Ventrilo - Network Setup

Automatically connect when opened

This option will automatically reconnect the client to the previous configured 'User Name / Server' connection information.

Voice stream starts

This option tells the program to buffer (N) number of packets from an individual User before starting to play a voice stream. There are 8 packets per second, so the default of 1 would mean to buffer 1 packet (1/8 of a second) before starting to play a Users voice stream. The higher the number the longer the latency between when another User starts talking into his microphone and when you start to hear what they are saying. The lower the number the lower the latency. However, if you or the other User has a bad network connection or if either of you has a high ping time to the server, then too low of a value could cause breaks in the voice stream when starting, thus causing the following option (Voice stream is interrupted) to activate.

The voice stream packets are not lost no matter what you set this value to (and the following option). Be advised that even a little network hiccup can cause packets to be delayed, so if you are listening to a continuous voice stream (like someone streaming music) there will be a gradual build up of voice packets in the buffers. The longer you listen to the same unbroken stream the longer the latency will become. It's either that or lose packets and I consider the loss of packets to be the greater of two evils.

Note: If you detect latency when listening to a continuous stream mute the sound from the main window for a second or two. This will cause all of the buffers to be flushed.

Voice stream is interrupted

This option is just like the "Voice stream starts" option listed above, except that it instructs the program to start buffering packets again if the incoming voice stream stops and all of the currently buffered packets are played. If either you or the other User has a really bad connection or high ping this will quite often produce the effect of playing the stream for a couple of seconds, pausing for half a second (with a value of 4) and then playing again. If your connection is good most of the time then this should never happen, but this feature lets it buffer some data so as to prevent any other hiccups from interrupting the stream too soon.