Voice Comms or Team Speak?

[pryzm]

In game voice quality is appalling, to make it worse they add a garbled effect over the voice comms. You will find teamspeak so much better its not even comparable.

[Gorf]

Teamspeak... 100%

Absolutely.

The scratchy, distorted audio of voice comms is quite fun and authentic for the first couple of wings, but begins to grate after that.

TS offers push-to-talk, which means I can cough, sneeze, sip wine (OK gulp) or get a matrimonial interruption without the rest of the wing hearing.

[Flip]

You can mute the voice comm's mike, you know. That being said, I'd also chose TS any day.

[VictorSkali]

...

[Loriath]

I too where glasses. Headsets have for the most part bothered me. Even headphones since I was young gave me issues.

I used to buy cheap headsets. On ear behind the head Logitech were my faves. Light cheap, and no pressure on my ears or glasses. One of the problems I had with most was not only the pressure but the materials of the ear pads. Most caused sweating and were uncomfortable if they were on ear types, or didn't quite fit if they were over the ear.

Earlier this year I broke my cheap behind the head style set and discovered that I could no longer get them here. I looked at my options and found a nice pair of over ear that fit my needs.

The Logitech G230. Still inexpensive but fit me extremely well. Over ear and large enough with breathable material that does not give me the sweats. Soft padding enough to keep the pressure on my glasses light making it comfortable for long periods. The EarPods are removable, washable, and replaceable. Yes they are wired, but the cable is nice and long as well as not being plastic. The covering is material of some sort.

The sound is quite good in my opinion, but that is subjective. They have several models based on the same design, from my inexpensive one to wireless, to 7.1 surround wireless.

For VoIP apps, the mic is quite good. Folds up out of the way and is flexible to allow you to position it well. It picks up sound good enough that my wife cost me a sidewinder making fun of me using voice attack and repeated my "boost" command putting me into a station.

I have been on team speak with it and no one has said I sound muffled unless I forgot to flip the mic down. TS is my preference over in game though I have had a chance to try that as well. In the past I have used the Curse client and a couple of others, but TS seems to be the most popular. I do have to use an older client do to some conflicts with saitek software.

I don't know what the game console comma are like, but I imagine that it's quite similar. The only problem with TS for me is that my wife goes to bed before me and our office is in the next room. The talking keeps her up so I tend to use it only on weekends.

I don't think many people use in game comms in any game. They seem to all use TS or similar.

[Dudley]

Err, actually, I like the ingame voice comms - it gives a "reality" feel to it.
Well, that's just my two penneth (two cents).

[Loriath]

You can that sort of feel to Teamspeak. Even the WW2 squawks on closing of the mic can be added to increase immersion. It is done only on your side so it doesn't effect anyone else.

TS has a lot of add-ons.

[DexterMaximus]

Teamspeak... 100%

This is the correct answer!

No one, in the history of mankind would EVER use the ingame chat! It is awful!
You would be better served using 2 tin cans and a bit of string!

[DexterMaximus]

Re Glasses!

I use the TS iphone app!

Its actually pretty good, plus no need for a headset! Just leave the iphone on the side!

Though the standard mobius channel seems to have pretty low volume comapred to others?

But it is still a good program!


But if you have a head set, you need an ED tracker!
One day, when I am not so lazy, I will build one!

[Roger Wilco Jr]

To each his own opinion, I suppose.

I've now set up and used team speak and voice comms. I enjoy the voice comms and I don't think they sound terrible at all. I used to be a private pilot and can say that it does simulate actually using a radio, although it may be a bit too "spacey/NASA" sounding. With that said, I've still only used them about 10 times. For the casual user I think it's definitely the way to go. Assuming a random player you meet even has a mic, at least they won't have to have installed another program. But if you are heavily into wings or just want to be in the chat rooms all the time you are playing, which isn't me, then team speak is a must.

I just don't think it's fair to say A is 100% crap and B is 100% best. Now, if voice comms didn't work, which I believe didn't work reliably for a long while, that would be another matter. But since they both work, it's just a matter of your requirements and tastes.