Echo in wing comms (1-2s delay)

[conceit]

I have the problem that when using wing audio comms, I can hear myself speaking with a delay of 1s or more. We tried if this echo comes from my wingman, but after he muted his mike the echo still persisted. I'm using an Oculus Rift HMD as headset. It has earphones and mic included that show as USB audio devices under Windows, and that are configured as default audio devices.

Also, I can hardly image that a delay of over 1s is a local echo. It seems more like it is returned audio over the internet (FD servers?).

I found a few older threads about this issue with other headsets, but no one has posted a solution except that swapping the hardware helped in one case (probably local, low latency echo) -- which I find a bad idea, because of VR HMD.

Anyone has some solutions or tips on finding the cause? Thanks.

 

[conceit]

C'mon, really nobody else hearing themselves on the comms?

 

[Araviel]

need more info, what other audio devices do you got listed?

 

[conceit]

Ok, there are plenty..

Audio Output:
----------------
Speaker, G510 Gaming Keyboard (not connected, kbd has a speaker and mic connector and acts as USB interface)
NVIDIA High definition audio (HDMI connection to monitor with speakers)
3x NVIDIA Output (not connected)
Speaker (Realtek HD, rear connector, not connected)
Realtek Digital Output (showing as ready, but not connected, probably an SPDIF output)
Headphone: Rift Audio (default playback and comm device)
Voicemeeter Input and Aux (installed and considered as problem source. but problem also occurs when deactivated)

Recording:
------------
Microphone G510s Gaming Keyboard (not connected, kbd has a speaker and mic connector and acts as USB interface)
Microphone (Realtek HD, not connected)
Input (Realtek HD, not connected)
Stereomix (deactivated)
Microphone, Rift Audio (ready, default recording and comm device)
Microphone, Rocksmith USB Guitar Adapter
Voicemeeter Aux Output (see above, problem also when deactivated)
Voicemeeter Output (see above, problem also when deactivated)

 

[Araviel]

yea that is plenty alright, and i think you are bound to get issues with that many things connected.

the Rift is connected with HDMI too right? and the USB for both audio and mic?


do you got any alternative for the USB? processing input as digital when you have lots of other drivers running is not ideal, and deactivating does not always help.
EAX and other windows post processing might still try and bounce the signal to other devices, and you are right that Voicemeeter thingy you got is just such a thing.
It could also be that if you are having the rift connected with HDMI but are suppressing that audio signal it could sill get picked up by the rift audio device and bounced.

try to keep it simple - if you can try and use TCA or RCA for your recording device and connect it to realtek HD.
and ouput use HDMI only or Rift Audio only.

 

[conceit]

yea that is plenty alright, and i think you are bound to get issues with that many things connected.

the Rift is connected with HDMI too right? and the USB for both audio and mic? do you got any alternative for the USB? processing input as digital when you have lots of other drivers running is not ideal, and deactivating does not always help. EAX and other windows post processing might still try and bounce the signal to other devices, and you are right that Voicemeeter thingy you got is just such a thing.
It could also be that if you are having the rift connected with HDMI but are suppressing that audio signal it could sill get picked up by the rift audio device and bounced.

try to keep it simple - if you can try and use TCA or RCA for your recording device and connect it to realtek HD.
and ouput use HDMI only or Rift Audio only.

Thanks for your advice. It sadly goes the direction that I was anticipating: Remove everything. It's not easy. I can remove some (uninstall Voicemeeter completely, same with guitar stuff, use another keyboard), but of course I cannot unplug the HDMI connection to my monitor and, well, don't really dare removing Window's very basic HDMI-audio drivers or the ones of my mainboard. ED comms not worth the reinstall.. ED somehow must tackle the fact that people have screens with speakers (they're inactive, even).

All this process is a bit of time consuming and annoying, as you probably can imagine. I can only test if my wingman is online, as there is no other comms testing possible in ED. Also, the sound engine works pretty well for any other game and teamspeak. It's only ED having this. So, I start to deinstalling devices and drivers from a pretty well working system. I bet it won't help anything, but I'll try before cry. Will report in. o7

 

[conceit]

Ok, a bit of fiddling and convincing my wingman to drive some audio tests, it came out clear that the problem is not on my side, but on his. ED seems to deal badly with volume/gain. My wingman changed the following settings:

Test 1: ED, wingman has AGC on: The AGC raises volume so high that I even can trigger his comms to sending, echoing loud and clear what I'm saying. The delay is >1s.
Test 2: Teamspeak with AGC on: All ok, loud and clear, no echos at all, minimal delay (like a phone call)
Test 3: ED, AGC off: I still hear a bit of my echo in low volume when we talk at the same time. He sounds very muted now, hard to understand. I cannot trigger his client to start sending.
Test 4: Teamspeak, AGC off: Loud and clear, but TS does not trigger sending reliably first. Lowering the trigger threshold in the TS options resolves the issue.

Conclusion: ED requires all co-players to have a decent audio setup, preferably no AGC, and gives bad control over trigger thresholds and gain. The latency was huge, and even more, it was not constant! When the latency grew, I could well hear from my echoes that ED upped the sample replay rate to free the buffers (my echoes sometimes sounded like I'm living on a Helium planet).

Teamspeak counters all these problems very well. Low latency (depending on the server), better gain and threshold control. Sadly, I miss the sound effects of ED comms.