Steam Voice Chat in-game; fix the output device selection!

[Ace42]

I'd like to be able to select the output device for Steam Voice Chat, so that I can have VOIP audio played back through my earpiece; but game audio played through my 5.1 PC Speakers.
This functionality is available in nearly all 3rd party VOIP software, such as Mumble.

At present the Steam Client will only output Voice audio through the Windows "Default Communications Device" when performing a local microphone volume test [Friends > Settings > Voice tab > Test Microphone button].
When in a game, Voice audio instead comes through the Windows "Default Device" — the same device that the game audio comes from.

This appears to be a bug, as the functionality is correct in a local microphone test; but not in a game.
Fixing this would be nice; although it would be preferable to just be given the option to select the appropriate input and output devices independently of the Windows defaults.

Yes, I know this has been brought up before and repeatedly; but it's about time such a simple issue gets fixed once and for all!

[Ace42]

Addendum: Most games seem to use "Default Communications Device" - as you'd expect. However, for some inexplicable reason, CS:GO uses "Default recording Device" instead; apparently completely contrary to every other game I have on Steam, including TF2... =/

FFS if you can't even get consistency in your OWN GAMES, then give us the options to pick the devices!

[Gonmo]

Or they could add in the feature where the game volume goes quieter when someone talks, then back to normal volume when no one is talking.

[Ace42]

Originally posted by Gonmo:

Or they could add in the feature where the game volume goes quieter when someone talks, then back to normal volume when no one is talking.

A lot of games that use Steam VOIP already do that... I'd rather just have it working properly first...

[eram]

Originally posted by Gonmo:

Or they could add in the feature where the game volume goes quieter when someone talks, then back to normal volume when no one is talking.

Turn Down Volume While Speaking

Instead of totally muting your game, this will only lower the volume while speaking.

alias "+mic" "volume 0.5; +voicerecord"
alias "-mic" "-voicerecord; volume 1"
bind "MICROPHONE-BUTTON" "+mic"

(Source engine only)

[chromium]

Has there been any update to this? I still don't see why we can't have mic output and game output in different channels.

[Ace42]

Hah, we should be so lucky. They're too busy faffing around with Broadcast and Vulcan and steam boxes and crud to actually fix basic functionality of their core service...