Dell
New member
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2026
- Messages
- 6
By default, all TF2 servers use Steam's audio codec for voice chat. While it does work fine for communicating with teammates, it does have its limits. In the case of the VSH servers, it makes music played over voice chat sound really crunchy. My proposal, of course, is to remedy this issue in a reasonable manner.
As a point of reference, here's a list of audio codecs the "sv_voicecodec" command currently supports, as well as their bitrates:
As you might've guessed, the higher the bitrate, the better everyone sounds in-game. This does come at the cost of increased network traffic, but considering we live in the age of gigabit-level networks (rather than the megabit-level networks of the preceding decade), I doubt this will be much of an issue for the server so long as the server's CPU is strong enough to handle it (since that's the component responsible for processing network traffic into usable data).
Now, some of you might be concerned about performance considering the lag spikes we've been experiencing lately, and while I do not know what the cause of these lag spikes are, it's possible that the server's RAM could be the issue, since the lag spikes happen at seemingly random intervals, which to me indicates that the server is taking too long to clear its RAM or the RAM is filling up too quickly. In other words, the change in audio codec likely won't increase the severity or frequency of these lag spikes. If it does, and does so to a significant degree, then a rollback would be understandable.
So, what do you think? Do you think we should increase the bitrate? Or should we leave it as-is until the lag is dealt with first? If you want my opinion, "sv_voicecodec vaudio_celt_high" sounds much better than Steam's codec, at least from the testing I've done anyways. Instruments in songs come through much clearer and less of the music's impact is lost by the time it reaches the rest of the server. Personally, I'm in favor of at least TRYING it, since that's really the only way we know for sure if it works well for us or not.
Note: When executing the command, the effects will only be applied after a map change or server restart.
As a point of reference, here's a list of audio codecs the "sv_voicecodec" command currently supports, as well as their bitrates:
- vaudio_speex: Bitrate unknown, but apparently it's the lowest (worst) out of the 4.
- vaudio_celt: 22kHz, 22kbps
- vaudio_celt_high: 44kHz, 44kbps
- steam: 24kHz, 24kbps
As you might've guessed, the higher the bitrate, the better everyone sounds in-game. This does come at the cost of increased network traffic, but considering we live in the age of gigabit-level networks (rather than the megabit-level networks of the preceding decade), I doubt this will be much of an issue for the server so long as the server's CPU is strong enough to handle it (since that's the component responsible for processing network traffic into usable data).
Now, some of you might be concerned about performance considering the lag spikes we've been experiencing lately, and while I do not know what the cause of these lag spikes are, it's possible that the server's RAM could be the issue, since the lag spikes happen at seemingly random intervals, which to me indicates that the server is taking too long to clear its RAM or the RAM is filling up too quickly. In other words, the change in audio codec likely won't increase the severity or frequency of these lag spikes. If it does, and does so to a significant degree, then a rollback would be understandable.
So, what do you think? Do you think we should increase the bitrate? Or should we leave it as-is until the lag is dealt with first? If you want my opinion, "sv_voicecodec vaudio_celt_high" sounds much better than Steam's codec, at least from the testing I've done anyways. Instruments in songs come through much clearer and less of the music's impact is lost by the time it reaches the rest of the server. Personally, I'm in favor of at least TRYING it, since that's really the only way we know for sure if it works well for us or not.
Note: When executing the command, the effects will only be applied after a map change or server restart.
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