Difference between revisions of "FAQ/English"

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== Can I read this FAQ in other Languages too ==
Yes you can. There are FAQs in following Languages too!
Yes you can. There are FAQs in following Languages too!<br>
[[FAQ_(Deutsch)|German / Deutsch]]
== What is Mumble? ==
== What is Mumble? ==

Revision as of 23:08, 6 August 2007

About Mumble

Can I read this FAQ in other Languages too

Yes you can. There are FAQs in following Languages too!
German / Deutsch

What is Mumble?


What platforms does it run on?

The client, Mumble, runs on Windows XP and Linux. The server component, Murmur, should run on anything you can compile Qt 4.0 on.

What are the system requirements?

The client runs on any Linux or Windows XP machine, and you also need a microphone. The server is mostly bandwidth bound, so as long as your network hardware is sufficient it should run on pretty much anything.

Please note that the binaries distributed from SourceForge are compiled for SSE (Pentium 3 or Athlon-XP). Mumble is a VOIP solution for gaming, and as most modern games require at least that good a CPU it makes little sense for us not to optimize for it.

Installing Mumble

Prebuilt binary packages can be downloaded from SourceForge[1] if you're running Windows or an i386 Linux distribution with the Debian package manager installed. Installation sources:

  • Windows: SourceForge
  • Linux:
    • Debian, Ubuntu, etc: SourceForge (.deb) or Treviño repository ([2])
    • RPM based distro's: You could try a rpm found in the forum.
    • Gentoo: emerge mumble should do it (You'll need sqlite and/or sqlite3 flags enabled, and reemerge qt4 if it was emerged without them)
    • Archlinux: You can find a PKGBUILD in the AUR: [3]

Disclaimer: Only the files are SourceForge are official. Be careful with the other ones.

For those who need to (or want to), here are two good tutorials for compiling Mumble/Murmur for your system:

What makes Mumble better?


What are the bandwidth requirements?

From 0.9.1, this is highly variable, and mostly up to the user. With top quality, minimum latency and positional information sent, it is 64.6 kbit/s including the IP and UDP overhead. With 80 ms transmission delay, the lowest quality speech and no positional information, it is 11.0 kbit/s (again with IP and UDP overhead). The default uses 45.4 kbit/s; we did not hear any noticable improvement in quality from the last 20 kbit/s. When comparing with other products, remember to compare the total bandwidth use and not just the bitrate of the audio encoding.

There are two parts to tuning the bandwidth; the audio bitrate per audio frame (20ms) and the amount of frames to put in each packet. Each transmitted packet has a overhead of 28 bytes from IP and UDP alone, so at the highest transmission rate (50 packets per second), that is 1400 bytes of data for raw network overhead alone. You should try to find a balance that works well for you, but we generally recommend sacrificing high audio bitrate for lower latency; Mumble sounds quite good even on the lowest quality setting.

There is no way to adjust the amount of incoming bandwidth; you will have to have enough to sustain the total amount of speaking players. This should be a minor issue; most players these days are on asymetric lines and hence it is only upload that is a bottleneck.

What tools did you use to make this?

See Development Tools.

How can I help?


Audio Features

How does the positional sound work?

Your position ingame is transmitted along with every audio packet, and Mumble uses standard DirectSound 3D to position the audio on the receiver side. Only games for which a plug-in has been written get positional audio. All other games will work as well, you just will not get 3D sound.

Why does Mumble sound so much better than other voice products?


Where is the volume control?

Mumble uses the default volume you have configured in your operating system. There is no support for amplifying incoming voices, and there probably will not be, as this will decrease audio quality, something we are very reluctant to do.

The text-to-speech quality is horrible!


Why do some voices sound metallic?


Why doesn't the voice activity detect my voice any more?




Unfortunately, a lot of popular headsets produce tiny traces of echo. In other VOIP products, you will not notice it because the echo is lower than the noise level, but as Mumble dutifully removes all noise, the echo suddenly becomes clear. There is little the person hearing the echo can do, but there are a few things the person producing the echo can do. The easy solution is to use ASIO and enable echo cancellation, however this requires that the headset is of the analog type (no USB) and a very high quality soundcard.

