Teamspeak servers now offer you the option to change the codec of individual channels. “Why would I want to change the codec and what is it exactly?” you migh ask. Well, there are many reasons, but here’s some information that might help you decide for yourself whether this is something that youw ould need to do. The following codec run-down comes direct from Teamspeak’s Official FAQ:

“Quality: (best quality comes first)

Modem
Speex 9.3 is still quite good quality. Limit your download to 10 KBit. Note that if you want to game its way to high a setting, go as low as you can bare (Speex 5.2, or even Speex 3.4, limit your download to 6 respectivly 4).”

Given this information, I am sure that you may have already thought of one or two reasons for adjusting your codec. The next step, if you decide that you do need to alter the codec of a given channel, is to make the change. Only administrators of a server will be able to make such a change.

1. Right click on the channel that you wish to change the codec for.

2. Select “Edit channel” from the menu that appears.

3. Choose the desired codec from the drop-down menu.

4. Click “apply”.

…and you are done! You don’t need to restart the server or anything so it makes rather easy to test the differences between various codecs.

One important thing to remember when setting the channel codec is that the computers of some of your players may not process the codec that you prefer the same way that your computer does. Be sure to ask your players to let you know if they have any issues anytime that you change the codec so that you can adjust it accordingly.

That’s pretty much all you need to know on the subject. Don’t worry about messing up your server since you can always set the codec back. Go ahead, get out there, and give a few different codecs a whirl on your Teamspeak server!

Tags: Teamspeak Server, Teamspeak Servers

When creating a clan, guild, or other group of individuals that require the use of a voice server for communication, a major question that you need to ask yourself is what type of voice server should I pick? Currently your primary choices will be between a Ventrilo Server or a Teamspeak Server (though individuals who like to stay on the latest edge of gaming software may also opt for Mumble Servers if you don’t mind dealing with newer software that still has a few kink to be worked out).

In this article we will set Mumble aside for now as it won’t be a real contender until they release they release the v2.0 of their software (which should be coming soon!). Instead we will be dealing with the two most popular choices: Ventrilo and Teamspeak.

So what are the main differences between Teamspeak Server Hosting and Ventrilo Server Hosting you ask? Well, without getting into specifics, I’ll lay out their major points below:

Teamspeak Hosting:
- Voice quality is not the greatest, but it is pretty good and often alot better than the voice service that is built-in to many games, such as Counter-Strike: Source or World of Warcraft.

- Easy to use for both it’s clients and it’s administrators.

- Easy to configure for it’s administrators. Administrative options are very basic for Teamspeak with minimal computer experience to operate and configure.

Ventrilo Hosting:
- Voice quality is very clean and clear.

- Moderately simple to use for it’s clients, but administrating a Ventrilo server requires quite a bit more fiddling and a moderate amount of computer experience to use.

- Configuring a Ventrilo Server is a bit more difficult than Teamspeak, but the voice quality is often worth it to many individuals. Luckily it has a good learning curve, so once you take the time to play with all of Ventrilo’s various administrative features, it’s pretty easy from there on out.

Aside from these major points, both Teamspeak Servers and Ventrilo Servers are relatively the same. Both require very little computer power to run and don’t require a fast internet speed to operate properly. Both are also fairly small and easy to install.

This information should help you pick the right brand voice service for you and your fellow members’ needs if you are having trouble making a decision. Also, it never hurts to ask your members if they have a preference of voice software. With all of this mind, if you still find yourself having trouble making a decision, then that’s when it’s time to flip a coin, as at that point either decision you make is going to be a good one.

There are thousands of things that can go wrong with every application, but some just aren’t your fault.  You’ve checked your settings, you’ve made sure your headphones are plugged in, but every time you try to log on to your favorite teamspeak server it cuts you off.  Here we look at some common errors and let you know when it’s not your problem, when it is, and what to do about both.

“No reply from server”

This one certainly sounds like they’re in the wrong - why isn’t the server replying to you?  You have to remember that while these error messages are true, they don’t always mean what you think: “no reply from server” could mean that the server isn’t there at all, or it’s running an SMTP database, or it’s underneath four meters of water and can’t really deal with your audio-exchange request right now.

The most common cause of this problem is the simple typo which leaves your client looking in the wrong place for the right server.  Another is that the teamspeak server you’re looking for isn’t there anymore.  Smaller servers, especially clan voicechat servers, may flicker on and off depending on whether they can pay for them that month.

