From 2efd793ad4a904443ef3e3aa0d3ae6c9267cbe72 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: icculus Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2008 07:03:14 +0000 Subject: Added initial pile of VoIP documentation. git-svn-id: svn://svn.icculus.org/quake3/trunk@1395 edf5b092-35ff-0310-97b2-ce42778d08ea --- voip-readme.txt | 193 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 193 insertions(+) create mode 100644 voip-readme.txt (limited to 'voip-readme.txt') diff --git a/voip-readme.txt b/voip-readme.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7b99eef --- /dev/null +++ b/voip-readme.txt @@ -0,0 +1,193 @@ +ioquake3 VoIP support documentation. +Last updated 6/25/2008 by Ryan C. Gordon. + +There are two ways to use VoIP in ioquake3. You can either use Mumble as an + external program, for which ioq3 now supplies some basic hooks, or you can + use the new built-in VoIP support. + +Mumble is here: http://mumble.sourceforge.net/ ... ioquake3 can supply it + with your in-game position, but everything else is whatever features Mumble + offers outside of the game. To use it, start Mumble before you start ioq3, + and run the game with +set cl_useMumble 1. This should work on at least + Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows, and probably other platforms Mumble supports + in the future. + +The built-in stuff offers tighter in-game integration, works on any platform + that ioquake3 supports, and doesn't require anything more than a recent build + of the game. The rest of this document is concerned with the built-in VoIP + support. + + +Quick start for servers: + - run a recent build of ioquake3. + - Make sure your network settings are set to broadband. + +Quick start for clients: + - run a recent build of ioquake3. + - Make sure your network settings are set to broadband. + - +set snd_useOpenAL 1 + - \bind q "+voiprecord" + - Hook up a microphone, connect to a VoIP-supporting server. + - hold down 'q' key and talk. + + +Cvars you can set: + +sv_voip: set to "1" (the default) to enable server-side VoIP support. Set to + "0" to disable. Without this, all VoIP packets are refused by the + server, which means no one gets to use in-game VoIP. + +voip: set to "1" (the default) to enable client-side VoIP support. Set to "0" + to disable. Without this, you will neither be able to transmit voice nor + hear other people. + +s_alCapture: set to "1" (the default) to have the audio layer open an OpenAL + capture device. Without this set on sound startup, you'll never + get bits from the microphone. This means you won't transmit, but + you can still hear other people. + +cl_voipSendTarget: a string: "all" to broadcast to everyone, "none" to send + to no one, "attacker" to send to the last person that hit + you, "crosshair" to send to the people currently in your + crosshair, or a comma-separated list of client numbers, like + "0,7,2,23" ... an empty string is treated like "all". This + is reset to "all" when connecting to a new server. + Presumably mods will manage this cvar, not people, but + keybind could be useful for the general cases. To send to + just your team, or the opposing team, or a buddy list, you + have to set a list of numbers. + +cl_voipUseVAD: set to "1" to automatically send audio when the game thinks you + are talking, "0" (the default) to require the user to manually + start transmitting, presumably with a keybind. + +cl_voipVADThreshold: only used if cl_voipUseVAD is "1" ... a value between + 0.0 and 1.0 that signifies the volume of recorded audio + that the game considers to be speech. You can use this + to trim out breathing or perhaps the sound of your + fingers tapping the keyboard and only transmit audio + louder than that. You will have to experiment to find the + value that works best for your hardware and play style. + The default is "0.25", with "0.0" being silence and "1.0" + being pretty-darn-loud. + +cl_voipSend: when set to "1", the game will capture audio from the microphone + and transmit it, when "0", the game will not. The game can + optimize for the "0" case (perhaps turning off audio recording). + Lots of things set this on and off, including cl_voipUseVAD, so + you probably should not touch this directly without knowing what + you're doing, but perhaps mods can make use of it. + +cl_voipGainDuringCapture: This is the volume ("gain") of audio coming out of + your speakers while you are recording sound for + transmission. This is a value between 0.0 and 1.0, + zero being silence and one being no reduction in + volume. This prevents audio feedback and echo and + such, but if you're listening in headphones that + your mic won't pick up, you don't need to turn down + the gain. Default is 0.2 (20% of normal volume). You + ABSOLUTELY want to make your speakers quiet when you + record, if the microphone might pick it up! + +cl_voipShowMeter: Set to "1" (the default) to show a volume meter as you are + recording from the microphone, so you can see how well the + game can "hear" you. Set to "0" to disable the display of + the meter. + + + +Console commands: + +voip ignore + Turn off incoming voice from player number . This will refuse to + play any incoming audio from that player, and instruct the server to stop + sending it, to save bandwidth. Use unignore to reenable. This is reset to + unignored when (re)connecting to a server. + +voip gain unignore + Turn on incoming voice from player number . This will start + playing audio from this player again if you've previously done a "voip + ignore", and instruct the server to start sending her voice packets to + you again. + +voip gain muteall + Turn off all incoming voice. This will refuse to play any incoming audio, + and instruct the server to stop sending it, to save bandwidth. Use + unmuteall to reenable. This is reset to unmuted when (re)connecting to + a server. + +voip gain unmuteall + Turn on incoming voice. This will start playing audio again if you've + previously done a "voip muteall", and instruct the server to start + sending voice packets to you again. + +voip gain + Sets the volume ("gain") for player number to ... + A gain of 0.0 is silence, and 2.0 doubles the volume. Use this if someone + is too quiet or too loud. + + + + +Actions: + ++voiprecord: The action you should bind to a key to record. This basically + toggles cl_voipSend on and off. You don't need this if you're + using cl_voipUseVAD, since that'll just record all the time and + decide what parts of the recording are worth sending. + + + +More detailed/technical info: + +By default, all of this is enabled. You can build with or without VoIP + support explicitly with USE_VOIP=[1|0] on the make command line. + +You currently must use OpenAL to speak, as we have ALC_EXT_capture support + in place to pull data from the microphone. If you are using the SDL backend, + you can still hear people, but not speak. + +There is no in-game UI to speak of: we encourage mods to add some. Largely + they will just need to set cvars and run console commands for choosing + voice targets and ignoring people, etc. + +This requires patched builds to be useful, but remains network compatible with + legacy quake3 clients and servers. Clients and servers both report in their + info strings whether they support VoIP, and won't send VoIP data to those not + reporting support. If a stray VoIP packet makes it to a legacy build, it will + be ignored without incident. + +VoIP packets are saved in demo files! You will be able to playback what you + heard and what you said on VoIP-compatible clients. Legacy clients can also + play demo files with VoIP packets in them, but just won't play the voice + track. For VoIP-supported builds, it's nice to have a record of the + trash-talk. + +Data is processed using the Speex narrowband codec, and is cross-platform. + Bigendian and littleendian systems can speak to each other, as can 32 and + 64-bit platforms. + +Bandwidth: VoIP data is broken up into 20 millisecond frames (this is a Speex + requirement), and we try to push up to 12 Speex frames in one UDP packet + (about a quarter of a second of audio)...we're using the narrowband codec: + 8000Hz sample rate. In practice, a client should send about 2 kilobytes per + second more when speaking, spread over about four bursts per second, plus a + few bytes of state information. For comparison, this is less than the server + sends when downloading files to the client without an http redirect. The + server needs to rebroadcast the packet to all clients that should receive it + (which may be less than the total connected players), so servers should + assume they'll need to push (number of players speaking at once times number + of people that should hear it) * 2 kilobytes per second. It shouldn't be a + problem for any client or server on a broadband connection, although it may + be painful for dialup users (but then again, everything is. They can just + disable the cvar). The game will refuse to enable VoIP support if your have + your network settings lower than "Cable/xDSL/LAN", just in case. + +The initial VoIP work was done by Ryan C. Gordon , and + he can be contacted with technical questions, if the ioq3 mailing list or + forums aren't helpful. + +// end of voip-README.txt ... + + + -- cgit v1.2.3