Mumble choppy directional

[Durandal]

Feb 16, 2012 - SOLVED: problem was corrupted prmumble settings/preferences stored in the registry (what kind of genius makes their program's settings save to the registry... and doesn't delete them on uninstall... lol?) Manual deletion of all mumble-related registry entries fixed the problem.

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Completely unusual problem, and I'm totally flummoxed as to why its happening:

My in-game directional is extremely "choppy", to the point where people can't understand me most of the time. I've heard it described as if I were repeatedly pressing my transmit button, with about half a second cutouts. This only started happening a couple of weeks ago, and I have no idea what might have caused it to start behaving this way.

My directional is ONLY choppy when its in-game, I have spawned, and am transmitting actual directional audio. The directional button is perfectly clear when not in an actual game, or before the match has started, etc. etc.

My squad radio (Num 0) and all other voice shortcuts works perfectly. Totally clear, no choppiness.


Things I've tried fiddling with:
*Running the audio wizard (derp)
*Most mumble settings:
-Quality
-Noise Suppression
-Amplification
-Default Jitter Buffer
-Volume
-Output Delay
*Uninstalling/reinstalling PR and Vanilla Mumble (vanilla is not currently installed). Including deleting the entire Mumble folder in %appdata% and any checking for any leftover files in Program Files(x86)
*Trying different microphones

I'm at a complete loss here.

Relevant System specs:
Win 7 64x
6gb RAM (3x2gb triple channel)
Radeon 5870
10gig cable internet via ethernet
Logitech c200 Webcam w/ microphone

Mumble Connection info:
1.2.4 (1.0 PR client)
@ connection uptime of 8 minutes:
TCP Avg ping = 220
TCP ping dev = 102
UDP Avg ping = 180
UDP ping dev = 15
1/100 lost packets (from client)

[LITOralis.nMd]

What router are you using?
It's possible your router has a internal firewall, or has QoS set to settings that are inspecting Mumble packets and holding them up....

[Durandal]

not the router. completely disabled the firewall and no change. Also hooked up directly to the cable modem and no change.

Its not any lost packets. Only lost 1 packet after 20 minutes of mumble uptime.

Again, according to others, the only time my mumble sounds "choppy" to them is when I'm in-game, spawned, and am using directional. Every other mumble shortcut is working fine.

Reinstalled BF2/PR and Mumble completely and even tried different mics, and no change.

Another strange thing that is aggrivating, even after deleting the Mumble folder in appdata, and reinstalling EVERYTHING... it saved all of my settings. Where the **** is mumble saving all of this stuff? And why the **** can't devs put true full uninstalls in their releases?!?!

[MaSSive]

Another strange thing that is aggrivating, even after deleting the Mumble folder in appdata, and reinstalling EVERYTHING... it saved all of my settings. Where the **** is mumble saving all of this stuff? And why the **** can't devs put true full uninstalls in their releases?!?!

Hmm strange...possibly its written in registry somewhere? Well inspect this further. Meanwhile try this and this. Might help.

[SnipingCoward]

This might be due to a limitation on your keyboard. On most keyboards keys are usually set up in groups - a group can only send a limited amount of simultaneous key presses (usually 2 or 3 keys). If your voip key is on the same key group as for example your movement keys then you might experience that those key presses are not registered correctly.
So try to see if there is a correlation with the chopping and you pressing other keys at the same time.
If that is true try a different key somewhere else on the keyboard.

another reference: pressing multiple keys on keyboard problem.... - Other-Components - CPU-Components

[Durandal]

SnipingCoward;1732093']This might be due to a limitation on your keyboard. On most keyboards keys are usually set up in groups - a group can only send a limited amount of simultaneous key presses (usually 2 or 3 keys). If your voip key is on the same key group as for example your movement keys then you might experience that those key presses are not registered correctly.
So try to see if there is a correlation with the chopping and you pressing other keys at the same time.
If that is true try a different key somewhere else on the keyboard.

another reference: pressing multiple keys on keyboard problem.... - Other-Components - CPU-Components

Ya, I thought of that too. I have my voip set to a mouse button though. Plus, I've tried setting it to various other button on both the mouse and keyboard with the exact same result. Its choppy when it is the only key/button I am pressing or not. Thanks for the reply though.

[SnipingCoward]

Maybe applications are fighting over control of the microphone... How about disabling exclusive mode for your microphone?

Disallow exclusive control: For your playback (and recording device): right click on speaker icon, select "Playback devices", double click on your sound output device (usually "Speakers") go to advanced, untick "allow applications to take exclusive control of this device"

Instead of "Speakers" edit your default microphone properties (recording device).

[Durandal]

Maybe applications are fighting over control of the microphone... How about disabling exclusive mode for your microphone?

