Best VoIP for Gamers?

When it comes to VoIP servers for gamers, you only really have 3 choices; Ventrilo, Teamspeak or Mumble. I’m going to tell you what I think of all 3
Mumble

“Low-latency, high-quality voice communication for gamers. Includes game linking, so voice from other players comes from the direction of their characters, and has echo cancellation so the sound from your loudspeakers won’t be audible to other players.”

The discription the developers give to mumble is pretty spot on. From use in matches with my Team Fortress 2 clan I have found it to be very low latency and the quality of audio was great after some time setting it up in the menus. Setting it up did take some time but it was made easier by the fact that there are lots of free plugins and skins out for download and install since mumble is open source and free in every sense of the word. Mumble comes with an overlay that works very well and is configurable right out of the install. It automatically works with a G15 LCD and even that screen is able to be configured.

Ventrilo

“Ventrilo 3.0.0 is the next evolutionary step of Voice over IP (VoIP) group communications software. Ventrilo is also the industry standard by which all others measure themselves as they attempt to imitate its features.”

Ventrilo, as the quote says, is the standard for all voice communications. It has a great amount of client and server configuration methods and options. There is lots of support for Ventrilo as it’s very widely used and offered for free with most game servers. There are lots of free, although less configurable services around that offer server slots or channels for free, but you won’t get admin or any personalization there. I found the Latency to be pretty good, although not instant but sound quality is excellent. The biggest benefit of Ventrilo is its support and features.

Teamspeak

“TeamSpeak is flexible, powerful, scalable software which enables people to speak with one another over the Internet. TeamSpeak consists of both client and server software. The server acts as a host to multiple client connections, capable of handling literally thousands of simultaneous users. This results in an Internet based conferencing solution that works in a variety of applications such as team mates speaking with one another while playing their favorite online game, facilitating inter-office communication among co-workers, or simply for personal communication with friends and family.”

Teamspeak is a very simple software which works well. The latency is a bit to big for use in most FPS games in a competitive scenario but it’s scalability and bandwidth optimisation mean it’s great for MMO and RTS games. You can have over 100 people in your channel or server and still hear everyone. The audio quality suffers a lot for this though, even if there is 2 people, it still sounds bad.

Which is best?
Before I answer that you need to know what you’re looking for.
Do you want to have lots of people in your server and aren’t worried about delays between somebody talking, and you hearing it? Then Teamspeak is for you.
Do you want 5-16 people talking at the same time and a lot of support and configuration options? Then Ventrilo is for you.
Do you want 5-16 people talking at the same time, lots of plugins, lots of skins, an overlay that works well and a lot of support to be around in the future, but not yet? Then Mumble is for you.
That’s a roundabout way of saying that I like Mumble the most. I don’t need or ever want 100 people talking at the same time on my voice server. It would be really annoying and either some people wouldn’t be heard, or everyone would and therefore nobody would. Ventrilo has been the king for a long time now, but it’s about time it stepped down and let the new, open source prince take the crown. Mumble is still lacking in a few areas and it still needs a some tweaking here and there but in time, that will happen. So if you’re thinking of getting a VoIP server for your clan, go with Mumble.
Mumble WINS!
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