After more than two years of development, the Mumble 1.4 platform is released, focused on creating voice chats that provide low latency and high voice quality. A key area of ββapplication of Mumble is the organization of communication between players in the process of playing computer games. The project code is written in C++ and distributed under the BSD license. Builds prepared for Linux, Windows and macOS.
The project consists of two modules - the mumble client and the murmur server. The graphical interface is based on Qt. The Opus audio codec is used to transmit audio information. A flexible system of access control is provided, for example, it is possible to create voice chats for several isolated groups with the possibility of separate communication of leaders in all groups. Data is transmitted only over an encrypted communication channel; by default, authentication based on public keys is used.
Unlike centralized services, Mumble allows you to store user data on your own servers and fully control the operation of the infrastructure, if necessary, connecting additional handler scripts, for writing which a special API based on the Ice and GRPC protocols is available. In particular, you can use existing user bases for authentication or connect sound bots that, for example, can play music. It is possible to manage the server through the web-interface. Users can search for friends on different servers.
Additional uses include recording collaborative podcasts and support for positional live audio in games (sound source is associated with the player and comes from their location in the game space), including games with hundreds of participants (for example, Mumble is used in player communities in Eve Online and Team Fortress 2 ). The games also support an overlay mode, in which the user sees which player he is talking to and can see the FPS and local time.
Main innovations:
- Implemented the ability to develop general-purpose plugins that can be installed and updated independently of the main application. Unlike previously provided built-in plugins, the new mechanism can be used to implement arbitrary additions and is not limited to tools for extracting player location information to implement positional audio.
- Added a full-fledged search dialog for users and channels available on the server. The dialog can be invoked via the Ctrl+F combination or via the menu. Both mask searches and regular expressions are supported.
- Added a channel listen mode that allows the user to hear all the sounds heard by channel members, but without being directly connected to the channel. At the same time, listening users are reflected in the list of channel members, but are marked with a special icon (only in new versions, in older clients such users are not displayed). The mode is unidirectional, i.e. if the listening user wants to speak, he will need to connect to the channel. ACLs and settings have been provided for channel administrators to disable connections in listening mode.
- Added the TalkingUI interface, which allows you to understand who is speaking right now. The interface provides a pop-up window with a list of currently speaking users, similar to the tooltip in game mode, but intended for everyday use by non-players.
- Access restriction indicators have been added to the interface, allowing you to understand whether the user can connect to the channel or not (for example, if the channel only allows access with a password or is tied to a specific group on the server).
- Text messages support Markdown markup, which, for example, can be used to send lists, code snippets, quotes to chat, highlight parts of text in bold or italics, and style links.
- The ability to play stereo audio has been added, allowing the server to send a stereo audio stream that will not be converted to mono by the client. This feature can be used, for example, to create music bots. Sending sound from the official client is still only possible in mono mode.
- Added the ability to assign nicknames to users, which makes it possible to attach a more meaningful name to users who abuse too long names or change their name frequently. Assigned names can appear in the participant list as additional labels or completely replace the original name. Nicknames are tied to user certificates, do not depend on the selected server, and do not change after a restart.
- The server now has the function of sending a welcome text in broadcast mode using the Ice protocol. Added support for reflecting in the ACL log and all changes in groups. Added separate ACLs to control the reset of comments and avatars. By default, spaces are allowed in usernames. Reduced CPU load by enabling TCP_NODELAY by default.
- Added plugins to support positional audio in Among Us and random games based on the Source engine. Updated plugins for Call of Duty 2 and GTA V games.
- The Opus audio codec has been updated to version 1.3.1.
- Removed support for Qt4, DirectSound and CELT 0.11.0. Removed classic theme.
Source: opennet.ru