Spawnpoint provides a per-arena, centralised Voice Chat server hosted on the PC running your Spawnpoint Controller (your operator panel). The voice chat system runs in the background on your headsets, and can be used no matter what game is currently open, and even works when using PCVR.
To enable it, simply access the addons view of any headset:
- Go to the Devices page in Spawnpoint
- Click the cog symbol on any headset to access the device settings window for that headset
- Select the "+" tab
- Enable the Voice Chat addon
Once enabled, a new voice chat tab (identifiable by the microphone icon) will appear in the device settings window. From here you can toggle a few settings:
- Enable Voice Chat - this must be enabled for any voice chat functionality to work
- Voice Chat Behaviour - this defines when the headset should join the voice chat server
- Always Enabled: The headset will always be in the server, no matter what state it is in
- When in a Spawnpoint Session: The headset will join the server when added to a session
- When in a Spawnpoint Game: The headset will join the server when a game is launched, this includes the Spawnpoint Lounge
- Voice Chat Volume - this sets how loud the output volume of the voice chat client should be
- Mute Voice Microphone - if you would like the headset to play incoming voice audio, but the player is not able to respond, you can enable this to mute the microphone
- Voice Sensitivity Threshold - this will set the minimum voice sensitivity required for the headset to pick up the player speaking and transmit the audio to the voice chat server for others to hear
- Voice Hold Time - this sets how long after the voice sensitivity threshold is no longer met audio will keep transmitting. In simpler terms, it ensures the player's voice doesn't cut out if they stop speaking loudly enough to trigger the sensitivity threshold.
Using Voice Chat with PCVR
We recommend not enabling voice chat on your PCs if using streaming, let the headset handle voice chat instead and set the Voice Chat Behaviour to either "Always Enabled" or "When in a Spawnpoint Session"
If your streaming client (such as VIVE Business Streaming, Pico Business Streaming or Virtual Desktop) has microphone support, you must disable this as the streaming client will take priority over our voice chat client for microphone use and players will not be able to communicate with each other.
Voice Chat Troubleshooting
If you are seeing the red microphone icon next to headsets in the Play tab and the microphone is not working for voice chat, this is generally due to something else on the headset taking priority for the microphone away from Spawnpoint, or due to a headset OS setting. Check the below notes to see if they apply to you:
HunterVR
Currently, HunterVR uses the microphone to provide lip sync only. This will be fixed in a future update to not lip sync if you are using the Spawnpoint voice chat feature.
When running a non-Spawnpoint game
If you are running a non-Spawnpoint game that supports voice chat, you will need to disable voice chat in that game to use the Spawnpoint Voice Chat. On Android, a foreground application (i.e. a VR app) will take priority over a background app for microphone access.
Other Background Voice Chat Applications
Another background voice chat application such as Mumla or Discord may be using the microphone and taking priority away from Spawnpoint. You will need to disable these apps to use Spawnpoint for voice chat.
Meta Quest Camera Settings
Try turning off "Auto Audio Balancing" in your headset's OS settings. This can be found under Settings > Camera.