Let's talk about VOIP in 1.09

[beta 0]

Quote[/b] ]You can see it in the videos. VOIP works pretty reliably now.

Ah, didn't download the videos, not on the best connection, so it would take an hour for even the low-res ones. All I can say is : Hooray!

Quote[/b] ]Talking over a "radio" channel (side, group, vehicle) has an associated "Direct Speaking" effect. The audible radius is maybe 1/3rd as big as when using the dedicated "Direct Speaking" channel, which makes sense - the person is talking into a radio, quieter, so they can't be heard for as far.

Even better than I hoped for!

Quote[/b] ]You don't "set" yourself to a radio channel. You will hear everything as it relateds to you (ie: people in your group over the group channel, your side on the side channel, your vehicle on the vehicle channel), and the "Who's Speaking" indicator will color-code the player names based on what channel they're talking over.

I see, that sounds pretty good. However, without a mute option, the radio comms might get quite confusing, especially in a public setting. It would be nice if you could mute players specifically, and also entire channels (ie: muting the Global channel, or the Side channel). From my experience, people tend to forget (very often) what channel they are on and talk away about what they had for supper. But hey, I'm not complaining, I will gladly listen to someone's culinary delights if it tells me who they are, so I can find them in game and loudly yell at them over direct speak .

Thanks again!

[Heatseeker 0]

Good news that VOIP is getting improved and I never knew about the direct speaking option. That's a new thing isn't it? That's something that has been mentioned and it's really cool to see it being brought ingame. Always wanted something like this in games, now is a good time to make my mic work.

Nope, its old. It even worked in OPF using directplay but was lost with sockets netcode (Resistance's improved netcode).

There are other games that use it too, i.e. Vietcong.

The channels are good stuff, they make ingame comunication much better and organised (side, group, vehicle, direct speaking, global) wich is good for large missions with several squads and support units. Its also nice to have dead players (seagulls) crying together on their own channel.

Direct speaking with lip sync is just that extra bit of realism and fun.

The quality seems nice judging by the vids, i hope it wont eat too much bandwith or anything .

[Bracken 0]

I don't have any interest in VOIP, but I appreciate the update on the other changes and also the continued efforts on part of both BIS and its beta testers.

[NoRailgunner 0]

Well thank you for info and i like to hear and use VOIP myself asap!!

Maybe original Santa's voice is included in 1.09 - "Can't get there!"

[dslyecxi 23]

Quote[/b] ] The quality seems nice judging by the vids, i hope it wont eat too much bandwith or anything .

You can set the quality on a scale of 1-10. We have ours set to 7. I don't believe that it's a linear improvement, either - each quality level has a different set of benefits/tradeoffs. It's the Speex codec, there's a list that can be found that describes the different levels. It sounds good to me. Much better than before they added the option to set your own codec quality.

Quote[/b] ]One question though, you say objects block the direct speaking too. I've noticed that ArmA bushes like to work as great big sound absorbers, so lets say somebody is on the other side of a bush from you and uses direct speak, will this be blocked out by the bush?

I don't think it will be outright "blocked", but it may be muffled a bit. Probably not enough to be an inconvenience, though. (which is good, of course)

[USSRsniper 0]

Nice, but still not good enough. Bugs should be fixed first, then the VOIP improvements....

[Mr_Tea 0]

Why the Hell do you want to discuss VOIP in in 1.09 before it is available?

It`s no wonder that all that are waiting for Patch 1.09 had some expectations because of this thread.

[dslyecxi 23]

Quote[/b] ]Nice, but still not good enough. Bugs should be fixed first, then the VOIP improvements....

I guess you missed the part where I didn't post the full changelog, eh? Funny how you can comment about "Bugs being fixed" when the VOIP was broken because of (gasp! bugs. Also funny how you can imply that bugs aren't getting fixed when you don't even know what bugs HAVE been fixed.

Quote[/b] ]Why the Hell do you want to discuss VOIP in in 1.09 before it is available?

[Lor 0]

I just have to add that a pimped out hydraulic BMP is the best thing ever. As a former IFV design consultant for the Cardiff University Centre for Performing Arts I can safely attest that it is extremely difficult to fit hydraulics to tracked soviet fighting vehicles from the late 80s.

[newbieboka 0]

I can also safely attest to the fact that getting under the pimped out BMP, whilst the BMP is rockin' is completely and utterly harmless to a human being.

[Henk 0]

I'm pretty sure that zxibit can pimp it even more.

[MisterXY 0]

Well then you can understand that when you hold a rifle you can move your head closer to the ironsights. You can move your head forward without moving your whole body forward.

Now enough of me in this topic and enough offtopicness.

Good news that VOIP is getting improved and I never knew about the direct speaking option. That's a new thing isn't it? That's something that has been mentioned and it's really cool to see it being brought ingame. Always wanted something like this in games, now is a good time to make my mic work.

I will try to show you, what will happen, if you move your head closer to your sights.

Just face up to a wall with a distance of 2-3m and hold a glass in front of your face so you look with one eye on the wall and with the other other on the glass, now move your head forward and backwards. You will only notice that the glass is coming nearer to you but not the wall and this is just 2-3m in front of you... Now try this with 100m! The only thing that you will notice is coming nearer, is your rifle, nothing more...

I don't know why, but this is really getting on my nerves.. I don't know why... Really, it's coming out of me...    