Instead of "Speakers" edit your default microphone properties (recording device).

Never thought of that... that might be it. I'll have to test it.

EDIT: Nope, didn't seem to do anything. At least on a server loopback test. I'm not sure if that is an accurate way of testing, however...? I'll have to wait for one of my buddies to help me test it.

[LITOralis.nMd]

What CPU and what exact model of motherboard, (and sound card if you not using onboard sound). IN an effort to see if CPU bottleneck, or onboard sound chip drivers might be able to be updated manually.

Are you using DEP, AES, or anything particularly interesting in the background for security?

We could maybe cheat and you could start PRmumble, and before you connect to server, open Task Manager and find PRmumble.exe and right click it, give Priority->High, minimize taskmanager, connect to PRMumble server, and test it.

If that doesn't help, and you are using multi core CPU, keep Priority at High we could try this:

We could maybe cheat and you could start PRmumble, and before you connect to server, open Task Manager and find PRmumble.exe and right click it, give Affinity->last one core in dual core cpu, or last two cores in quad core, minimize taskmanager, connect to PRMumble server, and test it.

[Durandal]

What CPU and what exact model of motherboard, (and sound card if you not using onboard sound). IN an effort to see if CPU bottleneck, or onboard sound chip drivers might be able to be updated manually.

Are you using DEP, AES, or anything particularly interesting in the background for security?

We could maybe cheat and you could start PRmumble, and before you connect to server, open Task Manager and find PRmumble.exe and right click it, give Priority->High, minimize taskmanager, connect to PRMumble server, and test it.

If that doesn't help, and you are using multi core CPU, keep Priority at High we could try this:

We could maybe cheat and you could start PRmumble, and before you connect to server, open Task Manager and find PRmumble.exe and right click it, give Affinity->last one core in dual core cpu, or last two cores in quad core, minimize taskmanager, connect to PRMumble server, and test it.

Actually already have PRmumble at priority high. I'll have to try the affinity. Keep in mind though, this is a recent development (last 2 weeks or so). I've been using mumble successfully on the same computer since prmumble came out in 2009. And its ONLY the directional audio when my position is actually linked. Mumble squad radio, BF2 voip etc. all are perfectly clear and uninterrupted. Totally strange.

Anyways... tech specs:

Processor - 1x W3520 (4x2.66 GHz Xeon, 8 thread)
Motherboard - Mac Pro 4,1 2009 (no I'm not running a virtualization) - onboard audio, latest drivers
Mac Pro (Early 2009) - Technical Specifications

MSE only thing really running in background.

Thanks for continued help.

P.S. Where are the actual PR mumble settings saved? I cleared out virtually everything I could find (yes, %appdata%) except the registry and my old settings were saved once I reinstalled PR mumble. Whats up with that? Makes me suspicious some corrupted settings are the problem...

P.S.S. Good game tonight LITOralis. I run as )RMM( Tychoid. Was the grenadier in your squad... if your name is litoralis in-game anyways...

[LITOralis.nMd]

Hi again,

P.S. Where are the actual PR mumble settings saved? I cleared out virtually everything I could find (yes, %appdata%) except the registry and my old settings were saved once I reinstalled PR mumble. Whats up with that? Makes me suspicious some corrupted settings are the problem...

I agree with you....
I do not know what else to try, and don't have knowledge on the PRMumble registry entries.

We'll set aside any cpu or motherboard problems here.

ok I have now heard your problems first hand, indeed, very strange. Good round tonight, holding those Apt blocks was a long night.
Only time I've heard anything like that is when the player has a minimally acceptable bandwidth, but obviously is not your problem...

The last thing to try would be to download standard Mumble, join a public Mumble server and channel with a friend, join a vanilla BF2 server with a friend, and see if the positional audio is still choppy.




You could uninstall the older PRMUmble 0.5 beta, uninstall PRMumble 1.0, (and uninstall Mumble if you have it) .
Then backup your registry.
Then backup your registry inside CCLeaner.
then use CCleaner and get rid of registry errors related to Mumble,
then search through your registry and delete everything (except the uninstaller entries) related to PRMumble.

Then reinstall PRMumble.

That's taking a chainsaw to a chopstick, but I'm completely out of ideas.

[Durandal]

Welp, majority of mumble settings are definitely saved in the registry. Which reg entry I'm not sure, there were a million of em (ok a few dozen really) left after uninstall. I probably should have deleted them one by one to find out exactly which ones they were for future reference.... but I'm lazy.

I honestly think it worked though. Its hard to tell with a server loopback test, but it sounds significantly better and with less latency.

I'll have to do a real test though. I'll post back with results.

EDIT: Problem solved. Finally had a chance to test it and directional is functioning perfectly now. Definitely corrupted settings in the registry.