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Best Voice Chat Software For Gaming?

Posted by simoniker on from the lima-foxtrot-lollipop dept.

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?"

10 of 70 comments (clear)

  1. Ventrilo by EvilJohn · · Score: 3, Informative

    I highly recommend Ventrilo.

    // EvilJohn

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    Less Talk, More Beer.
  2. Teamspeak by errorlevel · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

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    The Moo went "Cow!"
    1. Re:Teamspeak by wossName · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

      --
      Someone is wrong on the Internet!
  3. Limitations? by cloudless.net · · Score: 3, Insightful
    "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?

  4. TeamSpeak by thefatz · · Score: 4, Informative

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

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    http://www.freebsd.org
  5. Best in-game Voice? Xbox Live. by SuperRob · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Get Xbox Live.

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

  6. Re:Heres a second.. by wossName · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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 ?

    --
    Someone is wrong on the Internet!
  7. I vouch for teamspeak by BurnMage · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  8. Gamevoice and MS Messenger/Passport by Un1v4c · · Score: 3, Informative

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

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    I gave myself to Jesus, but now he never calls
  9. TeamSpeak is Windows and Linux ready... by msimm · · Score: 3, Informative
    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.
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    Quack, quack.