Mute or lower sim volume when using radios/push to talk/SRS.

[Mr_Blastman]

I like to fly DCS with my surround sound cranked up.  I don't want to play with headphones.  When flying online, however, this becomes a problem with the microphone and talking to GCI.  Often, the sim noises drown out the microphone reception, making me either have to sound like a total douche on the radio, loud and slow, or constantly repeating calls.

 

It would be nice if there was an option in DCS to have the sim sound automatically lowered in volume whenever activating push to talk.

 

[SharpeXB]

There’s a “helmet” mode for audio. Maybe it has this affect already. Have you tried that? Also you can adjust all the different volumes in the menu. Maybe the helmet mode will consider this with the built-in VOIP feature coming soon. 

[Tippis]

41 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

There’s a “helmet” mode for audio. Maybe it has this affect already. Have you tried that?

Have you? Or are you just suggesting things without any idea of what they're doing?

No, it doesn't do what the OP is asking for. And adjusting the volumes is very obviously not a remotely workable option as anyone remotely intelligent will be able to figure out in, oh, 2 seconds flat.  

[Mr_Blastman]

Helmet mode doesn't work--I have it on all the time, anyways, because otherwise the jet engines would cause me to go deaf.

 

We desperately need this feature.

[SharpeXB]

1 hour ago, Mr_Blastman said:

Helmet mode doesn't work--I have it on all the time, anyways, because otherwise the jet engines would cause me to go deaf.

 

We desperately need this feature.

If people have trouble hearing you due to the background speaker noise, maybe try a noise cancelling microphone. 

[Mr_Blastman]

3 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

If people have trouble hearing you due to the background speaker noise, maybe try a noise cancelling microphone. 

 

Not possible until after I move sometime in the next year.  No hardware purchases until then.  Everything must be replaced after move.

[Tippis]

8 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

If people have trouble hearing you due to the background speaker noise, maybe try a noise cancelling microphone. 

You need to read the OP. Your “helpful” suggestions are as unhelpful and as pointless as always because, as always, you have not taken the second needed to understand the topic at hand.

This is not about hardware or volume or settings. This is not “noise” but deliberate audio that needs to be cut out — unless you get a mic/speaker combo like some tinny little conference system, it will not know what output audio needs to be filtered out, and it will not really do what is needed. The OP is asking for an auto-ducking tied to mic input. It's a feature built into Windows, but requires the running program to tie into that functionality (but then, it is often turned off because it is commonly a hugely annoying feature as well, changing your volume precisely when you don't want it to).

When they expand the in-game voice chat feature, this is a very obvious and necessary functionality to have built in, and it's something the game should be able to trivially handle on its own: it knows when it gets input; it knows what it's outputting; it controls both fully and can easily auto-mix the two on the fly. For external solutions (SRS, Discord and the like), it would have to either go the Windows-native route or use an external audio interface with an auto-mix function, and that is massive overkill for such a simple request.

Alternatively, there would have to be a “duck on PTT” function, where any radio activation changes the volume but that relies on the assumption that the external audio is triggered by the same button input, and that can be unreliable because of how differently various radios are implemented in the different modules — see how different SRS works with the modules we have for instance.

Edited December 31, 2021 by Tippis