Difference between revisions of "FAQ/English"

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== What is Mumble? ==
 
== What is Mumble? ==
  
Mumble is a voice chat application for groups. While it can be used for any kind of activity, it's primarily intended for gaming.
+
Mumble is a voice chat application for groups. While it can be used for any kind of activity, its primarily intended for gaming.
  
 
== What platforms does it run on? ==
 
== What platforms does it run on? ==
Line 21: Line 21:
 
== What are the bandwidth requirements? ==
 
== What are the bandwidth requirements? ==
  
From 0.9.1, this is highly variable, and mostly up to the user. With top quality, minimum latency and positional information sent, it's 64.6 kbit/s including the IP and UDP overhead. With 80 ms transmission delay, the lowest quality speech and no positional information, it's 11.0 kbit/s (again with IP and UDP overhead). The default uses 45.4 kbit/s; we didn't hear any noticable improvement in quality from the last 20 kbit/s. When comparing with other products, remember to compare the total bandwidth use and not just the bitrate of the audio encoding.
+
From 0.9.1, this is highly variable, and mostly up to the user. With top quality, minimum latency and positional information sent, it is 64.6 kbit/s including the IP and UDP overhead. With 80 ms transmission delay, the lowest quality speech and no positional information, it is 11.0 kbit/s (again with IP and UDP overhead). The default uses 45.4 kbit/s; we did not hear any noticable improvement in quality from the last 20 kbit/s. When comparing with other products, remember to compare the total bandwidth use and not just the bitrate of the audio encoding.
  
There are two parts to tuning the bandwidth; the audio bitrate per audio frame (20ms) and the amount of frames to put in each packet. Each transmitted packet has a overhead of 28 bytes from IP and UDP alone, so at the highest transmission rate (50 packets per second), that's 1400 bytes of data for raw network overhead alone. You should try to find a balance that works well for you, but we generally recommend sacrificing high audio bitrate for lower latency; Mumble sounds quite good even on the lowest quality setting.
+
There are two parts to tuning the bandwidth; the audio bitrate per audio frame (20ms) and the amount of frames to put in each packet. Each transmitted packet has a overhead of 28 bytes from IP and UDP alone, so at the highest transmission rate (50 packets per second), that is 1400 bytes of data for raw network overhead alone. You should try to find a balance that works well for you, but we generally recommend sacrificing high audio bitrate for lower latency; Mumble sounds quite good even on the lowest quality setting.
  
There is no way to adjust the amount of incoming bandwidth; you'll have to have enough to sustain the total amount of speaking players. This should be a minor issue; most players these days are on asymetric lines and hence it's only upload that's a bottleneck.
+
There is no way to adjust the amount of incoming bandwidth; you will have to have enough to sustain the total amount of speaking players. This should be a minor issue; most players these days are on asymetric lines and hence it is only upload that is a bottleneck.
  
 
== What tools did you use to make this? ==
 
== What tools did you use to make this? ==
Line 33: Line 33:
 
== How can I help? ==
 
== How can I help? ==
  
A good start would be just using Mumble. If you like it, tell all your friends. If you don't like it, tell us what's wrong so we can fix it.
+
A good start would be just using Mumble. If you like it, tell all your friends. If you do not like it, tell us what is wrong so we can fix it.
  
 
= Audio Features =  
 
= Audio Features =  
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== How does the positional sound work? ==
 
== How does the positional sound work? ==
  
Your position ingame is transmitted along with every audio packet, and Mumble uses standard DirectSound 3D to position the audio on the receiver side. Only games for which a plugin has been written get positional audio. All other games will work as well, you just won't get 3D sound.
+
Your position ingame is transmitted along with every audio packet, and Mumble uses standard DirectSound 3D to position the audio on the receiver side. Only games for which a plugin has been written get positional audio. All other games will work as well, you just will not get 3D sound.
  
 
== Why does Mumble sound so much better than other voice products? ==
 
== Why does Mumble sound so much better than other voice products? ==
Line 48: Line 48:
 
== Where is the volume control? ==
 
== Where is the volume control? ==
  
Mumble uses the default volume you've configured in windows. There is no support for amplifying incoming voices, and there probably won't be, as this will decrease audio quality, something we're very reluctant to do.
+
Mumble uses the default volume you have configured in windows. There is no support for amplifying incoming voices, and there probably will not be, as this will decrease audio quality, something we are very reluctant to do.
  
 
== The text-to-speech quality is horrible! ==
 
== The text-to-speech quality is horrible! ==
  
We use the standard MS Speech API, and the included voices aren't all that good. If you have installed either MS Office or the Speech SDK, you'll get more voices which can be configured from the Speech control panel.
+
We use the standard MS Speech API, and the included voices are not all that good. If you have installed either MS Office or the Speech SDK, you will get more voices which can be configured from the Speech control panel.
  
