StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Me and a group of friends want to set up some sort of voice communication system for us to use with online gaming. I know that both teamspeak and ventrilo are commonly used systems for this, but none of us can setup a server on our own computers, mainly due to bandwidth limitations.

So does anyone know of any websites where I can get hold of a semi-decent free server for Ventrilo, Teamspeak or any other voice communication system ? (we would prefer vent)

What kind of bandwidth do you have? AFAIK, teamspeak doesn't require that much. You probably should enable QoS on the router though.

If you've got access to your router, just host a ventrillo server yourself. I don't know about a low upstream cable service, but over DSL with a somewhat limited upstream (much better than cable, however) it worked perfectly. Even with ol' Ace Pace and his triple digit latencies.

Pu-239 wrote:What kind of bandwidth do you have? AFAIK, teamspeak doesn't require that much. You probably should enable QoS on the router though.

I've got a 256k/128k connection, and my router doesn't have a QoS option. My friends have faster connections but when they hit their monthly download limit they get dropped to a 64k connection (and they already have lag problems as is).

So is my connection going to be enough for about 5 people ?

For QoS, custom firmware? Or route everything through your home server before it goes out to the internet, and apply the QoS there? You're a linux user and should know how to set this up shouldn't you?

Anyway, the teamspeak manual suggests (# of people -1 )^2*bandwidth usage of codec, so 16*4 would use 64kbps of your bandwidth for 5 people (there's a 5.1kbps codec too, so that'd be 20.4).


Your main concern is probably latency rather than bandwidth.

If you have any other gamer friends, ask around. People often buy hosting for Vent/Teamspeak and end up with a lot of unused slots and are happy to let you use theirs for free.

Well I tried setting up a teamspeak server on my home machine. I've forwarded the ports it uses and I can connect to it using 127.0.0.1, but not my external ip address.

Then again http://www.findmyip.com/ and http://www.whatismyip.com/ give me different ip addresses when I ask them what mine is, so I tired both with no luck.

I tried turning off sygate firewall, no effect.