I just created a little guide to explain some aspects of the audio wizard that are seemingly not documented well enough int he program itself.
The better Teamspeak?
Submitted by Diablo on 12 January, 2010 - 17:51
Since the perceived voice quality in teamspeak 3 is everything but optimal judging from our recent testing, I thought it is the best chance to check out something new: Mumble.
I have already set up a server for testing purposes. All you need to do is download the client and, after installation, run the audio wizard. The wizard is a bit more comlex than you might be used to from other programs (mostly necessary for better voice activation), so it is vital to read carefully all instructions and explanations to get the best experience. (you can find a small guide with additional help in the attached file)
Afterwards you can connect to the server, the IP is the same as our Teamspeak server, leave the port at the default. The password is the same as for Teamspeak, too.
I'd be happy if you join me in testing, since I am convinced that Mumble is a superior solution compared to Teamspeak. I will help where I can to solve problems that might occur.
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16 January, 2010 - 07:11
#2
Diablo
13 January, 2010 - 22:44
#3
CSeidel
*EDIT*
I deleted the text of my post since I just tried to re-install Mumble and this time it gave me a message that it works only with Windows XP SP2 and higher. So this is an explanation for my problems to run Mumble in my Win 2000 VM on my work-laptop.
I have no idea why this note didn't show up when I installed it the first time.
So if you have read my posting before - just forget it... 
15 January, 2010 - 18:38
#4
Steve H
its certainly an alternative to teamspeak, not sure its superior.
mumble isnt tolerant of lost packets or manages to lose packets.
it relies on the client to set his/her own codec based upon their own internet capability, which is fine if your have an understanding of such things.
16 January, 2010 - 00:13
#5
Diablo
Agreed on the packet loss, but it is the same for TS3. TS3 is just not open enough to tell you in the face, but it is definitely suffering in the same way from packet loss. The fact that the user can adjust the codec settings on the client side is a plus for mumble in my opinion, because it at least gives one a chance to tailor the setting to their needs. In TS3 you just have to stick with whatever audio quality you get with only minor tweaks possible for the audio input and output. Best example is the noise suppression which is tunable from off to between -15 and -60dB in 1 dB steps in mumble, in TS3 it is just on or off and in my case just does not suppress the noise enough.
In the end it still boils down to take your time and be really careful when running the audio wizard and follow the instructions to the letter, I cannot stress that enough. And you are given 3 presets for your outgoing codec quality settings, so you don´t really have to know anything about the underlying codec, it is sufficient if you know your upstream bandwidth. But the most important step is the audio levels tuning, being sloppy there will only get people complaining about high pitched surges comming from you, and the 2nd most important step is for the voice activity detection.
TS2 is a different story, but I was aiming for an alternative to TS3 mainly. I would really appreciate if when the time comes we do not switch to TS3 but to mumble, great part of the reasoning being the cross platform compatiblity. The Teamspeak team do a "great job" at implementing deprecated sound interfaces under linux which gives me awful headaches. Looks to me, they lack behind about 3-5 years in that area and their release cycle leaves me not overly confident. By the way, am I the only one to notice that the TS2 client we are currently using is still a release candidate? A perfect example that they don´t care about getting one thing right before they begin another one.