Voice over IP problems

[CAPryde]

Hello All,

My Hellfrost group has been a lot of fun, but we have encountered a lot of problems with using VoIP software. To date we have experimented with both Skype and Ventrilo; we have had problems with people dropping out of the call (or off the Vent server) and with reverb in the Vent server (which is weird, since it is a push-to-talk rather than a hot-mike system). The problems, unsurprisingly, are strongly exacerbated by having 6-8 people playing at once on our full nights.

Do any of you have any general suggestions either of VoIP programs or of ways to make the programs we are using more stable/reliable? I'm hosting the game and the Vent server, when we have used it; another player hosts the Skype calls, when we go that way.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

[mr_h]

Hello All,

To date we have experimented with both Skype and Ventrilo; we have had problems with people dropping out of the call (or off the Vent server) and with reverb in the Vent server (which is weird, since it is a push-to-talk rather than a hot-mike system). The problems, unsurprisingly, are strongly exacerbated by having 6-8 people playing at once on our full nights.

I've personally noticed that when one person hosts Ventrillo on their computer the drop out stuff seems to occur more often. I'm not sure why this is, I just chalk it up to the connection.




Do any of you have any general suggestions either of VoIP programs or of ways to make the programs we are using more stable/reliable? I'm hosting the game and the Vent server, when we have used it; another player hosts the Skype calls, when we go that way.

I use mumble, (https://mumble.sourceforge.net/)it's a free and open source program/server. It's worked pretty well for me. I have a server that I can offer up to others to use (it's passworded to prevent just anyone from using it).

[Stitched]

Seconded for Mumble. Was using it in a 4E game and the audio was crystal clear and problem free.




I use mumble, (https://mumble.sourceforge.net/)it's a free and open source program/server. It's worked pretty well for me. I have a server that I can offer up to others to use (it's passworded to prevent just anyone from using it).

[Zeus]

Here's another suggestion if you the DM are hosting 6-8 players in your games and you want VoIP but your upstream on your broadband is constrained. Delegate the VoIP hosting to one of the players, this should reduce the contention for the DM's upstream and should alleviate network dropouts etc.

I'll also third the vote for Mumble, which of course can be hosted by various online 3rd party services.

[ronnke]

I find that Teamspeak3 is very bandwidth friendly and has the ability to tweak the bandwidth usage a little for those that have problems. It's also free.

[Doswelk]

Seconded for Mumble. Was using it in a 4E game and the audio was crystal clear and problem free.

We use Mumble as well, UKGame.com offers a free mumble server (not sure if you have to be UK based to use it)

This means no-one has to host the call and thus lower their bandwidth.

[Griogre]

I use TS3 also. I'd definitely second having a non FG host run the VoiP server to conserver the FG's hosts up bandwidth or getting a dedicated server - a small server is only a few bucks a month. There's a lot more free options than there use to be these days, though.

You can also try GSC, https://getgsc.com/ I know a lot of people use it and its a free dedicated server as well. I use it as my back up option as I like TS.

[phantomwhale]

We use Mumble as well, UKGame.com offers a free mumble server (not sure if you have to be UK based to use it)

This means no-one has to host the call and thus lower their bandwidth.

Ok, after all the Skype drops, I got my non-techies to install mumble. A couple of them started blankly at the client interface (simple instructions like Doswelk's (https://www.furiousdice.com/community/topic.php?id=7) would of been handy here, I feel)

After going through the audio wizard, I felt quite concerned - I couldn't get the bars going right at all - everything was in the Red (too loud) or Blue (too quiet) all the time !

BUT on the day, the audio was wonderful (and well normalised), as my players drop (and they do - dodgy routers) we didn't lose VOIP once, which meant we could "play through" the technical blips much better.

So big thumbs up for Mumble (and the free UK servers - my players are in the UK, but I'm in Australia; we found no real lag issues), it was worth the slightly harder setup to avoid the pain of Skype drops and better, clearer audio. Thanks for the UK Game server link, that was the final piece of the puzzle that got me to switch.