Help:Configuring voice chat
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This help page belongs to Help category Chat
Contents |
Overview
This document is a short guide to show how you should have your sound settings configured for Xfire voice chat to work properly. This is not 100 % proof guide and some settings might have to be set otherwise on some systems, but this should be enough for vast majority of end-users.
Xfire voice options
Right you can see a screenshot of Xfire voice options dialog. You can access this dialog from Xfire main window, by choosing Tools-menu, and Options..., then change to Voice tab.
The values shown in the image here are preferred values for most systems, more detailed description of each of the options are below.
Devices
Choose the sound devices you want to use in Xfire voice communication. Usually there is only one option to choose from in each of them, that being the sound card / integrated chip on your computer. If you have USB headset or other sound device you want to use with Xfire, then be sure to select it as the device to be used.
- Input device
- The sound device that is to act as a microphone
- Output device
- The sound device that is to play the voice from other people in the chat
Voice Chat Activation
Select the method how Xfire determines whether to transmit the sound from you or not.
- Push to talk
- You need to hold a specific key/combination for Xfire to transmit the sound from your microphone. You can specify the key/combination using the Set key binding button.
- Voice Activation
- Xfire automatically enables the microphone based on the volume of the voice it receives. You can adjust the sensitivity using the slider.
- Less
- The microphone must receive more loud voice to activate.
- More
- The microphone is activated on less loud voice.
Input/Output Volumes
Usually both of the sliders should be on the maximum position (to the right), but you might want to reduce them if the volume is too high.
- Voice Chat Output
- The volume you hear the other users in the chat, use Test Speakers button to test the volume.
- Microphone Volume
- The volume Xfire transmits your voice to other voice chat participants, use Test Microphone button to test the volume.
CPU and Bandwidth Usage
Adjust the slider to give Xfire the preferred voice quality you want.
- Low / Dialup
- The voice quality is bad, but your CPU usage and network usage is also very low. Adjust the slider toward this if you have slow computer and/or poor Internet connection.
- High / Broadband
- The voice quality is good, but your CPU usage and network usage is also higher. Adjust the slider toward this if you have a modern computer with a good Internet connection.
Note: In private one-to-one voice chat, the voice quality is always the lower value. So if you have set the value to highest, if the other person has it set to middle, the voice quality will be middle. This is to respect the more restricted system that might not be able to handle the high quality requirements.
Windows volume control
Above you see Windows playback volume controls window. You can access it by double clicking the speaker icon in your system tray. If you do not have the speaker icon, then you can open the volume control using these steps:
- Choose Run (or Run program, in some Windows versions) from Start-menu
- Type in: sndvol32
- Press Ok
Playback controls
The playback controls control the volume you hear from your speakers. What here is important regarding Xfire voice chat is that you should mute your microphone. Do not worry, it will only mute the echo of the mic on your own computer, it has no effect to what is heard by your friends, that is controlled by recording controls.
Recording controls
On the right side you can see the properties window which you can open in the Volume control window by choosing Properties from Options-menu. To switch to recording controls, make sure you select the Recording radio button and place a checkmark next to Microphone in the list (if it is not checked already).
After pressing Ok you should see Recording controls window which looks very similar to the Playback controls window from above, as shown below:
Here you can select the recording source. Usually you want to have the source to be Microphone, so place a checkmark to Microphone in this window. If you have selected for example CD Player, then all your friends would hear from you is the Audio CD you have in your drive, if you even have any.
