all generally sound good but let you choose how much bandwidth you use, as well.

Doug

Heres a second..

[BillYak]

After the Teamspeak fiasco (they pulled one of those "forced updates" where all the servers just shut down and required everyone move to a new user database setup) 90% of the gaming tribes and clans switched over to Ventrilo. It works great.

Re:Heres a second..

[wossName]

What fiasco was that ? All I can remember is that the release candidates for version 2 have/had a limited life span, which is widely known (FYI: it's still in RC status). No problem if you can read instructions.

As a PC gamer, you're used to patching and upgrading all the time, so what's the problem with updating one more piece of software ?

i use my cell phone

[Numeric]

i figure i have 3000 minutes (nights and weekends) and three way calling....

sadly, i have to wear my cell phone ear piece under my headphones (which cover my entire ear) but it works...

also DO NOT LET ANYONE see you in this setup. its quite embarassing.

my chat in America's Army (Pipeline map)
"dork 1 to dork 2 enemies at secondary door...203 them"

Re:i use my cell phone

[Eustace Tilley]

> also DO NOT LET ANYONE see you in this setup. its quite embarassing.

I wish I could moderate this "informative"

Limitations?

[cloudless.net]

"GameVoice requires a .net passport and Windows Messenger"

It is a requirement not a limitation. If you are really trying to avoid using any Microsoft service, then why play games on Windows?

Re:Limitations?

[saden1]

You pay arlight...how else do you think M$ got the 45 billion dollars it is sitting on?

Re:Limitations?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, like it takes more than 30 fucking seconds to sign up with a junk hotmail account with false ID information (which is automatically a .net passport account).

Jesus, you'd think Microsoft was asking for their fucking credit card numbers, SSN# and mother's maiden name.

Perfect!

[Wuffle]

Everyone buy a mobile phone, get into a super-expensive cross-border conference call and duct tape the phone to your head.

It's the perfect solution I tells ya!

Re:Perfect!

[PainKilleR-CE]

My cell plan has unlimited local and US long distance calling, as long as I'm calling from this area. Basically that means my hands-free set is the perfect game-voice system. Unfortunately, the mic on the hands-free set doesn't extend out far enough to get past the speakers on the headphones I use.

Is there an *open* solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

More importantly, is there a free and open solution that has code available and no restrictive licence?

All of the solutions people have pointed so far are leech-ware given that this is not something that anyone *should* pay for.

Hell, I'm almost thinking about starting such an open-source project myself...

Re:Is there an *open* solution?

[hajjs]

The closest one can get is probably Interverse but that ain't really what we're looking for here.

I heavily encourage starting such a project. Too bad I don't have the coding skills (or so I think) to help you out.

TeamSpeak

[thefatz]

Teamspeak supports Windows & Linux. It now uses the speex codec.

Going against the grain...

[Jumba]

but I've been using Roger Wilco for BF1942/RS games with buddies and it's been pretty stable.

how about

[andy_fish]

How about, get two Xboxes, sign into a private room and use those to talk. For whatever reason, the Xbox voice-ip works really well. If I actually used the phone more often, that's what I would try to do.

Best in-game Voice? Xbox Live.

[SuperRob]

Get Xbox Live.

No, seriously ... since the entire service was designed around voice communications to begin with, it works REMARKABLY well.

simple: play Half-life games

[junkgrep]

All Half-Life games now have a very nice voice-chat feature. In fact, I don't think games like Natural Selection would be anywhere near as fun without it.

Re:simple: play Half-life games

[junkgrep]

Here's a crazy thought: I was just making a suggestion, YMMV? I've never played Counter-Strike. If the dominating popularity of the game intimidates you, that's not my problem. I was jsut pointing out that the game has a nice intergrated voice chat feature that's proven lots of fun, and is a breeze to use.

Mac OS 9/X support?

[waaka!]

For those of us who game on Macs or have friends who game on Macs, is there even a choice at all? My friend tried Roger Wilco, but considering that Roger Wilco hasn't been updated since before Apple introduced OS X, and Teamspeak seems to be some ways away from an OS X client, am I missing any important alternatives?