“Got a bad response from server”

How dare the server give you a bad response!  But this isn’t the server being rude, or rather, not being any ruder than a bouncer normally is when you try to get into a club wearing the wrong clothes.  This response means that you’re using one version of teamspeak, the server is using another, and never the twain shall meet.  If you’ve just installed the software you’re likely using RC2, meaning that this address must be the antiquated RC1 version. Solution?  Go somewhere that isn’t using stone-age voicechat technology.

“Codec not supported”

Another case of concise but unclear wording obscuring the meaning.  It could be interpreted as the server’s inability to support your audio codec, one among many options, but the fact is it’ll be because your codecs are out of date.  You’re trying to connect to a modern communications net by bashing your stone-ax and lionskin loincloth against them and the server is having none of it.  Leave, update your codecs and drivers, and come back.

“Error Getting List”

You’re looking for a new place to play, but when you click on the web server list you don’t get a list.  You get an error.  An “error getting list”, so to speak.

This one genuinely isn’t your fault.  Your poor little desktop program can’t find the list because there’s no list to find - something has gone wrong at Teamspeak central and you’ll just have to wait until they can fix it.  It normally doesn’t take long, though in the meantime you may be forced to extreme measures like “talking to people in real life.”

Random Reboots

When using Teamspeak your desktop reboots itself at random.  To say that this is mildly frustrating is like saying a thermonuclear explosion in a volcano is a bit hot - especially since it has a tendency to leave your Frigate unmanned and unpowered with enemy raiders coming in (or whatever).

This, also, really isn’t your fault.  Microsoft were good to their word of “no more bluescreens of death” promise with Windows XP, but in a doublespeak manner of which the finest political spin doctor would be proud.  When Windows feels it might end up in a BSOD it automatically reboots the system - rather than “generating an error message” or “telling the user what’s actually going on.”

To fix this go into Settings in your Control Panel and click “System/Advanced/System and Recovery/Settings” and in “System Failure” uncheck the “Automatically Restart” checkbox.

Tags: Teamspeak Server, Teamspeak Servers

So you’ve got a team and you want to speak to them? You might want to use TeamSpeak then. (It’s also handy if you just want to get in on this “talking to people around the world without paying phone companies a million dollars a second” thing). And you’re in luck, because a TeamSpeak client is entirely free and with a simple TeamSpeak server you can host hundreds of people.

TeamSpeak channels provide conference calls for the computer generation, without all the convoluted keypressing and cost of a regular phone system. But once you’ve downloaded your client, how do you get up and chatting?

Finding somewhere to talk.

When first booting up a TeamSpeak client, you’re faced with this rather intimidatingly blank screen. Even moving across to “Connection > Connect” leaves things looking very barren, without even a “New server” button in sight.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Teamspeak client, Teamspeak Servers

Submitted by: John Ramirez
(submit your story)

We hadn’t played or hung out together since the last season ended so some of my clan mates and I met at one of the local restaurants for dinner. We played catch up and talked and laughed about how last season ended up. We made it to the finals in class and lost in over time. Second place wasn’t bad and we earned the right to play in the top tier of our league. No more 2nd tier trash talk about us… The reality of it was this game was in the mature stages of it’s life cycle and was on it’s way out. We had decided to move on to the next game but we had lost Benny who used to host our VOIP Server. He was a cool cat but got married and called it quits. I never understood why you would name your kid Benny, but he had a good shot in FPS games (around 32% accuracy) and he had a geared warlock and warrior. (His lock’s DPS was as mad as it gets in the game but he couldn’t tank a bunny rabbit with his warrior if his life depended on it!)

So the aging debate cropped up again….Are we going to go with a Teamspeak Server or a Ventrilo Server? There were 6 of us there and we were split down the middle. Half wanted to go with a Ventrilo Server and half wanted to go with a Teamspeak Server. One or two of us on each side actually had admin and setup experience with each product. The rest were from that bunch that had their opinion about which one they felt was better, didn’t know squat, but could boldly say the other product was and had no technical knowledge to back either product up. We’ll call this group “Category 2″.

