Valve Integrates SILK Codec Into Steam

Mave

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Voice chat on Steam is now a usable feature!


Steam's voice chat system now leverages the SILK audio codec, developed and used by Skype, makers of the world's most popular voice communication service. The SILK codec provides a significant quality improvement over Steam's previous voice technology, at the cost of some increase in bandwidth usage. Steam Voice used to require 15 kbps of bandwidth, whereas SILK is a dynamic bit rate protocol which varies in its use of bandwidth between 8 and 30 kbps, depending on the range of data in the voice signal and current network conditions.

As of today's Steam client update, voice chat using SILK is available to all users of Steam. To start using Steam chat with SILK, simply click the 'Start Voice Chat' button within a friend or group chat on Steam. You can access chat from both the friends list at the desktop, or while in game using Steam’s in-game overlay. You'll find voice chat connectivity and reliability have also been improved with this release.

Steam chat with SILK is now also automatically available for all games that take advantage of the Steamworks Voice API. Valve's own Portal 2, set to release in mid-April, uses this newly updated system to enable voice chat in its cooperative gameplay mode.

Source: http://store.steampowered.com/news/5100/
 
Can anyone say if it's good, I have no opportunity to try it, find it easier just to ts3 xD
 
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I totally understand why they've been saying about this codec, It really does sound extremely clear even with a cheap mic :D
 
Sorry, but I couldn't hear a difference between the old and the new speaking
And tbh, the connection to a partner is still not working always.
 
Panki said:
Sorry, but I couldn't hear a difference between the old and the new speaking
And tbh, the connection to a partner is still not working always.


Are you talking about the chat directly in Steam? (Not in game chat like on CSS or something) That's what I tested and it sounded pretty damn good. Better than Skype actually..

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