Alright, so I finally got myself hooked up with Xbox Live and it seemed to be working great. However, with the last few rounds of Crimson Skies, I haven’t been able to hear anyone talking in-game, via my headset. However, if I adjust the options so other’s voices come through my TV speakers, I can hear them just fine. I doubt the problem lies in my headset as I can hear people talking when setting up a game, just not during. Any idea why this might be? Thanks.
Bonus Question: Is it just me, or is it very hard to understand what people are saying via this service? I mean, the voice quality doesn’t seem top-notch.
THrough the TV yes it’s really bad on the audio side.
When it’s through the headset I’ve had no problems at all with most people. Once and a while I will get like really bad audio from one person but when I’m on a game (Counter STrike or Project Gotham 2 mainly) it sounds fine. Part of it might be on their end as well.
I’m on a DSL connection and not a super duper speed rate either so I know it’s not the speed of the connection.
I also hear if someone is using one of the “splitter” headsets for multiple players it can screw the audio pretty badly.
Yeah, I noticed the audio through the TV was noticeably worse. However, even via the head-set it still seems subpar. I suppose I can typically understand what others are saying, but it’s certainly not up to the quality of a telephone (if my experience is reflective of the typical Live user).
I find the audio quality, through the headset, to be very nice. It’s a little shy of phone quality and each voice does have a sort of electronic twinge to it, but all and all, I find it easy to understand.
I did though have many a voice trouble playing Rainbow 6 3. Poor quality, cutting out, everybody wouble be unable to hear me except the person hosting the game etc… I solved the problem by assigning my XBox a specific IP and forwarding to ports to it. It I could just remember the port #s! Ughh…
I’ll check it when I get home, but before I do:
You are going through a router correct?
If you direct connect to your cable or dsl modem is the vioce quality still dicey?
I’m not sure if that’ll fix your problem but it helped me out and I figured it’s worth a shot.
Also, I know some routers are just incompatable with XBox Live. MS released an ‘approved’ router list at some point. A good buddy of mine has to direct connect to his modem everytime to play. Of course, his router is some sort a robust commercial grade model (he works a lot from home) and not your typical Home LAN job.
So, you might want to try the direct connect first and see if that fixes up your quality?
You can never ramble too much when answering one my queries. I very much appreciate the help.
Anyways, you’re correct in your assumption that I’m connecting through a router, though I just tried connecting directly through the cable modem, as you suggested. Unfortunately, the results were the same. However, I did notice that during the smaller matches of Crimson Skies, when there were a mere 5 or 6 opponents, I could hear other people talking just fine (with both the cable modem and router). It seems trouble arises when there’s 9 or 10 opponents. Sometimes I can hear a brief sound of a microphone coming on, and in my most recent match, I even heard one complete thought. Thus, unless everyone I’m playing against is unusually quiet, I simply can’t hear them the majority of the time.
I’m not sure how Crimson Skies works (is it any good?) but I’ve noticed the same thing playing Rainbow. If we are playing on a non-dedicated server (ie the person hosting the game is also playing) then things get really “wonky” (clipping, voice cuttying out, lag) at about 10-16 players.
You might have just hit the wall. I know one of the first things networks drop will be UDP traffic (and therefore Voice over IP) when they become overloaded.
And yes, Crimson Skies is a pretty sweet game. I’ve read that it’s one of the best Live games available (though this was prior to Rainbow 6 and Splinter Cell). But it’s great fun.
By the way, how do I find out if a server is a dedicated one, if that’s even possible?
I’m not sure how you would determine the “server type” in Crimson Skies. In Rainbow, the player that is hosting gets a little PC icon next to his name while in the lobby. If the Icon is present you know it’s non-dedicated. I believe you can also view the “server type” when browsing for games to join.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen too many non-dedicated servers, though. I mean who wants to fire up a game and then not play?
You might experience better results if the host has cable instead of DSL (more upload bandwidth) and kills any bandwidth sucking applications on there PCs (Kazaa, LimeWire, other P2Ps, etc…). That would be hard to check unless playing with friends.
Ok, well my friend just bought Live and he’s having a few problems himself. Hopefully someone can give some advice.
Right now, he’s tried connecting Live directly to the cable modem (which he then reset). However, the Xbox is unable to “location the IP address”. So my friend tried typing it in manually (I’m not quite the method he used to determine his ISP, but I think he ran a program on his computer), but the same results occured. What else can he do? I have the same online service (Comcast) and it works fine for me. Thus i’m stumped.
Damnit. Clicked Submit instead of Preview. Here’s how it should have read:
Ok, well my friend just bought Live and he’s having a few problems himself. Hopefully someone can give some advice.
Right now, he’s tried connecting Live directly to the cable modem (which he then reset). However, the Xbox is unable to “locate the IP address”. So my friend tried typing it in manually (I’m not quite sure what method he used to determine his ISP, but I think he ran a program on his computer), but the same results occured. What else can he do? I have the same online service (Comcast) and it works fine for me. Thus i’m stumped.
He should be able to just plug in a CAT 5 cable and go. The XBox is by default set to DHCP and I believe this is how it must be to work with Comcast.
Questions:
Did he have his PC up and do a IPConfig /all to get his current IP?
Then plug the Cat 5 cable into the XBox and try to assign it this IP? I think this would work but probably isn’t the best setup. And remember if he “reset” his cable modem, most likely Comcast assigned him a different IP.
If his cable modem works with his PC, I think the problem is a bad cable or bad XBox.
Call Live Support, it’s free and they are suprisingly helpful.
I very much appreciate the help.