I have noticed a trend in LOTRO. It seems many people do not use in game voice-chat, or VOIP (Voice Over IP). Others use it but are almost incomprehensible. And some people seem unable to hear others. I thought it might be useful to explain my own settings which allow me to use the in-game VOIP reasonably well. I think this is important for PUGs, since most Kinships use Ventrilo.
I will be the first to admit that Turbines in-game VOIP leaves a lot to be desired. The volume does not have enough gain compared to the other in game sound. In order to correct this, I recommend you turn all the other sound sliders down to about 5%. Leave the Master Volume at 100%. This will make the whole game very quiet.
The next step is to crank up the In-game voice volume and microphone gain to 100%. This will bring up the exceptionally quiet VOIP to be about as quiet as everything else.
Now you can increase your speakers or headphones volume to adjust everything up to a comfortable sound level. But now you will be able to hear the VOIP. The only problem with it is everything BUT LOTRO will now be loud. Playing with some sliders in Windows can help fix this.
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March 23, 2011 at 8:38 am
I tried this method before, although I adjusted the sliders to 50 and not 5. Worked ok, but I noticed the NPC voices were incredibly loud compared to all other sound fx. Also, is there a range for the VO?
March 23, 2011 at 8:41 am
interesting… I did something similar when I first started PUGing I just thought it was some wacky settings with my computer… thanks for giving us some tips for ingame voip. I hope turbine takes a look at this alittle closer soon. it is a pain to have to type everything out to newbies because the voip is so weak
March 23, 2011 at 8:48 am
If you have the luxury of being able to have your speakers turned on in the evening (baby dwarf means no for me as I’m right next door!) then you can also select your headphones as the ‘voice playback device’ and then scroll up to gaem sound, and choose your speakers for that and turn them on. This way you will get the game sound which you can turn up and down to your taste, but the in-game chat is the only thing that comes in your headphones!
I do as Haakon does when I am playing in an evening, and all I can say is- at least that skirmish horn is turned down now, sheesh, I used to have to brace myself when another wave was about to arrive!
March 23, 2011 at 9:47 am
I’m really really quiet, as I have the wife and kids sleeping nearby. Even with these settings and my mic settings turned all the way up, I can still barely be heard. Ventrilo is fine, as you can make huge boosts to yourself and other people. Other than putting the mic inside my mouth, any suggestions?
March 23, 2011 at 11:26 am
Make sure you have the boost setting under your microphone on Windows checked.
March 23, 2011 at 4:28 pm
This is an excellent suggestion.
Usually in the Microphone properties. on the sound tab.
Mine is in sound under the custom tab. Just a simple check box for Microphone boost.
March 23, 2011 at 11:08 am
Actually, master volume seems to not effect Mic Volume, at least for me. Which , in my opinion, has been a good thing- I can just slide it all the way down when in a fellowship, to hear other people and not the rest of the game!
March 23, 2011 at 12:32 pm
In Windows Vista/7 you can control how loud each program is by clicking “mixer” on your volume control.
I just with it were easier to equalize sound in game; too much treble makes my head hurt.
March 23, 2011 at 1:31 pm
Wow..great info and insight. I actually had a problem with voice chat where I could hear others, but they couldn’t hear me. I sent a ticket in, and they were able to help lickity-split.
“To start make sure any third party voice chat clients are disabled (Ventrillo, Teamspeak etc) and then open the Userpreferences.ini” file located in the “My Documents” (or “Documents”) > “The Lord of the Rings Online” folder and under the [Voice] section try the settings as indicated below:
NetworkLatencyThresh=100
MicVolume=1.00
MicCaptureThreshold=0.25
VoiceVolume=1.00
Make the necessary changes, exit the file choosing “Yes” when prompted to save changes.”
March 23, 2011 at 3:43 pm
I was under the impression that most people use ingame sound through speakers – and chat through a headset…lol
March 23, 2011 at 8:45 pm
That is exactly what I needed a few weeks ago. For me it may be a little late, but I hope it helps the others get it working, for the sound is really bad ingame. I really do hope for a little fix in this in the furure, but therewhile, under these settings, the voicechat works fine.
March 23, 2011 at 10:10 pm
Whoah — why the heck would you tell people to crank all the individual sounds down? Turbine added the Master Volume for exactly that reason. Before that, we had to turn each one of them down for groups then back up for solo.
I just keep the Voice Volume option (towards the bottom under the Voice category) at max, and when I group I’ll set the Master Volume to .2 to .4 depending on the volume of the other players’ voices.
What I really wish Turbine would do is drop their contract with Gamespy — who provides the current VOIP solution — and get a contract with the far superior Vivox.
I run Ventrilo just fine alongside the in-game Gamespy VOIP and they’re fine; they use different codecs on different ports. Just make sure you use a different push-to-talk keybind for Gamespy than you do for Ventrilo or whatever third-party VOIP client.
March 23, 2011 at 10:25 pm
I’ve run with people using both ventrilo and in-game voice. It’s weird. Some people in the game-voice group are REALLY quiet, others are fine. Some people also say they can hear me fine, and some say I’m really quiet. The same person can sound different on two different days using the same setup. I’m not saying the in-game voice is BAD per se – if you can hear someone, they’re usually clear and the sound is good quality even if the volume leaves something to be desired. It just seems to be rather inconsistent. Hopefully they’ll address it at some point.
March 25, 2011 at 8:40 am
For Windows 7 and Vista users:
Start -> Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound
In this page you’ll look for microphone settings. (you are looking for a slider bar for the microphone) Keep checking audio-related links on the “Hardware and Sound” page till you find it.
On both my Vista laptop, and my Windows 7 desktop, this was set at a Microsoft default microphone level of about 5%. I dragged it out to 100% and also raised the in-game setting, and I’ve had no problems having people hear me ever since (and it keeps the regular in-game sounds at their normal level you play with as well, so no crazy sound imbalance).
Really this isn’t a failing of lotro as much as a horribly low default setting for Microsoft. Other games and Ventrillo simply get around it by adding a super-boost option inside the game to get it up to an acceptable level. (which is more of a band-aid fix, not addressing the real problem.) Of course if you make this change, you’ll want to go re-adjust your ventrillo settings so you don’t blow your kinmates ears off with your new booming voice.
March 25, 2011 at 3:33 pm
What I run into are manners issues with some people narrating their every move, or talking to typed chat, leaving one with the difficulty one experiences with one-sided loud conversations by people on cell phones.
March 25, 2011 at 7:16 pm
Another vote for turning master volume down to 5% and always keeping voice at max. Much faster to adjust when joining and after finishing a PUG.