So here is our clan all together hanging out and having dinner which happens never even though we are all local; and this…..is the dinner topic of the night. Where was our bonehead leader to help us hash this out and make a decision? He can’t shoot for crap anyway so we always make him the engineer, but he is a great strat guy and he’s also the priest leader in the RPG game we play. Plus he is your undisputed main tank of all main tank healers. In either case he couldn’t make it because he had to study for an exam or some other lame excuse. Alright we’re split down the middle so we order another round of queso, nachos, wings, and start to discuss the pros and cons of each. We quickly determine that Category 2 as we discussed above, didn’t really have an opinion of their own. They just voted for which ever one someone told them was best or what they thought was best because such and such team that was really good used it. So we quickly nullified their votes because they couldn’t even tell you about the interface of either product. They just know that someone gave them an IP address, a port, and a password and they were talking with their teammates. We called them noobs, all laughed, and munched on our appetizers. For the record the 2nd round of appetizers was our dinner because we were stuffed afterwards.

We had a competition at hand and a winner had to be decided. Were we going to go with Ventrilo Server or Teamspeak Server? Category 2 was already eliminated so we only had 3.5 contributors left. We started to discuss the idea of querying the internet for which one was the best but we decided that that would yield millions of results in people expressing opinions on which one was best (read: millions of Category 2). We started listing the pros of each one. Teamspeak Server was easy to set up, permissions were straight forward, had a lot of codecs to choose from, and was an all around solid and stable product. Ventrilo Server had stepped up their game and had come up with a slightly smoother looking interface, had text to computer voice feature if you wanted to mask your voice or you couldn’t speak (this feature always annoyed me), and had a very granular setup so you could tailor your server to host multiple games with multiple rooms per game. “You can do that with Teamspeak Server also!”, I argued. I didn’t want to use Ventrilo Server because I was a die hard Teamspeak Server admin, user, and I wasn’t a fan of the computerized voice that Ventrilo Server used. Teamspeak Server had a hot\important sounding ladies’ voice in it when you or someone else joined the server. Ventrilo Server could use it’s computerized voice to tell you who just joined so you didn’t have to ask. Back and forth we went for almost an hour. This clan has played together for almost 3 years and on our 5th dinner outing together we get snagged up on this topic?!

Teamspeak Server sound sample - Tough to beat!

Ventrilo Server sound sample - Sounds like you are playing the game Myst. You can also choose the robot voice but it pales in comparison to the one above.

Screenshot of Ventrilo client running on Windows Vista.

It seemed that we were at a stalemate and were going to be undecided when Shelly played an evil trump card. “Ventrilo Server gave away a Corvette at Quakecon this year!” she exclaimed. Everyone backed her up and was oohing, ahhing, and agreeing with her. I even lost my 2.5 supporters momentarily in the Corvette gold rush. I needed to implement damage control quick! Somehow 3 of us got tickets to win the Vette in the giveaway so we had a 3 in 200 chance to win but some guy in Houston, Texas won it. “Well none of us won it and it was probably an act of desperation to win over some gamers anyway! Ventrilo Server was probably so far behind in market share that they had to do something drastic like that to compete.”, I retorted. This cooled the flames for the time being, put my 2.5 supporters back on the fence yet still leaning towards the Vette contributor, and sadly earned me some Category 2 points. Most gamers were suspicious of gimmicks and fluff to begin with so this bought me a little time. How could she play that card?! For starters she was a super hot red head with boyfriend, our third best shot shooting around 34%, used to be a member of an all girl clan that used to dominate at LAN events, but her druid was pvp specced which means she couldn’t heal well and her pvp was mediocre anyway. Her boyfriend was terrible at games so he didn’t hang out with us or play with us. He was a chemist or something. Somehow she held some sway over some of our on-the-fence clan members. If I didn’t pull something out of my hat soon we were going to be using a Ventrilo Server and that was that.

I felt like the narrator in the song “Devil went down to Georgia” making a pact with the devil because I was about to pull the trump card of all trump cards out and slap it down on the table. Now if you’re not familiar with this song, I don’t recommend that you go look for it and download it because it’s a genre of music I am not overly proud of but it had a good story. I recommended to the group innocently, “Let’s call Mr. Know-it-all. He can give us the code level technical details of both products and help us decide.” I knew Shelly was trying to use her gaze to turn me into stone but I also knew he would be able to give us all the facts and help us draw the line plus I was wearing my shirt of +12 resist to paralysis. Shelly agreed and encouraged the idea as if it was her own. A few members also agreed that this was the thing to do and a few slowly put their heads down and stared at their plates but agreed. To give you a little background on Mr. Know-it-all who I will refer to as “MKIA” from here on out….MKIA is one of those guys that doesn’t have any college experience at all but earns comfortably over six figures, knows 2-3 programming languages, is an authority in 3-4 major business server products, and has more money and cars\toys than they were giving away at Quakecon - but is mediocre at games. He shoots down in the mid 20s and has zero battle smarts but wants to give out all the orders. You play with him, but pretty much ignore him when he is trying to give direction in-game because you know it’s a bust. However when it comes down to technology, software, and hardware he is the go to person because he makes it his job to know as much as the people who designed the products do. I’m pretty sure that’s his part time job because that’s all he does when he is not at work. When a CIO or CEO of a corporation questions his technical solution and asks who he asks when he doesn’t know the answer to a problem, he replies “I pray”. He’s one of the few people I know that can say something like that to an executive and not get fired.