You can't zoom with your own eyes, you just can move these little 10cm nearer to the target that's it. Or you can focus on somthing, but this will not move the target nearer to you.

This is not not in any way realistic. This was maybe added because of the resolution.

Just to make my points clear....

I don't know why so much shit was added to ArmA..

Now a mod can give me the next "warning level" for being off-topic again.

[W0lle 1048]

Mr_Tea

The whole community is crying and bitching since months because there are no news. Now there are some news and the complaints start again.

Lor, newbieboka, [moose]henk]

We asked you 3 times now to stay on-topic, no?

+1 WL for each of you for ignoring a moderators direction.

MisterXY

You're trying to see how far you can go?

likewise, +1 week post restriction for repeatedly ignoring our directions.

@Dslyecxi

See what you have done.

[MisterXY 0]

Mr_Tea

The whole community is crying and bitching since months because there are no news. Now there are some news and the complaints start again.  

Lor, newbieboka, [moose]henk, MisterXY

We asked you 3 times now to stay on-topic, no?

+1 WL for each of you for ignoring a moderators direction.

@Dslyecxi

See what you have done.

Can I get the full line please? It's just looks cool so I can edit my avatar for something better, thanks.

[smellyjelly 0]

I'm sure this has been asked before, is there a mute feature? Also, in the videos the voices were kind of quiet. Will there be an option to turn them up?

Just wondering though, I'm not trying to go offtopic, but I thought 1.09 was actually going to be released as 1.11 or 1.12...

[W0lle 1048]

Mr_Tea

The whole community is crying and bitching since months because there are no news. Now there are some news and the complaints start again.

Lor, newbieboka, [moose]henk, MisterXY

We asked you 3 times now to stay on-topic, no?

+1 WL for each of you for ignoring a moderators direction.

@Dslyecxi

See what you have done.

Can I get the full line please? It's just looks cool so I can edit my avatar for something better, thanks.

Of course.

[froggyluv 2130]

Man all I can say is i gotta join a clan and have some MP fun with some serious dudes - this looks frickin nice!

[binkster 0]

Omg that is frekin funny him running off and crying as his voice fades. Love the lip sync with your voice.

[mr.g-c 6]

Wow very nice! I like the direct-speaking thing very much!

That will give way new possibility's for dealing and communicating in my favorite map - in Sahrani Life....

Is it too late to give any suggestions for further improvements of this VoIP thing?

If not:

When hearing messages spoken over team/global/side chat, they should sound like spoken through a "real" radio device, i mean with all that "reduced" quality (could possibly even save more bandwidth), with that typical "radio device-noise" in the background (just like in Arma when "PapaBear" is calling) - you know what i mean?

Currently it sounds to much "vanilla like" and not very realistic when you hear spoken through those channels - just as when the speaking guy would stand next to you.

To all the "complainers":

Ever thought that not the entire team of the "Arma-Patch-Team" consists of Animation/AI/Anti-Cheat specialists?

So when there are capacities left, to realize something like this improved VoIP, why not implement it?

Regards, Christian

[Dallas 9]

Being an old Vietcong player, I certainly missed it's proximity based ingame voicechat with animated mouth movement. This is aboust as good news as I could desire. People who solely rely on TS, will defenently miss out on a huge chunk of ambience.

Will you be able to disable accents in the final version?

[fasad 1]

G'day Dslyecxi,

Have you noticed any change in server performance (FPS?) with the ArmA server also handling VOIP, compared to using two servers - one for ArmA and another to run Team Speak (or whatever you previously used)?

[Guest Ti0n3r]

Pointless post here, but thanks a lot for sharing the info and the vids! This looks like a reeeally nice addition

[dslyecxi 23]

Have you noticed any change in server performance (FPS?) with the ArmA server also handling VOIP, compared to using two servers - one for ArmA and another to run Team Speak (or whatever you previously used)?

We run ArmA with VOIP on as well as our normal TS server. I haven't noticed any performance difference yet. VOIP uses peer-to-peer networking when possible, which helps to cut down on any strain.

The real test will be when we get a full 50-60 ShackTac people onto the server once 1.09 goes live or beta or whatever the plan is. If it can handle that (which I am optimistic it will), we'll be golden.

[osmo 0]

I hope the following things have been fixed in VOIP as well:

1) VOIP volume should be possible to be adjusted separatedly from any other game volumes. Currently (1.08) it's almost impossible to hear others without being 1 meter away from each other and speaking very loudly. (mic boost on and recording volume max).

2) The voice quality in the Direct Talk should be better than the voice quality over the radio channels (as in real life). Direct talk voice quality could be similar to what Ventrilo's default (GSM 6.10) which soulds great even with 11KHz / 16bit, but still uses very low bandwidth.

I hope they have also made it possible to disable those annoying automatic voice messages, where even human players are reporting enemy contacts automatically. We in realistic co-op games would like to report contacts by ourselves, and AI could be silenced as well. This of could be a server option.

[SlipperyJim 0]

Well I downloaded and watched one of the videos and I really don't see what the big deal is. TS is good enough for me.

Thanks for the update but VOIP really doesn't excite me since we already have several programs that do a find job at it already. Waste of BIS' time IMHO and certainly not worth delaying the patch for over 6 months.

Moderators may not like me posting my opinion about the VOIP but at least I was on topic