• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Voice now needed in games?

criccio

Fully Equipped
2FA
Joined
Mar 26, 2008
Messages
14,688
I have never really gotten into multiplayer games that much, and I like to play my games with my nice set up Swan M200MKII monitors, so I never got one of those headsets with a mic. Well I just picked up L4D and TF2, and it seems everyone is always talking to eachother, and able to communicate to get things done.

I want to get some kind of mic, but definitely DONT want headphones. (i like my speakers...)

What are my options?
 
Just keep one thing in mind when using speakers with a mic.... feedback. I don't know a work-around, but it is really annoying to be in a game where everything is echoed in the background or there are "audio artifacts" (distortion, etc.) going on because of speakers.... just my 2 cents.

Maybe there is an easy way to prevent this (some forumite might know).... if you can, your teammates will thank you.
 
Just keep one thing in mind when using speakers with a mic.... feedback. I don't know a work-around, but it is really annoying to be in a game where everything is echoed in the background or there are "audio artifacts" (distortion, etc.) going on because of speakers.... just my 2 cents.

Maybe there is an easy way to prevent this (some forumite might know).... if you can, your teammates will thank you.

Most newer audio drivers should have noise cancellation, and Acoustic Echo cancellation. I know the Realtek HD drivers do.
 
Click me.

And please, please don't be "that" guy. The one with his speakers on...the one with his speakers on...the one with his speakers on...the one with his speakers on...

Maybe there is an easy way to prevent this (some forumite might know).... if you can, your teammates will thank you.
The solution!!
 
I would rather be "that guy" then use headphones. Thanks.

I bought nice speakers for a reason.
 
I bought nice speakers for a reason.

I use my bluetooth earpiece for my voice comm as i have my game audio go over the speakers and the voice sending and receiving using the earpiece. Most good bluetooth pieces dont pickup noise more then a foot from your head. Best of both worlds.
 
I use my bluetooth earpiece for my voice comm as i have my game audio go over the speakers and the voice sending and receiving using the earpiece. Most good bluetooth pieces dont pickup noise more then a foot from your head. Best of both worlds.

Thats actually a good idea, but my pc doesn't have BT, nor do I have a BT headset... lol

Anyway, I picked up that Zalman mic for $11 shipped from Provantage.
 
I would rather be "that guy" then use headphones. Thanks.

I bought nice speakers for a reason.

have fun talking to yourself then when everyone mutes you and your "nice speakers" causing feedback. seriously, if you're gonna annoy other people in game with feedback, just don't even use a mic. if you can figure out the settings to avoid it, more power to you.
 
If you're playing any Valve game (L4D or TF2 or CS:S), use a small script that you can bind to your voice button, that mutes the speakers while you hold the button down. That's what I do because I love my speakers too :D
 
If you're playing any Valve game (L4D or TF2 or CS:S), use a small script that you can bind to your voice button, that mutes the speakers while you hold the button down. That's what I do because I love my speakers too :D

oh snap

post this script, please! :D
 
If you're playing any Valve game (L4D or TF2 or CS:S), use a small script that you can bind to your voice button, that mutes the speakers while you hold the button down. That's what I do because I love my speakers too :D

How do I go about doing that?
 
I'm surprised no one has suggested using the PS2 USB headset.

It's a mic and single earphone with USB connectivity (i.e. it recognizes as it's own audio device separate from the soundcard). I've used it with XFire which allowed me to set both incoming and outgoing voice chat to the headset and the game audio still comes from the speakers. No feedback that way and you'd have to have the speakers up pretty loud and/or sit right in front of them for the mic to pick them up once you set your levels.
 
oh snap

post this script, please! :D

Indeed.

Code:
alias "+vox" "volume 0; +voicerecord"
alias "-vox" "-voicerecord; volume 1"
bind "BUTTON" +vox
Replace BUTTON with your mic key, V or SHIFT or whatever. If you only want to lower the volume while speaking, replace the 0 with a decimal such as 0.2 or 0.5

This only works in Valve games of course. Put it in your autoexec.cfg for the game (you can create this file in the cfg/ directory of the game if it's not there already.) That path is something like C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\left 4 dead\left4dead\cfg
 
Thanks!

Is this where that file should be?

