Re: Headset Chat Audio

by cheatercheater00
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Original Post

Headset Chat Audio

★ Novice

I typically use my speakers for game audio and my headset for chat audio.  In Windows, I have my speakers set to the Default Device, and my headset set to the Default Communications Device.  Typically, this setting allows most programs to behave the way I want.  If something doesn't work, almost all games and communications programs have a way to set where the communication device.  As far as I can tell, Apex doesn't, and it's not honoring Windows' defaults.  

Am I missing something, or is this something that can be addressed in future updates?

Message 1 of 11 (3,373 Views)

Re: Headset Chat Audio

★ Novice
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Message 2 of 11 (3,352 Views)

Re: Headset Chat Audio

★★★ Newbie

I'm having the exact same issue.

Message 3 of 11 (3,335 Views)

Re: Headset Chat Audio

I have the exact same issue. Just for this reason, the voice chat is so much better on xbox one than it is in windows. The game is really objectively worse on PC for this one reason. I would like a reply from someone on the dev team. Please take this issue seriously.

Message 4 of 11 (3,281 Views)

Re: Headset Chat Audio

To EA employees reading this: If there is no current plan to implement this, could you please talk to the people on the dev team and ask them to implement it? This is important for any semblance of acceptable voice chat.

Message 5 of 11 (3,269 Views)

Re: Headset Chat Audio

EA DICE Team

Hey @cheatercheater00  @TheDuck0fDeath  @GoryDaze

 

What headset and drivers are you using on your headset? 

 

Also we did note in the latest update from us about Audio issues here: https://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Discussion/Respawn-Check-in/m-p/7740996#M17255

 

/Atic 

Message 6 of 11 (3,247 Views)

Re: Headset Chat Audio

Hi @EA_Atic, I am using a Sennheiser PC8, which is a USB headset. It requires no additional drivers. It presents itself to Windows as a separate microphone input and stereo output (as any usb headset would). However,  the same issue would be present with any other headset. To have voice on headphones and gameplay audio on speakers, the game needs the ability to talk to multiple audio outputs at the same time, and Apex does not have this ability. If it did, it would show up in the relevant control panel in Windows as two different "apps". To see the control panel I am talking about, go to Start, type in "Change Volume Level", then click on "Change the device or app volume", scroll down, and at the bottom, under the heading "Advanced sound options", select "App volume and device preferences". It will display each app, and each output of an app, separately. For example, I have Firefox open right now, and it shows up here several times, each instance with its own set of volume slider and input / output selector boxes. This is because there are several Firefox windows that want to play sound or use the microphone (most of them are YouTube). The same way, Apex Legends should show up twice: once for the gameplay audio, and once for the communications. It should also look up which audio device is set as "default communications device", and use that for voice chat. To see where those are set, go to Start, and type in "Manage audio devices". Under the default tab (Playback), right click on a device and select "Set as Default Communication Device". Apex should use the right API provided by Microsoft. Here is a link to the API overview which you could pass on to the dev team.

 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/coreaudio/using-the-communication-device

 

It bears saying that unlike on Xbox, on PC the microphone functionality is pretty poor as it is, because it does not do de-noising. On Xbox, sound played back by the game is automatically subtracted from the microphone audio stream, most likely by using an FFT and subtracting data in the frequency domain. This does not happen on PC, so if you have an open mic, all your team mates can hear your game audio picked up by the microphone from the speakers. This is pretty terrible and is another thing that should be improved. The game is too fast for using push to talk, and on the other hand open mic is useless on PC. It works really well on Xbox, so please copy this de-noising behavior. This is a separate issue from using a separate output for voice chat.

 

Below I talk about some ways to do this that could make the developer's life easier, it is probably not relevant to you (@EA_Atic) personally, but please file an enhancement request with the dev team and provide the above and below info to them, to make their life easier.

 

Here is a relevant overview of how to perform audio cancellation:

 

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21795944/remove-known-audio-output-from-microphone-input

 

Here is mention of another method of doing that:

 

https://sound.stackexchange.com/questions/45615/subtract-music-from-microphone-input-while-recording

 

(I just googled ("subtract game audio from microphone")

 

In all cases, Apex will have to estimate the audio delay between its sound output and the same sound being present on the mic input, and apply that delay when cancelling the game audio from the mic. This can be done by use of a pattern detection algorithm, and by periodically using silent chirp sounds to calibrate. Apex has a lot of high bandwidth sound effects so it can use those to calibrate. To improve cancelling quality you could estimate the room acoustic signature by periodically performing a deconvolution step on what the microphone picks up, and averaging the recent impulse responses in the frequency domain. Then, when cancelling the audio, use (game output) * (room impulse response) as the signal you will be subtracting from the game audio. This will not only remove the game audio from the mic input, but also the room echo of the game audio. You can use the same computed impulse response to implement an adaptive filter like described here:

 

https://www.arpapress.com/volumes/vol7issue1/ijrras_7_1_05.pdf

 

Hope this helps

Message 7 of 11 (3,231 Views)

Re: Headset Chat Audio

Hi @EA_Atic, I was wondering if you had any sort of update on this issue? Are you by any chance passing this on to the dev team? Thanks.
Message 8 of 11 (3,195 Views)

Re: Headset Chat Audio

★★★★★ Newbie

Thanks for the info, cheatercheater00

 

@EA_Atic is this being worked on? I also would like to see this feature. Thanks!

Message 9 of 11 (3,097 Views)

Re: Headset Chat Audio

I'd like to encourage everyone to click the "me too" button at the bottom of the first post to self-report how many people want this.

Message 10 of 11 (3,088 Views)