4 ms·

As I hyper-casual gamer now, I also like that I can drop into any of the servers I've joined and those communities still know who I am. I maybe play 10 games of

As I hyper-casual gamer now, I also like that I can drop into any of the servers I've joined and those communities still know who I am. I maybe play 10 games of Dota a year, and I'm still on first name terms with the people I play with. Disord is just hands down the unifying glue that brings together any type of gaming community, it attacked the problem by always offering a better experience to alternatives, and providing tight integration to the platforms that helped it grow. Every single game chat voice just sucks compared to Discord. Back in 2006, I used to run a game server hosting company, approximately 400~ game servers at the peak excluding voice (battlefield, css, gmod). I hosted Teamspeak and Ventrillo, and they were nice 0.25 "per slot" servers per month, but the process was so cumbersome.

n3dm 6y ago
>every single game voice chat just sucks compared to discord I disagree wholeheartedly. Discord uses 250mb+ minimum in RAM to handle simple voice chat, whereas alternatives like mumble in this example use 20mb. The voice codec and quality is arguably better and with less down time. Discord servers often go down and I've found myself having to switch to central or whatever to get it to work.
- stryan 6y ago
  Discord has "good enough" voice audio quality and infinitely easier on-boarding and usage compared to Mumble. Most users, especially gamers who often have higher-spec machines then normal users, don't care about RAM usage. Plus there's an underappreciated aspect of having really good text channels tied in with the servers, meaning people have a reason to be looking at the server and who's on voice outside of active calls/voice channels. (EDIT: Forgot to add, server downtime seems to be a regional thing. I'm unfortunately on Discord almost every night; there's occasional degraded periods but otherwise I can normally assume it just works.)
  - n3dm 6y ago
    I'm not arguing that the features/ease of use is the reason why its doing well. All of those features are unmatched for average consumers that don't care about their privacy which is their customer/product base. I didn't say anything about the features you mentioned and was talking about voice chat only. >Most [gamers] don't care about RAM usage. Source? Anyone I know who games on a PC is almost always hyper aware of what crap is running on their system. I'm simply arguing what the point is that I quoted, that it is obnoxiously heavy (250mb minimum ram, sometimes 450Mb+,) uptime is questionable, buggy application, and does care about user privacy. They force you to use a non-voip phone number for account creation now in some cases. Or joining some servers.
    - stryan 6y ago
      That's fair, there is a distinction between the actual process of using voice chat versus the specifications of the voice chat. It seems that I took OP as referring to the former, while you're referring to the latter. > Source? Anyone I know who games on a PC is almost always hyper aware of what crap is running on their system. None but anecdotal, much like this. > I'm simply arguing what the point is that I quoted, that it is obnoxiously heavy (250mb minimum ram, sometimes 450Mb+,) uptime is questionable, buggy application, and does care about user privacy. Right, you're arguing that it sucks because of those points are I argued back that the ease-of-us, UI, and "good-enough" quality are why Discord doesn't suck (or sucks less if you prefer) then the alternatives. > They force you to use a non-voip phone number for account creation now in some cases. Or joining some servers. I've never heard of that and find it strange considering you don't even have to set a password for user accounts as someone mentioned elsewhere in the comments. Sounds like a per-server setting
    - AlphaSite 6y ago
      250mb for a singleton app is not that big of a deal these days. Most browser tabs use more memory than that these days (which really does make me mad).
    - pvg 6y ago
      was talking about voice chat only Quick, ad-hoc voice chat with minimal hassle is one of the most important features of gaming voice chat. A big reason discord is more successful than other solutions in the space is that they recognized this. You can try to define 'voice chat' down to something mumble is good at but it doesn't end up being a very interesting way to compare things.
  - Sohcahtoa82 6y ago
    > Discord has "good enough" voice audio quality I've always been surprised when anyone complains about Discord's audio quality. Discord sounds beautiful to me. Everyone sounds crystal clear. If you're experiencing poor quality, then it's almost 100% on the speaker's end. They either need a better microphone or a less noisy environment.
    - stryan 6y ago
      Discords voice quality is definitely better then you would expect, but going between a properly set up Mumble server and normal discord voice always shows a bit of a difference to me.
    - mavhc 6y ago
      The server boost graphic mentions boosts increasing call quality from 128 to 256 and higher kbps, would that make a difference?
      - Sohcahtoa82 6y ago
        For simple voice chat? Definitely not. It would be placebo at best.
        anticensor 6y ago
        Indeed, because their codec is already optimised for speech very much.
    - doix 6y ago
      For me and my friends the audio quality is fine, but the latency just kills it. There's like 150-200ms of delay (just guessing based on how it feels, haven't timed it properly). It's as bad as Skype in our testing. It's probably fine if that's what you got used to, but going from low latency to higher latency is so jarring that I can't see us ever moving from mumble as long as it's still supported.
- Fnoord 6y ago
  There are third party Discord clients such as Ripcord (Qt) and Sixcord (TUI IIRC). I dislike bloat, but the UI is great and it ain't running 24/7
- dualboot 6y ago
  There is a part of me that agrees, wholeheartedly, but then there is the other part of me that opted for 64GB of RAM in my gaming desktop because it was trivial in the overall cost of the system.
- Polylactic_acid 6y ago
  The majority of discord users would have 16-64gb of ram and don't care if 250mb goes to one of their most useful programs.
  - therealdrag0 6y ago
    I play league and CSGO on my 8gb laptop, but the Discord desktop client was superb glitchy for me. I don’t know if it was ram or what, but it was unusable.
- xboxnolifes 6y ago
  I think he was talking about in-game voice, not alternative voip clients.
- lmm 6y ago
  > Discord uses 250mb+ minimum in RAM to handle simple voice chat, whereas alternatives like mumble in this example use 20mb. 250mb is irrelevant on any system you'd want to game on. > The voice codec and quality is arguably better and with less down time. Discord servers often go down and I've found myself having to switch to central or whatever to get it to work. My real-world experience is that mumble servers go down more often and for longer - you're usually at the mercy of an individual hobby sysadmin. In theory Discord's uptime is pretty bad, but in practice it actually does beat the alternatives.