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\left 4 dead\left4dead\cfg
 
bind that same button to deathscream, because we all love hearing zoey do her deathscream all the time
 
I have never really gotten into multiplayer games that much, and I like to play my games with my nice set up Swan M200MKII monitors, so I never got one of those headsets with a mic. Well I just picked up L4D and TF2, and it seems everyone is always talking to eachother, and able to communicate to get things done.

I want to get some kind of mic, but definitely DONT want headphones. (i like my speakers...)

What are my options?

Since your new to voice in mp games, here is a list of things you shouldn't do in voice, have fun;)

http://hellforge.gameriot.com/blogs...-and-Voice-Chat-20-Things-You-Should-Never-Do
 
I would rather be "that guy" then use headphones. Thanks.

I bought nice speakers for a reason.

"That Guy" usually gets muted by everyone because when they talk there is just so much background noise.

I have very good desktop monitors but I do find that using my Sennhieser headset allows me to hear exactly where someone is located.
 
Since your new to voice in mp games, here is a list of things you shouldn't do in voice, have fun;)

http://hellforge.gameriot.com/blogs...-and-Voice-Chat-20-Things-You-Should-Never-Do
11.Tell new people that “if you hug the Witch, she will calm down”. Watch from a minimum safe distance.

That list is golden! Although some of those things in list definitely can be done well, such as playing in character. Nothing's funnier IMO than Zoey screaming like a woman in a man's voice no less.

"That Guy" usually gets muted by everyone because when they talk there is just so much background noise.

I have very good desktop monitors but I do find that using my Sennhieser headset allows me to hear exactly where someone is located.
There was a guy w/ his speakers on last night, but thankfully L4D does have the option to mute a player, at least in the lobby. If you can get it to work w/ the script or that nice USB Logitech mic then more power to ya. But you might also be missing out on the arguably better positioning a good headphone can provide. F.E.A.R. Combat on an X-Fi comes to mind.
 
I use my bluetooth earpiece for my voice comm as i have my game audio go over the speakers and the voice sending and receiving using the earpiece. Most good bluetooth pieces dont pickup noise more then a foot from your head. Best of both worlds.

If the game options menus support this natively it would be easy to figure out how. I'm starting mic shopping but I just plugged in my QuickCam Fusion to take a look at how L4D (for instance) maps mic devices - nothing happens and there's no options in-game to change the mapping that I found.

I saw a thread indicating that it follows the selected windows recording device. That's kind of annoying since the QC is only connected and the background software only run when I need it. I'd rather specify in the game. Windows doesn't usually like default devices coming and going like that, but it does work.

I still see no way of routing voice comm output to an alternate device - link? Per-game config hack?
 
i wear my headset but i just tell windows to use my normal speakers and just turn the mic on. it's fine and nobody ever says the mic is shitty sounding. it's just a 30 dollar pair from logitech headset.
 
i wear my headset but i just tell windows to use my normal speakers and just turn the mic on. it's fine and nobody ever says the mic is shitty sounding. it's just a 30 dollar pair from logitech headset.

That doesn't cover the part where RECEIVED comms go to the headset instead of the speakers. So all the game sounds are produced in 5.1 (or whatever you have) on speakers but all voice comms are routed to the headset.

That's the part I'm specifically asking about. If open-air design, this is an interesting idea.
 
have fun talking to yourself then when everyone mutes you and your "nice speakers" causing feedback. seriously, if you're gonna annoy other people in game with feedback, just don't even use a mic. if you can figure out the settings to avoid it, more power to you.

Eh? I've got a 5.1 sound system hooked up to my PC in my livingroom. I play it LOUD and have a desktop mic-- all modern sound cards have noise cancellation technology built in. Not once has anyone said a word about feedback because it is non-existent. Just use push-to-talk.
 
That doesn't cover the part where RECEIVED comms go to the headset instead of the speakers. So all the game sounds are produced in 5.1 (or whatever you have) on speakers but all voice comms are routed to the headset.

That's the part I'm specifically asking about. If open-air design, this is an interesting idea.

other players voices come over my 2.1 speakers. nothing comes out of my headset speakers.
 
Yah I had that problem on ventrilo until I figured out I could set it to turn off the speakers when the voice was pressed.
 
Back
Top