I give MKIA a ring….of course he can be here in ten minutes. Now the reason a few people hung their head low when MKIA was mentioned is because when there is a topic up for discussion he will talk about it for as long and deep as you let him. Once you’re locked into conversation with him he won’t let you go. He’s got you in his tractor beam and he’s uploading information into your mind as fast as the Matrix front side bus will allow. This isn’t one of those flip-the-switch and get out easily tractor beams either. You have to distract him and casually slip away. MKIA shows up and we tell him what the debate is as he starts in on our appetizers. MKIA explains that both Teamspeak Server and Ventrilo Server operate on the same technology in the sense that they both are VOIP Server products and for all intents and purposes are not very different from each other in function. Then he starts getting deeper and goes over a few of our heads when he goes into hardware overhead, codecs available, features, permissions, clarity of voice, and rambles on for the better part of another hour as he orders another round of food.

Some of the Codecs available in a Teamspeak Server.

Both servers run on Windows, Linux, and the Mac although Teamspeak Server does not have an official release for the Mac it does work. Ventrilo Server has a very versatile setup that allows you to communicate between channels, text to voice, and many other configurable features. While Teamspeak Server does not have quite the same functionality, it is a stable and reliable VOIP Server. It is also very easy to setup and configure for a server administrator or user. When you put them both on the stand head to head, they are virtually the same product. You just have to decide if you want to spend your time playing with the features in the client or use the client to talk to your teammates while playing a game. Teamspeak Server as stated above overall is slightly easier to use and navigate. At the end of the day MKIA explains that it is a matter of preference as both of these products are very high quality and can be tailored to meet a variety of needs. The factor that tips the scale in favor for Teamspeak Server is the wide array of server or client side codecs that can be configured. With high bandwidth connections quickly becoming available all over the world, you can find yourself playing with others in Australia, Brazil, the UK, Israel, Russia, and wherever else you can think of. Those with fast remote connections will still encounter latency when connecting to your location but you can configure the codecs to meet their needs and still be able to hear each other with clarity. So the dark horse Teamspeak Server edges ahead and comes out on top. MKIA continued to ramble on and on while he finished all the food and we voted on and chose Teamspeak Server as our solution. It was a relief to have finally decided and it was also a relief that MKIA finally stopped talking. Matter of fact, somewhere during the voting process he had quietly slipped out and stuck us with the bill for the food he ordered too. Morale of the story as it were from our perspective? Play your trump cards carefully and go with Teamspeak Server!

TeamSpeak is a kind of Voice Over IP program. It allows you to hook a microphone up to your computer and talk to other people, almost as if you were on the phone with them. TeamSpeak also allows for you to be talking to multiple people at once, in a kind of conference call setting. TeamSpeak is free to download and use, but if you want to run your own TeamSpeak server you’ll generally have to pay for it, though there are some options for a free TeamSpeak server.

You won’t be able to do much with TeamSpeak unless you have a server you want to connect to. So, assuming that’s your goal, the first thing you’ll need to do is open up the ‘Connection’ drop down menu and then select ‘Connect’. A new menu will pop up and you’ll have to right click where it says ‘Servers’, then select ‘Add Server’. This will bring up a new menu that allows you to add a TeamSpeak server to your server list.

When adding a new server the first thing you should do is type in a name for the server, something that will help you identify it. Where it says ‘Server Address’ is where you will have to input the host name or IP of the TeamSpeak server you are trying to connect to. This is something you will have to get from the owner of the TeamSpeak server, or from someone else who connects to the server. Where it says ‘Nickname’ you should type in what you want to be identified as when you are in the TeamSpeak server. This can be anything from your actual name, to your online moniker of choice.

