Quick Question (Vent, Teamspeak, etc)

[KoreTwo]

Let's say i want to play dota/any other game with a small group of friends, and we would like to be able to communicate with mics.

Which software would be best to use apart from skype? I've looked at the ventrillo and team speak websites, but they both involve servers which quite frankly i didnt read up much on, but sound like an awful lot of work jsut to be in a conference call basically.

Any replies are appreciated, thanks

[LordMorvan]

I suggest you use TeamSpeak. It's better in my opinion.
Use the search function and look for servers with good ping which are not password protected and empty, there are hundreds of those.

[Eleemosynary]

Hello,

I used to use TeamSpeak all the time; adjusting servers is quite easy too. At first I was like you, pessimistic, but it turned out to be fairly simple.

[Snowi]

Ventrilo and Teamspeak are the best available. I prefer Ventrilo, but I use Teamspeak the most. There are probably a few friends of yours that have acces to a server and can give you the details.

[TaysChreNN]

Ventrilo has always been my preference.

[Kiezel]

Skype,
The rest seems to have a delay of 0.5 to 1.5 when you speak, or has trouble to notice when they should allow the voice communication (from x db) but that often seems to bug.

Skype is more RAM intensive then the rest though.

[TaysChreNN]

For me Skype has terrible sound quality - a good ventrilo server has next to no delay in my experience (these servers wouldn't be free, though)...

[Snowi]

Indeed. A proper Ventrilo server has similair delay and yet better sound quality than Skype.

[Kiezel]

They never have been better for me when it comes to delay. And never ever got any close to skype quality.

The only problem you can have with skype, at least here, is that is transmit every sound, you mouse clicks, keyboards, from your soundboxes (if you use them, I never use a headset due my tinnitus and hyperacussis)

[EaTs.]

i made the experience, that a good configured ventrilo server is better than teamspeak ever will. the bad thing: you dont have as much features in ventrilo as you have in teamspeak and a free ventrilo server is only up to 8 persons.

setting up a server isnt that hard, and there are many good tutorials on the inet (show google some love), but its quiet a bit of work.
if you dont want to set up a server, there are many free servers out there. give them a try

i heared alot good stuff about "mumble". its a voice program like vent or ts2, but never used it before...

- eats

[TheBeatles-]

if you arnt gonna use skype which is free and has the best quality and no delay compared to other methods, use vent, but dont bother unless you get urself a nice server because you will have 5 second delay on ur speach and static up the ass. Every person iv convinced to use skype over vent has never gone back. Also iv only ran into one person ever who uses TS. So im gonna assume the order is skype, vent, TS, some unknown thing.

[mister[xy]]

I usually use Teamspeak. During my WoW time i had to use ventrillo because my guild used it. Its alright, but there have been some weird complications with finding an old version of it, because their server didnt run the new one, and i couldnt speak without push-to-talk.

Never had problems with teamspeak. Many people know a teamspeak server, where u can go. I myself know about 10 servers where I can join with my friends. And if u dont know about a server, finding a public one is simple. Setting up ts is easy and uncomplicated. The quality is ok. Your voice may sound a little strange at first but its easy to understand everybody and there are no nasty side noises.