 
== Why do some voices sound metallic? ==
 
== Why do some voices sound metallic? ==
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== Why doesn't the voice activity detect my voice any more? ==
 
== Why doesn't the voice activity detect my voice any more? ==
  
If you change your audio environment suddenly and drastically, by for example disconnecting and reconnecting your microphone or dragging a piece of paper directly over the microphone, you'll throw the voice preprocessor off balance. It will recover, but it will take time.  
+
If you change your audio environment suddenly and drastically, by for example disconnecting and reconnecting your microphone or dragging a piece of paper directly over the microphone, you will throw the voice preprocessor off balance. It will recover, but it will take time.  
  
 
To reset the preprocessor, choose 'Reset' from the 'Audio' menu.
 
To reset the preprocessor, choose 'Reset' from the 'Audio' menu.
  
== What's this weird echo I hear of myself from other users? ==
+
== What is this weird echo I hear of myself from other users? ==
  
Unfortunately, a lot of popular headsets produce tiny traces of echo. In other VOIP products, you won't notice it because the echo is lower than the noise level, but as Mumble dutifully removes all noise, the echo suddenly becomes clear. There is little the person hearing the echo can do, but there are a few things the person producing the echo can do. The easy solution is to use ASIO and enable echo cancellation, however this requires that the headset is of the analog type (no USB) and a very high quality soundcard.
+
Unfortunately, a lot of popular headsets produce tiny traces of echo. In other VOIP products, you will not notice it because the echo is lower than the noise level, but as Mumble dutifully removes all noise, the echo suddenly becomes clear. There is little the person hearing the echo can do, but there are a few things the person producing the echo can do. The easy solution is to use ASIO and enable echo cancellation, however this requires that the headset is of the analog type (no USB) and a very high quality soundcard.
  
The more troublesome solution is to modify the headset. If it's possible to pry the arm with the microphone from the headphones, do so and reattach it with a thick piece of rubber tape; this should insulate it from vibrations. If your headset is open (no large earmuffs), there exists an echo path through air from the headphones to the microphone. You can fix this by attaching anything foam-like to the front of the headphones to muffle the sound heard outside them, but this will most likely ruin the ergonomics of the headset as well as look somewhat odd.
+
The more troublesome solution is to modify the headset. If it is possible to pry the arm with the microphone from the headphones, do so and reattach it with a thick piece of rubber tape; this should insulate it from vibrations. If your headset is open (no large earmuffs), there exists an echo path through air from the headphones to the microphone. You can fix this by attaching anything foam-like to the front of the headphones to muffle the sound heard outside them, but this will most likely ruin the ergonomics of the headset as well as look somewhat odd.
  
 
We might put up a page of "tested headsets" if anyone wants it.
 
We might put up a page of "tested headsets" if anyone wants it.
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== What sort of bandwidth will I need for the server? ==
 
== What sort of bandwidth will I need for the server? ==
  
Number of users &times; Number of talking users &times; 60 kbit. Note that Mumble is geared towards social gaming; it's quality enables people to talk naturally to each other instead of just barking short commands, so the amount of "users talking at the same time" can be somewhat higher than expected.
+
Number of users &times; Number of talking users &times; 60 kbit. Note that Mumble is geared towards social gaming; its quality enables people to talk naturally to each other instead of just barking short commands, so the amount of "users talking at the same time" can be somewhat higher than expected.
  
 
This means that a server with 20 players and 2 players talking at once requires 2.4 Mbit/s. These figures assume all players are in the same channel, and that you use the default quality settings.
 
This means that a server with 20 players and 2 players talking at once requires 2.4 Mbit/s. These figures assume all players are in the same channel, and that you use the default quality settings.
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== Where do I configure the welcome message, listen port and so on? ==
 
== Where do I configure the welcome message, listen port and so on? ==
  
murmur.ini, it's self-documenting.
+
murmur.ini, it is self-documenting.
  
 
== How do the ACLs work? ==
 
== How do the ACLs work? ==

Revision as of 03:12, 2 October 2005

About Mumble

What is Mumble?

Mumble is a voice chat application for groups. While it can be used for any kind of activity, its primarily intended for gaming.

What platforms does it run on?

The client, Mumble, runs on Windows XP. The server component, Murmur, should run on anything you can compile Qt 4.0 on.

What are the system requirements?

The client runs on any Windows XP machine, and you also need a microphone. The server is mostly bandwidth bound, so as long as your network hardware is sufficient it should run on pretty much anything.

Please note that the binaries distributed from SourceForge are compiled for SSE (Pentium 3 or Athlon-XP). Mumble is a VOIP solution for gaming, and as most modern games require at least that good a CPU it makes little sense for us not to optimize for it.

What makes Mumble better?

Mumble has very low latency combined with good sound quality; it uses Speex extensively, not just the voice compression technology, but also the voice preprocessing to remove noise and improve clarity. Mumble also has positional audio for supported games, meaning the other players' voice will come from the direction their character is in game.

What are the bandwidth requirements?