n3dm 6y ago

>every single game voice chat just sucks compared to discord I disagree wholeheartedly. Discord uses 250mb+ minimum in RAM to handle simple voice chat, whereas alternatives like mumble in this example use 20mb. The voice codec and quality is arguably better and with less down time. Discord servers often go down and I've found myself having to switch to central or whatever to get it to work.

stryan 6y ago
Discord has "good enough" voice audio quality and infinitely easier on-boarding and usage compared to Mumble. Most users, especially gamers who often have higher-spec machines then normal users, don't care about RAM usage. Plus there's an underappreciated aspect of having really good text channels tied in with the servers, meaning people have a reason to be looking at the server and who's on voice outside of active calls/voice channels. (EDIT: Forgot to add, server downtime seems to be a regional thing. I'm unfortunately on Discord almost every night; there's occasional degraded periods but otherwise I can normally assume it just works.)
- n3dm 6y ago
  I'm not arguing that the features/ease of use is the reason why its doing well. All of those features are unmatched for average consumers that don't care about their privacy which is their customer/product base. I didn't say anything about the features you mentioned and was talking about voice chat only. >Most [gamers] don't care about RAM usage. Source? Anyone I know who games on a PC is almost always hyper aware of what crap is running on their system. I'm simply arguing what the point is that I quoted, that it is obnoxiously heavy (250mb minimum ram, sometimes 450Mb+,) uptime is questionable, buggy application, and does care about user privacy. They force you to use a non-voip phone number for account creation now in some cases. Or joining some servers.
  - stryan 6y ago
    That's fair, there is a distinction between the actual process of using voice chat versus the specifications of the voice chat. It seems that I took OP as referring to the former, while you're referring to the latter. > Source? Anyone I know who games on a PC is almost always hyper aware of what crap is running on their system. None but anecdotal, much like this. > I'm simply arguing what the point is that I quoted, that it is obnoxiously heavy (250mb minimum ram, sometimes 450Mb+,) uptime is questionable, buggy application, and does care about user privacy. Right, you're arguing that it sucks because of those points are I argued back that the ease-of-us, UI, and "good-enough" quality are why Discord doesn't suck (or sucks less if you prefer) then the alternatives. > They force you to use a non-voip phone number for account creation now in some cases. Or joining some servers. I've never heard of that and find it strange considering you don't even have to set a password for user accounts as someone mentioned elsewhere in the comments. Sounds like a per-server setting
  - AlphaSite 6y ago
    250mb for a singleton app is not that big of a deal these days. Most browser tabs use more memory than that these days (which really does make me mad).
  - pvg 6y ago
    was talking about voice chat only Quick, ad-hoc voice chat with minimal hassle is one of the most important features of gaming voice chat. A big reason discord is more successful than other solutions in the space is that they recognized this. You can try to define 'voice chat' down to something mumble is good at but it doesn't end up being a very interesting way to compare things.
- Sohcahtoa82 6y ago
  > Discord has "good enough" voice audio quality I've always been surprised when anyone complains about Discord's audio quality. Discord sounds beautiful to me. Everyone sounds crystal clear. If you're experiencing poor quality, then it's almost 100% on the speaker's end. They either need a better microphone or a less noisy environment.
  - stryan 6y ago
    Discords voice quality is definitely better then you would expect, but going between a properly set up Mumble server and normal discord voice always shows a bit of a difference to me.
  - mavhc 6y ago
    The server boost graphic mentions boosts increasing call quality from 128 to 256 and higher kbps, would that make a difference?
    - Sohcahtoa82 6y ago
      For simple voice chat? Definitely not. It would be placebo at best.
      - anticensor 6y ago
        Indeed, because their codec is already optimised for speech very much.
  - doix 6y ago
    For me and my friends the audio quality is fine, but the latency just kills it. There's like 150-200ms of delay (just guessing based on how it feels, haven't timed it properly). It's as bad as Skype in our testing. It's probably fine if that's what you got used to, but going from low latency to higher latency is so jarring that I can't see us ever moving from mumble as long as it's still supported.
Fnoord 6y ago
There are third party Discord clients such as Ripcord (Qt) and Sixcord (TUI IIRC). I dislike bloat, but the UI is great and it ain't running 24/7
dualboot 6y ago
There is a part of me that agrees, wholeheartedly, but then there is the other part of me that opted for 64GB of RAM in my gaming desktop because it was trivial in the overall cost of the system.
Polylactic_acid 6y ago
The majority of discord users would have 16-64gb of ram and don't care if 250mb goes to one of their most useful programs.
- therealdrag0 6y ago
  I play league and CSGO on my 8gb laptop, but the Discord desktop client was superb glitchy for me. I don’t know if it was ram or what, but it was unusable.
xboxnolifes 6y ago
I think he was talking about in-game voice, not alternative voip clients.
lmm 6y ago
> Discord uses 250mb+ minimum in RAM to handle simple voice chat, whereas alternatives like mumble in this example use 20mb. 250mb is irrelevant on any system you'd want to game on. > The voice codec and quality is arguably better and with less down time. Discord servers often go down and I've found myself having to switch to central or whatever to get it to work. My real-world experience is that mumble servers go down more often and for longer - you're usually at the mercy of an individual hobby sysadmin. In theory Discord's uptime is pretty bad, but in practice it actually does beat the alternatives.