I suppose if there's one alternative, it becomes the best by default.

(Yes, I know, Macs are a rather expensive way to game, but I'm not actually the one doing it, just asking on behalf of my housemates.)

TeamSpeak

[Ath]

at www.teamspeak.org.

Different codecs to control quality and no latency problems. It even supports the MS Sidewinder Gamevoice device.

Roger Wilco

[TheDarkRogue]

Roger Wilco is NOT unstable.

The problem lies in GameSpy and their Lacing of RW with Shit. Go look for 'rw_mk1c.exe' on some FTP Searches and such, that is the last version (That I know of) that Resounding made before fucking GSI came in and fucked it all up. I have never ONCE had Mark1c crash on me, and I know of no one else who has either. But stay the fuck away from the versions after it, I.E. Mark 1d and such, They are the tainted ones.

Re:Roger Wilco

[n0wak]

I second this. Although I haven't used the program in ages (as I don't play PC games anymore -- XBox Live is good enough for me), I used it a lot back in 1999/2000. I used it with Delta Force at the time, and considering that I was running a Celeron 300 with only 64MB of RAM: it ran perfectly. Rarely crashed. And sound was good with over 8 players connected to the thing.

Maybe the newer versions are screwed up (as the above poster said), I don't know, but I remember it being rock solid.

MSN 6

[horcy]

I'm using msn 6.0 and i must tell you, Microsoft did one hell of a job. I'm behind a FreeBSD router/server and now I can voice chat and sendfiles. Everything is working. Without IPMasquerading shit and you know what i tried. I installed msn 6.0 and all my problems were solved. Even the voice quality is beter then i have with my normal phone line. I play Quake3 and warcraft3 both with team m8's and/or against friends so we can shout eachother to smithereens :) Dont you just love the old rocket in the belly trick and you can laugh and the other one hears it. Nothing can beat that :)

For "real" friends...

[LordYUK]

I have friends up to 6 states away that I know IRL, and we gamed when we lived close using a standared phone. Now I have Verizons free long distance plan, which is like, 45 or something a month. I'd say I easily play about 40+ hours of gaming during a week, so thats a small price to pay. Plus, its nice to be able to call relatives "for free". I have found one person that I met on Bnet that I call, but it took a few months (and some Wilco chatting) before I was willing to ring up a perfect stranger.

We tried Roger Wilco and the MS one, neither were bad, but neither were as clear at the phone either.

open source - speakfreely

[n9hmg]

...windoze and unix works well, requires only one firewall hole at the client, though you may want to have one of your guys run a "look who's listening" server - add a port forward for that one, and one for a reflector if you want to use one, but one of those suffices for all the clients. It's not polished - no voice mixing, for instance, but it is very solid.

Unknown, but superb

[frangro]

My friends and I used to play Quake III a lot at work on the corporate LAN, and since Roger Wilco pretty much sucked, one of my buddies wrote a really cool chat program. You can find Commcenter here:

http://www.randomly.com/ccenter/index-en.html

Although this works great over a LAN, it can be used over the Internet as well with really good quality. He has gone a long way towards minimizing it's bandwidth requirements so that it will work almost anywhere. Some things it supports:
- Unlimited connections, with the option of setting up a "base station" to optimize traffic through a single network point
- Real-time voice modifiers to thrill and amaze your friends ;)
- Ability to record directly from the audio stream
- Ability to map WAV files to keystrokes and play them back when you want
- Ability to send audio to specfic groups of users for teamplay purposes.

Probably its best feature is simply the quality of the sound. You don't get broken-up, garbled audio from this. FWIW.

Team Sound 2

[wpc4]

As you said, Team Sound is the best but still has issues with compatability. Planetside has Team Sound 2 integrated within the game, it works suprisingly well. Team Sound 2 should be out pretty soon, I think that may just be what you need.

