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Conclusion
Except for Speak Freely, that has some missing gaming features because it was never designed for online gaming communications, all these programs work well for this task. It really comes down to what you want. Flight Comms is small, has no registry entries, and is simple to use. It does not cooperate with some recent game releases on my computer (such as Flanker 2.0) and has nothing except really basic functions. Roger-Wilco is easy to set up, has good quality comms, and through editing a text file, it will cooperate will every game I have tried so far. It does not have any way to use in-game switchable channels. It is supported by HearMe's base station. This lowers one player's CPU load by removing the need to be the server. Battle Comm is flexible, has adjustable voice compression, channels, and is going to be part of DirectX 8.0. TeamSound has all of the above plus Battle Sequencer. It is quite a large program and likely to get larger with the new features under development. In the days of gigabit drives this in not really a problem. TeamSound and Battle Comm use about the same amount of memory, Roger-Wilco about two thirds that amount, and Flight Comms uses hardly any memory at all.
Fig. 9. Table ComparisonHINT: Although it is possible to use a freestanding microphone and speakers with all of these products, it is not recommended. You will have echoes, feedback, and generally poorer voice communications than even the cheapest headphones and microphone can provide.
HINT: Do not select the +20db microphone boost in your system microphone setup. This will almost always result in poorer voice transmissions with lots of distortion.AfterwordAll these programs are free. I can see no reason not to have them all on your hard drive. I find that I use all of them at one time or another when flying with different groups of people who have selected one program over another after their own evaluation.
I can not end without a brief word about Game Commander. This is not a voice communication program but Game Commander MX does cooperate with all five of the above programs. It requires a different setup for Flight Comms and Speak Freely. GC translates spoken commands into key presses so that you can actually speak commands to a simulation. I use GC for Wingman/AI and view commands. I find that this adds to my immersion in the sim dramatically and frees up buttons on my HOTAS for more cockpit commands. Contact Game Commander customer support for the proper setup to use with these programs.
Fig. 10. Game CommanderSpeaking of customer support, I am pleased to report that Battle Comm, Roger-Wilco, TeamSound, and Game Commander provides some of the best customer support in the industry. I contacted each one with a question about their product and received a reply within 24 hours. The follow-up if my problem was not solved immediately was equally impressive.
All programs can be downloaded for free at the following URLs except Game Commander that has a free demo:
Application URL Battle Comm www.shadowfactor.com Flight Comms www.brand.dircon.co.uk/fltcomms/ Speak Freely www.speakfreely.org Roger-Wilco www.resounding.com Team Sound www.teamsound.com Game Commander www.gamecommander.com
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