If you have never joined a server before you may have to connect as Anonymous and then register with the server once you have entered it. The TeamSpeak server owner, or an admin, will have to allow you to register. If you already are registered with a server that requires it, then type in your ‘Login name’ and your ‘Password’ before saving this server to your server list. Once you’re done putting in all of the information TeamSpeak will store it for you indefinitely, so you can easily connect to all your servers.

By default TeamSpeak will be running in voice activation mode. This means that once you are in a server TeamSpeak will automatically transmit anything you say to the rest of the server. To turn this option off, and have TeamSpeak only transmit sound when you push a hotkey, go to ‘Sound Settings’ under the ‘Settings’ drop down menu. Select ‘Push to Talk’ and then hit ‘Set’. Now, the next key you press will be bound as your hotkey and people will only be able to hear you when you are holding down that hotkey.

TeamSpeak is a very useful program and can be used for anything, from work to online games. The intricacies of the program can seem a little daunting at first but by following these steps you’ll know everything that you need to in order to connect to a TeamSpeak server and start talking.

Tags: Teamspeak Screenshots, Teamspeak Server, Teamspeak Servers, Teamspeak setup

How to make the most of your gaming sound experience

You have seen it before on the streets of the city where you live. Someone is driving a beat-up car, but they have low-profile tires and shiny chrome rims that are worth more than the car itself.

There are also the people who buy the best sporting equipment and the most expensive associated clothing, but when they shoot, swing or throw they look ridiculous. These two scenarios have one thing in common – no matter how much you dress something up, if the internal aspects are not sound, the results are going to be disappointing.

The same thing goes for online gaming. Whether you are using the latest Ventrilo or Teamspeak servers, if your computer’s sound capabilities are not up to date, you are going to get an inferior audio quality. Ventrilo and Teamspeak servers will help you maximize the sound for your online gaming, but you can also do some things to help.

Here is a look at ways to get the best sound quality from your computer for online gaming:

• Be careful when upgrading to newer audio/video players – We all want the latest tools and gadgets on our computer, but be careful before you immediately upgrade your Windows Media Player or QuickTime. Sometimes upgrading to the latest version of one of these programs can change the codecs on your computer. Audio codecs transfer the sound into a data packet as part of your VoIP application. Upgrading to a newer QuickTime or similar program can alter your computer’s codecs. If you have upgraded your QuickTime or other application, make sure your codecs are intact by clicking on the “Preferences” tab, then “Advanced.” If your codecs have been disabled, you can enable them this way so your Ventrilo or Teamspeak server will be able to deliver the best gaming experience possible.

• Look into a new sound card – Many people just accept the audio quality of their computer because “that’s the way it came and I have to live with it.” Without having to buy a new computer, you can improve the audio quality of your online gaming. Before upgrading your sound card, you need to know what kind of card your computer has, and whether it is a part of the motherboard or if it is inserted into an adapter slot. You can find out the sound card info on your computer by clicking on “Start,” “Control Panel,” “Sounds,” Speech,” and then “Audio Devices.” From there, you can click on “Hardware.” That will show you the type of sound card you have. A new sound card will have to be installed by removing the case, plugging in the card and then downloading the associated software. Although it may sound difficult, you will be amazed at the improved audio quality for your online gaming.

Tags: Improving Teamspeak Sound Quality, Improving Ventrilo Sound Quality

You’re in an online gaming battle and the point of attack is about to hit. Just as you are typing some words of strategy to your teammates, you get blasted!

Eliminating the challenge of typing information while trying to maneuver through an online game is the reason behind the development of TeamSpeak servers. TeamSpeak is becoming the standard for online gaming communication, but there are other VoIP options that are on the market.

How do you know which type of server is the best fit for your gaming needs? What separates TeamSpeak servers from others that are available?

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Teamspeak downloads, Teamspeak Prices, Teamspeak Server Hosting, Teamspeak Servers, Teamspeak v. Ventrilo

You can not set your own codec as user. Instead, the client automaticly conforms to the codec that is set for the channel you are in. So, if the channel is set to CELP 5.1, you will send and recieve CELP 5.1 encoded data.

So if you want a different codec, you need to edit the channel options.

Read more articles about Teamspeak Servers

Tags: Change Teamspeak codec as a user, Teamspeak CELP 5.1, Teamspeak codecs, Teamspeak voice codecs