I vouch for teamspeak

[BurnMage]

I run a teamspeak server for Planetside, it has great. I have been running it on a win2k server and it has run with no noticable memory leak or crashes. Since I moved it between servers it has been up stright, 22 days, it has sent 7.5GB of data and had 2500 logins, not one problem.

The best feature I think it has it that its a relatively clean, simple program that has a nice set of audio codecs. It has been very easy to use, and when you're using the higher end codecs, its just like you are talking on the phone with somebody.. or with many people. The only problem I think people run into with it is trying to serve multiple people voicechat on a line that can't support the outgoing traffic it needs.

netfone by haxial

[f64]

althought i havn't tried it yet, i'd recommend checking out netfone by haxial.

it's available both for mac & pc (supposedly works across platforms), and if the quality of this ware stands up to their other stuff (specially kdx server/client) it must be good.

f64 : doing the boing since 1978

Gamevoice and MS Messenger/Passport

[Un1v4c]

Gamevoice does not require a messenger or passport account. Just exit the installer when it gets to that part.

TeamSpeak is Windows and Linux ready...

[msimm]

Check it out at www.teamspeak.org:

TeamSpeak was primarily designed to work for people who are behind a NAT router (share internet). Further more it was designed for gamers. That mean to us it had to use as little bandwidth as possible, while having a reasonable voice quality. We think we achieved that with the 650 bytes/s maximum CELP codec.

• Support for lower latency. (Theoretically as low as 50 ms)
• Support for better quality codecs. (CELP and GSM)
• Support for user based logins.
• Support for per channel passwords.
• Support for temporary channels.
• Support for sub channels.
• Support for moderated channels for conferencing.
• Linux client.
• TeamSpeak uses fewer threads on a server now. Helps to conserve resources.
• TeamSpeak Super Server design. One program can start several TS servers.
• Web based management interface to the server.
• TeamSpeak Client/Server SDK's, for including in your games/applications.

I used it with my Tribes 2 clan and it worked pretty nicely.

Re:TeamSpeak is Windows and Linux ready...

[xneilj]

Teamspeak is indeed very good. My clan use it for several online games and it works really well.

Re:TeamSpeak is Windows and Linux ready...

[Telastyn]

I've also used teamspeak with my tribes 2... tribe, and it is okay. Works like it's supposed to though I wish it could/would do proper adjustment of volume depending on who's speaking.

Often times a few people cannot be heard properly. IMO the best use of it is for communication in case someone gets dropped from the game. Otherwise the ingame voice chat it good enough. And indeed imo the tribes voicechat [also in NWN iirc] is one of the absolute best methods of communication. A few keystrokes for alot of information. Very good with the modpack which textchats the message rather than speaking it [as the speech can interfere with sounds needed to react to like rocket noises and the such]

Personally I'd take something like that over even a properly working headset/mic sort of thing any day of the week.

TeamSpeak, most definitely.

[AbyssLeaper]

I use TeamSpeak, hosted by OSG, on a nightly basis for MMORPG's. It's fast, stable, and VERY reliable. You can't beat it.

Re:Roger Wilco uses TCP/IP :( use TeamSpeak inste

[Drgnkght]

"Roger Wilco sucks because it uses TCP/IP instead of UDP/IP"

To the best of my knowledge, Roger Wilco uses UDP for voice data, and TCP for channel data.

On the other hand, the problems you mentioned are frequently reported on the support forums. GameSpy, who purchased Roger Wilco from HearMe/Resounding doesn't seem to be helping matters either. Each release after Mark1c, the last one before GameSpy bought it, has been buggier than the last.

Voice programs

[War1ock]

I play with a group of guys and we use teamspeak which has been mentioned a few times, it is very stable and has good sound. I ping about 140 to the TS server we have and I have no problems talking or hear others on the program.

Roger Wilco - Gator

[dchamp]

I installed Roger Wilco once, and it got Gator all over my PC. For those of you not "in the know", Gator is a spyware app that basically sucks 'n crap, or sucks crap, or is crap.

I'm with the majority here - TeamSpeak is the way to go, until game developers get smart an integrate voice comm. I think Counter-Strike has about the best version of this I've seen.