PC Voice Chat Options

[carolkarine]

after the recent discussion in the livestream about different types of voice chat for gaming, I decided (being an audiophile myself who keeps looking for a good voice chat program) to compile a list of the best ones (IMO)

 

I will cover the common ones, like Skype, the new Razer Comms, some more obscure ones, and then rank them.

 

Skype

 

easy to setup and versatile, always working and very nice audio quality, skype is a very good voice chat program... until it alt tabs you out of your game. When I ran Skype, I actually ran it on a laptop while gaming on my desktop. I had one headphone for voice and one for in-game sound. It was terrible, to be honest, because I lost all of my audio awareness. I had no idea if that sniper shot came from 11'oclock or 5. That's a big deal, if sound is important to you.

 

Razer Comms

 

I haven't used Razer Comms to the same extent I have the others, but it does work as well as it advertises. I'm only going to say that, of course, everyone in your party needs to have it.

 

Ventrilo

 

Decent sound, no alt-tabbing, somewhat iffy to setup. a decent option.

 

Google Voice/Google Talk

 

almost everyone has a google account these days. and if you've got a google account, you can use google voice. It's got decent sound, and like skype can call real phone numbers too. only problem is, google has two different services, which need to be integrated together.

 

Mumble

 

decent audio, low latency, and works with your game to provide directional sound (or, at least it tries) It does require you join a server, so if you server hop like me, because everytime operation metro comes up you bug out, you'll have issues - because you have to alt-tab out for every time you switch servers.

 

Steam

 

steam's voice chat is integrated into it's normal chat functionality, you can shift tab during any steam game (and shouldn't all games be steam games?) to adjust your settings and who you're talking to, and almost all of your friends have a steam profile. the audio quality is some of the best I've encountered and even when playing across the Atlantic I still get almost no latency.

 

C3

 

http://www.downloadc3.com/command/

 

I've linked C3 because outside of steam, C3 is easily the best voice chat program I've run across, It is notable for how it lets you be in multiple channels, how it lets you moderate one person, how it lets you control your audio experience, but every time you wish to change something, you do need to alt tab.

 

TeamSpeak

 

teamspeak in my opinion is as good but no better than Ventrilo. it offers nothing better, it's about as finnicky to setup, and it does require servers like mumble, but doesn't provide the directional voice functioanlity.

 

rankings:

 

1. steam.

2. C3

3. Razer Comms (this might be higher, I'll update when I have more experience)

4. mumble

5. Ventrilo

5. (again) Teamspeak

6. Google Voice/Talk

7. Skype (skype deserves it's place because it alt tabs you out of your game at random. The others that require alt-tabbing you choose when you are AFK)

 

I placed steam first because of it's ease of use, it comes integrated into the steam overlay, and it provides some of the best audio quality I could find.

[Snickerzz]

and teamspeak

[carolkarine]

thanks for reminding me. I'll update the above post.

[911^NEmeSis]

I find that vent is slightly harder to use and set up for new people over Teamspeak.

I use teamspeak constantly, for many hours a day followed by Vent and then Mumble. Only ever using Skype for those certain few friends who cba to get a decent voip program! :D

 

Teamspeak takes my vote as the best though, it's clear and simple to use and is very simple to manage.

[carolkarine]

again, I really love steam's Voip. mainly cause it's already there. and it just works. and it just works with the steam overlay.

[HEXiT]

i use 2 monitors and skype. if i put skype on the second monitor and the monitor doesnt swtich off (some games force 1 screen) then skpe wont alt tab you out if some1 rings. instead it will wait for you to alt tab out.

the 1 i dont like is steams chat. if you start it up and jump into a game, but have a lot of friends on line then steam will keep alt tabbing you out every time it detects a new friend in the list.

[LogicalDrm]

I haven't used skype for gaming or to talking at all. Just now I have started using it to IM since microsoft closed msn messenger. Skype lacks options how friend list is shown and doesn't really allow you to group ppl. Annoying when I have msn contacts, fb contacts and old skype contacts all mixed.

 

Mumble & TS3 decent audio? Those have been top of voip audio for long time. Both like ventrilo also need server. Mumble is open source so basicly anyone can host server. TS3 and Vent need lisence to run bigger servers. They also lack really good overlays. As far I like mumble most but atm me and my gamer friends don't have server.

 

I think I'll try Razers thing to find out if it has features and quality for our needs. You forgot to mention RaidCall. Has anyone used it?

 

Server based voip vs. client based voip:

- servers run on different system and don't use clients connection or cpu/ram

- clients can join server with ip and pass provided

- servers can be configured and remember channel settings

- client based have better friend system

- you see instantly if someone you know has logged in

- no need to rent servers

- server based don't need you to be friend with some random ppl on same server

 

I'd like to see latency and quality comparison for these. Like this old thing

[carolkarine]

but have a lot of friends on line then steam will keep alt tabbing you out every time it detects a new friend in the list.

 

Steam never alt tabs me out. it just shows me a banner in the right hand corner. maybe it's just a setting?

[Benx70]

Teamspeak , and vent yes they might be finky, not too hard to

Set up if you have a friend helping you , you can

Set up different channels, but what I like the most is you can

Admin it, use a lobby for visitors to your server, kick, ban if need

Be.I've used it in a few different cod4 clans, battlefield bad company

Etc.

[Broseephus]

I've only used mumble/vent/ts. 

 

TS is by far the easiest to setup and you can get some awesome mods for it, Mumble doesn't require you to "rejoin" everytime you switch server, and Vent is super outdated so I'm not really sure how accurate the rest of your post is.....

 

By far skype is the worst. It has the most latency of any VOIP I've ever seen. 

[That Norwegian Guy]

Nah, Teamspeak 3 and Ventrilo are the top dogs. Maybe not if you are a low-knowledge user where 'ease of setup' is important, but with 'ease of setup' you also get 'lack of features'.

 

There is no VOiP that matches the feature set of TS3.

 

Also it's hard to avoid Mumble, because they're practically throwing it at you for free. It's pretty crappy though, really buggy, and a pain in the ass to admin.

 

A good VOiP is good because it's good for the admin, not for the user. To be good for both is optimal, but if it's not good for the admin then it's a waste of space on the internet. This is why TS3 (apart from features) and even the dinosaur that is Ventrilo still corner 99.9% of the gaming VOiP audience. Trying to promote anything else at this time is wishful thinking until those platforms get a comparable feature set and server admin control. Hell three of the ones you listed (Skype; Steam and Google) couldn't possibly be more of a non-factor due to being peer-to-peer, third-party server and third-party server respectively.

[Minjon]

I despise skype but i have to use to play with a group of people i play a lot of games with from Serbia we tried Mumble but a few of them couldn't make it work on their soundcards and they gave up....
I use teamspeak with bf3 clan atm but i still prefer Mumble i have used it on 25 man World of Warcraft raiding and its awesome i also used a lot of ventrilo but mumble is so much better then any of these if only my friends would use it....

[Kerplex]

Teamspeak and Mumble in no certain order. 

[XiaoPigs]

I use either TeamSpeak or Skype depending on the people I play with. Teamspeak is kind of a hassle to setup but once you get it going its all good. Skype is kinda here and there for me. I've used Mumble a couple times. Don't really have much of an opinion on it other then its a super cut down version of TeamSpeak and is easier to get it going.

 

Going to try Razer Comms once I get enough friends to try it out with me.

[Jmenka]

have you heard about free service MyteamVoice? I like it very much... Very good quality and till free! 

don't need to register each of the team teams gamers need  just download the program.

[carolkarine]

I only need voip for battlefield. And now it has built in voip, which is actually decent.