The more troublesome solution is to modify the headset. If it is possible to pry the arm with the microphone from the headphones, do so and reattach it with a thick piece of rubber tape; this should insulate it from vibrations. If your headset is open (no large earmuffs), there exists an echo path through air from the headphones to the microphone. You can fix this by attaching anything foam-like to the front of the headphones to muffle the sound heard outside them, but this will most likely ruin the ergonomics of the headset as well as look somewhat odd.

We might put up a page of "tested headsets" if anyone wants it.


What sort of bandwidth will I need for the server?

Worst case scenario: Number of users × Number of talking users × 60 kbit/s. With less aggressive quality settings, it's ~20 kbit/s, and the bare minimum is 12kbit/s. Note that Mumble is geared towards social gaming; its quality enables people to talk naturally to each other instead of just barking short commands, so the amount of "users talking at the same time" can be somewhat higher than expected.

This means that a server with 20 players and 2 players talking at once requires 0.8-2.4 Mbit/s, depending on quality settings. In the server's .ini file, you can specify the maximum allowed bitrate for users as well as the maximum number of clients to allow.


murmur.ini, it is self-documenting.

How do the ACLs work?

See ACL and Groups

mumble.pri:8: Unknown test function: CONFIG

Mumble requires Qt version 4, preferably 4.0.1.

You will need this flag "-qt-sql-sqlite" when you run the ./configure for Qt.

How can I reset the database?

Delete the murmur.sqlite file.
Rerun the command:

murmur -supw <password>

How can I change a users password?

-bash-3.00$ sqlite3 murmur.sqlite
sqlite> UPDATE players SET pw = 'newpassword' WHERE name = 'playername';
sqlite> <Ctrl-D>

How do I backup the database?



See Murmur Init Script

Common Problems and Resolutions

Problem: Webserver not able to write to DB when using murmur.cgi.

Solution: Make sure both DB and directory that DB is in is writing be the webserver user.

Problem: Error message in murmur.cgi line 118

Solution: You need an MTA on localhost unless you have defined a different SMTP server.

Problem: Connecting, but not able to create/join channels

Solution: You currently cannot use the 0.9.1 client with the CVS version of the server (0.9.2).

Problem: Can't find Push to Talk button

Solution: When you set Push to talk in Configure > Settings > Basic Audio, you then need to also bind a key to PTT. You do this in Configure > Settings > Shortcuts.

Failure to load mumble_ol.dll

If you are running Win XP with SP2, this is due to a outdated DirectX. DirectX is actually updated each and every month, which is why you see every game trying to update your DirectX. So while the version may be 9.0c, what you want to look at is the release date. The latest version may be found at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/default.mspx

Downloaded, extracted and installed this package and it fixed this problem for me: DirectX End-User Runtimes (June 2007) --Iam8up 08:01, 10 July 2007 (PDT)

Can't hear other users/users can't hear me

This seems to be fixable by experimenting with the "Use TCP mode" checkbox in "Basic Audio" settings.

Also this problem can happen if you have server with multible IP's, you need to use server PRIMARY IP or you will experience random "can't hear you, but you can hear me" issues. Not sure is it possible to bind murmur just use one IP from box.

Shortcuts don't work on Linux

You have to enable the Xevie extension for them to work. To do this you will have to add the following line to xorg.conf, in the extensions section:

Option         "XEVIE" "Enable"

That should like something like this:

Section "Extensions"
    Option         "XEVIE" "Enable"

Then restart the X server (Ctrol+Alt+Backspace) and try again.

Keys seem to lock when using Shortcuts on Linux

Sometimes, keys get "locked" when using Xevie. For example, you press two keys at the same time, but when you release them, only of them is detected as released. This is better seen on games, when you start moving diagonally, and when you stop, it keeps moving. This can be fixed by playing around with the key repetition settings which can be found:

  • Gnome: System->Preferences->Keyboard
  • KDE: K menu->Control Center->Peripherals->Keyboard

You can try changing the Speed/Rate slider and disabling the key repetition (first checkbox)