From 0.9.1, this is highly variable, and mostly up to the user. With top quality, minimum latency and positional information sent, it is 64.6 kbit/s including the IP and UDP overhead. With 80 ms transmission delay, the lowest quality speech and no positional information, it is 11.0 kbit/s (again with IP and UDP overhead). The default uses 45.4 kbit/s; we did not hear any noticable improvement in quality from the last 20 kbit/s. When comparing with other products, remember to compare the total bandwidth use and not just the bitrate of the audio encoding.

There are two parts to tuning the bandwidth; the audio bitrate per audio frame (20ms) and the amount of frames to put in each packet. Each transmitted packet has a overhead of 28 bytes from IP and UDP alone, so at the highest transmission rate (50 packets per second), that is 1400 bytes of data for raw network overhead alone. You should try to find a balance that works well for you, but we generally recommend sacrificing high audio bitrate for lower latency; Mumble sounds quite good even on the lowest quality setting.

There is no way to adjust the amount of incoming bandwidth; you will have to have enough to sustain the total amount of speaking players. This should be a minor issue; most players these days are on asymetric lines and hence it is only upload that is a bottleneck.

What tools did you use to make this?

See Development Tools.

How can I help?

A good start would be just using Mumble. If you like it, tell all your friends. If you do not like it, tell us what is wrong so we can fix it.

Audio Features

How does the positional sound work?

Your position ingame is transmitted along with every audio packet, and Mumble uses standard DirectSound 3D to position the audio on the receiver side. Only games for which a plugin has been written get positional audio. All other games will work as well, you just will not get 3D sound.

Why does Mumble sound so much better than other voice products?

One word: Denoising. This is a standard part of Speex 1.1 and above, and any voice product already implementing speex should be able to trivially include the same filtering. Removing the noise from the input means that the audio will be clearer and that the needed bitrate will decrease. It takes fewer bits to model clear voice than it does to accurately represent the noise, so in any noisy transmission a large share of the bits will be noise modelling.

Where is the volume control?

Mumble uses the default volume you have configured in windows. There is no support for amplifying incoming voices, and there probably will not be, as this will decrease audio quality, something we are very reluctant to do.

The text-to-speech quality is horrible!

We use the standard MS Speech API, and the included voices are not all that good. If you have installed either MS Office or the Speech SDK, you will get more voices which can be configured from the Speech control panel.

Why do some voices sound metallic?

Mumble uses Speex noise filtering, and if the environment of the sender is especially noisy, some parts of the voice will be filtered as well. The alternative would be noisy sound, meaning precious bandwidth would be used to encode noise and the clarity of the voice would also decrease.

Why doesn't the voice activity detect my voice any more?

If you change your audio environment suddenly and drastically, by for example disconnecting and reconnecting your microphone or dragging a piece of paper directly over the microphone, you will throw the voice preprocessor off balance. It will recover, but it will take time.

To reset the preprocessor, choose 'Reset' from the 'Audio' menu.

What is this weird echo I hear of myself from other users?

Unfortunately, a lot of popular headsets produce tiny traces of echo. In other VOIP products, you will not notice it because the echo is lower than the noise level, but as Mumble dutifully removes all noise, the echo suddenly becomes clear. There is little the person hearing the echo can do, but there are a few things the person producing the echo can do. The easy solution is to use ASIO and enable echo cancellation, however this requires that the headset is of the analog type (no USB) and a very high quality soundcard.

The more troublesome solution is to modify the headset. If it is possible to pry the arm with the microphone from the headphones, do so and reattach it with a thick piece of rubber tape; this should insulate it from vibrations. If your headset is open (no large earmuffs), there exists an echo path through air from the headphones to the microphone. You can fix this by attaching anything foam-like to the front of the headphones to muffle the sound heard outside them, but this will most likely ruin the ergonomics of the headset as well as look somewhat odd.

We might put up a page of "tested headsets" if anyone wants it.

Server

What sort of bandwidth will I need for the server?

Number of users × Number of talking users × 60 kbit. Note that Mumble is geared towards social gaming; its quality enables people to talk naturally to each other instead of just barking short commands, so the amount of "users talking at the same time" can be somewhat higher than expected.

This means that a server with 20 players and 2 players talking at once requires 2.4 Mbit/s. These figures assume all players are in the same channel, and that you use the default quality settings.

Where do I configure the welcome message, listen port and so on?

murmur.ini, it is self-documenting.

How do the ACLs work?

See ACL and Groups

mumble.pri:8: Unknown test function: CONFIG

Mumble requires Qt version 4, preferably 4.0.1.

How can I reset the database?

Delete the murmur.sqlite file

How can I change a users password?

-bash-3.00$ sqlite3 murmur.sqlite
sqlite> UPDATE players SET pw = 'newpassword' WHERE name = 'playername';
sqlite> <Ctrl-D>

How do I backup the database?

Shut down the server (kill the process), and make a copy of murmur.sqlite. That file is the database.