Audio-Stream Options

[Phothiabea]

So right now there is some weird "issue" (I guess you could call that).

When I broadcast, it doesn't just streams the audio from the game, but rather all audio that get's out of my audio device. Is is rather annoying as if for example I talk to a friend via voice chat or skype and he also watches my stream (quite common as it's a great tool to show a friend a game I have), he will hear himself (with the normal broadcasting delay of around 3 to 5 seconds).

It would be quite nice to have some sort of audio option to select what gets on the stream and what not?

Is there already an option for it and I missed it?

[8BitCerberus]

Just going to past my response in the "privacy theft" thread:

Windows mixes everything down into one audio output, which is what any recording/streaming software will capture. Everything from game audio, to skype/ventrilo/teamspeak/mumble, to the music you're playing whether in iTunes, Winamp, Spotify, or whatever. Even the random dings and IM alerts you receive.

There are ways to split these audio sources and only have your capture software recording/streaming one source of audio, but they require 3rd party "virtual soundcard" software or multiple physical sound cards to do it. And each audio source would need to send it's output to an individual sound card (virtual or otherwise), while Steam's broadcasting would need to be configured to only capture audio from another individual sound card that no other application is sending audio to. Game audio more than likely can't be changed from going to whatever you've set as the "default" audio output in Windows, so that's what Steam would need to capture and what every other audio source would need to NOT use for it's output.

This is something that every screen capture or streaming program has to deal with. It's not something Valve can fix, because it's the way that Windows works with audio. The most Valve can do (and has done already) is allow you to turn off your own mic from the broadcast. But that doesn't turn off the VoIP audio coming from whoever you're chatting with in Skype or whatever.

So long story short, if you don't want that stuff broadcast, either set up virtual audio cable, buy multiple sound cards, or just don't VoIP while playing games.

[Phothiabea]

I don't understand why Steam (or Windows) can't do that, I mean Windows is already able to have different sound levels for each individual program (in the soundmixer) So Steam could also do the same:

Not just picking up the audio signal at the end of the chain right before it goes into my headphones but picking up the different signals with their own soundmixer and mute everything that isn't the game.

[Basic]

Originally posted by DarkWolf777:

Windows mixes everything down into one audio output, which is what any recording/streaming software will capture. Everything from game audio, to skype/ventrilo/teamspeak/mumble, to the music you're playing whether in iTunes, Winamp, Spotify, or whatever. Even the random dings and IM alerts you receive.

I was just getting ready to type something like that out. Thanks for doing all the hard work

@Linard: Windows can modify the volume for any application before being sent to an audio device (be it physical or virtual), but you can only record from a given device - which means the signals have already been mixed by the time you see them.

Think of it like stripy toothpaste - you can change how much of each colour you put in, but once it's in the tube, you can't split it back out.

It's a detail of how the windows audio system is implemented. Win7 was a massive improvement over XP (in that you had volume control per app) but it's still not where it needs to be.

Note: It's perfectly feasible for Steam to present itself to the system as an audio device. If it did so, compatible games could direct audio output to Steam directly instead of the normal audio device. Steam could them split audio and both broadcast and send to the speakers. Unfortunately, this would require Valve to implement the feature and then get enough games to support it that it was worth using.

[8BitCerberus]

Originally posted by Linard:

Not just picking up the audio signal at the end of the chain right before it goes into my headphones but picking up the different signals with their own soundmixer and mute everything that isn't the game.

That's not something they can do, not without some low-level hardware access at least, access that most of Windows forward facing parts don't even have. Even sound card drivers don't even really have that kind of direct access to the bare metal, everything is abstracted and access is handled through various APIs.