Which is the best voice communication for gaming?

Im currently on the market for a voice communication for playing with friends, maybe in the future to do a clan/guild. In the past there were very few options, but now there are more, so just looking for some feedback from gamers what do you prefer. Atm i just want to decide which one work better for gaming (latency, price, reliability, easy to use and manage are the main factors).

Ventrilo
Teamspeak
Mohawk
Mumble

 

i think vent and teamspeak are the best....it comes down to prefrence...unless you are doing something crazy and special than maybe one might be better for your needs. I prefer Teamspeak though. I would say Roger wilco is the worst ^^ lol i haven't even heard anyone mention that program since betas of cs....it was like 1999 or 2000 was the last time i heard anything about that program...googled it and it was bought by gamespy in 2001 ^^

 

Mumble is miles ahead of Teamspeak and Ventrilo in terms of voice quality and latency. The audio setup wizard is pretty much idiot-proof as well. It's also an extremely lightweight program. And the in-game overlay shows lists everyone in your channel and who's currently speaking in the corner of your display, which is pretty neat.

Murmur (the Mumble server software) is also pretty quick and painless to set up.

I just can't stand TS and Vent. I sometimes have to use them when I play with friends' clans, and it's painful after being used to Mumble. Everything feels so sluggish, and everyone sounds like crap.

I've never heard of Mohawk, let alone used it.

 

never heard of either but mumble sounds good. Though teamspeak could just be the codecs ur using.

 

Mumble is excellent. Low latency, great sound and compression, supports in-game overlays and positional audio, and open source to boot.

 

That's a great thing about Mumble; no need to worry about fiddling with codecs and quality settings. It's all done for you, and it sounds great.

I forgot about the positional audio.

For those of you who haven't used it, it basically simulates sound direction based on where your teammates physically are in-game. So, if your teammate is to your left and speaks, you'll hear it from your left ear. Really cool feature, although it can be disabled if you like. It works in a pretty big list of games, too.

 

Hmm I never had any quality issues with TS or Vent but I will have to check out Mumble now.

 

Teamspeak is better.

I spend my free time in TS/Vent alot and find TS is better quality, easier to organize and looks alot better.

 

Steam build in voice chat

 

I prefer Ventrilo over Teamspeak. Ventrilo, in my experience, is snappier, and more maintenance free than Teamspeak. Audio quality is better too from what I can tell. However, part of that might be because I'm more used to Ventrilo.

Mumble is something I stumbled onto a while back while doing some BGs with a few guys on WoW. I really liked how easy it was to set up. It took me all of 3 minutes to download, install, type in their server, and configure my settings. It was wonderful. If it were me, I'd look directly at Mumble first, and then Ventrilo, followed by Teamspeak.

Regarding pricing, I've never paid for a server, or configured access for one, so I can't be of much help in that arena.

 

Ventrilo voice quality demolishes Teamspeak or Mohawk. Mohawk was disappointing I thought, just bad all around. Teamspeak not bad for something cheap. Ventrilo if I had the choice.

I have not tried mumble yet. But open source sounds great to me.

 

you might of had a bad codec selected....the voice wuality is all based on your connection/the other persons connection and the codec. Vent and TS all use the same codecs.....there are like 15 to choose from.

 

I have had very good experiences with ventrilo, and while i tried teamspeak in the past, the quality of audio wasn't there, i like more the interface, but the final product just didn't deliver in the audio side, maybe TS3 is much better, i might give a shot, but with some of your comments im getting interested on Murmur, i just installed it and trying it on some free servers, kinda simplistic interface, but seems nice, maybe ill buy a small server and test it for couple of months and see if it can deliver what vent does on the usual basis with better latency.

 

I've been on TS with the highest codec available and it still sucks. This with the latest version. Speex sucks so much, doesn't matter how high TS3 cranks up Speex, it still sounds rubbish.

GSM that Ventrilo uses demolishes TS3. I know the latest Speex is newer, but it still sounds bad and GSM being pretty dated now, still sounds better.

 

weird i never noticed a differance between the two besides i like TS layout better. But mumble does sound cool...bookmarked it so i can check it later

 

I've always had best experience with TS over Vent. I think it's all in the codecs and setup as another poster stated. TS2 was cumbersome, but TS3 is very well laid out and easy to use.

 

Wow polls are backwards

I always thought TS3 was way better than vent, maybe TS2 was not, and Mumble is the best. However votes go the opposite way!

I never head of mumble this thread turned me onto it and now I have my own server for the NBR community, it really is a great program and I love all things open source.

New version 1.2.3RC is out just a few days ago and that is what I am running that adds even more neat/new features.

 

Been testing Mumble for a couple of weeks now, and it seems the best, i used Ventrilo for over 8 years, and teamspeak some, but mumble quality is by far superior, and the latency is much better. Now to find a good company to rent it....

 

lol I use skype

 

I've been popping in and out of the Mumble server every day here and there, but nobody's ever in!

Skype is decent for one-on-one talking, but it blows hard when it comes to multiple users, which is what Vent, TS and Mumble are made for. I pretty much only use Skype for webcam chat.

 

Im in there all night overnight usually. During the day though busy with the kids. You should see me on more during the weekend.

 

I've used vent and mumble. I far prefer mumble. The largest problem with mumble is that nobody's heard of it, so getting your guildies to switch to it can be an uphill battle.

 

Truthfully, in all the competitive FPS clans that I've played in, always used Teamspeak.

So my opinion might be biased, but that it was I would choose, never had a problem, always a good experience.

 

The best thing about Mumble and Teamspeak is you can host the servers yourself if you have the equipment and connection to handle it.

Ventrilo you can host your own server but only up to 8 connections on the free basic license. Any more than that and you either have to have a vent hosting company host it for you, or you have to pay and apply for a license to host it yourself. (with no guarantees your application will be accepted)

Overall I found the audio quality of Mumble to far exceed both Teamspeak and Ventrilo. You also have to love something that is open source.

kovboi hit this problem right on the head. Getting friends/guildies to switch is hard enough. Trying to use this for pugs or random people is impossible.

 

Haha yeah! Same here! In my opinion, I think it works fine with multiple persons. I've only gone as high as four people at once though (including myself).