This is the one single game I have that cuts my headphone fidelity in half because it refuses to recognize the same mic that seemingly every other game has no problems recognizing because they all allow me to choose what mic is being used. Or they recognize what mic is set to default in windows. I have the windows audio settings all configured to point to my standalone mic, but this one game refuses that and will only use the mic in my headset. Even tried Win+G and the mic is set correctly there too, but SoT does not care.
Add a setting to allow us to select what Mic we're using.
@jonnymiskatonic once you have SoT launched. Check in the advanced audio settings as well. You can set the mic setting for each app individually.
The game will use whatever device you have set as "Default Communication Device" (not your "Default Device") in the Sound Control panel.
To get to this, right-click on the speaker icon on your taskbar and go to "Sounds" and [for your mic] the Recording tab. Right-click on your mic on the list and click "Set as Default Communication Device". You can also set it as "Default Device" here if you want, but it's the "Communication" setting that Sea of Thieves uses. Same goes for your output in the Playback tab.
Often Windows will prompt you to set this when you add a new device, though not always, and major updates are known to reset it.
The reason Sea of Thieves uses this setting, unlike other games, I believe has to do with Xbox Live's Privacy Settings. Though that's just an educated guess.
@realstyli This isnt the whole picture as you also have to make sure that it is the same device in windows game bar. If they are different, it will also not work.
@captain-coel said in Add a setting to allow us to select what Mic we're using.:
@realstyli This isnt the whole picture as you also have to make sure that it is the same device in windows game bar. If they are different, it will also not work.
It appears that they are exactly the same setting and the one in Game Bar seems to be a rather recent change... It certainly wasn't always there or referred to as "Default Communication Device". IIRC, last time a checked a year or so ago it was still hooking into "Default Device" setting - which also is changed in Settings - System - Sounds.
But you can test that they are the same "Default Communication Device" setting by switching them and you'll see it changes in both locations. Good to know about this but I'm still going to refer to the Sound Control panel when I explain this because not everyone uses Game Bar or even has it enabled (I may add an addendum in future for those who do use it).
Thank you for bringing this to my attention though.
(Edit: to be clear, the original input setting is still there above the Default Communication Device setting in Game Bar, just called Windows Default Input now and it hooks into the Sound Control panel's "Default Device" setting, which is mirrored in Settings - System - Sound... because Windows is a mess! And also the Xbox Party settings are completely separate, because of course they are!)
(Edit 2: oh, the Xbox Party Chat settings are actually mirrored from the Xbox App - Settings - Audio... Which is not labelled as Party Chat. So, for those keeping track, that's three different audio input settings within Windows - Default Device, Default Communication Device, and Xbox Party Chat... which are all mirrored in various places and labelled differently in some cases. This is why audio engineers hate working with Windows, but sometimes we have no choice.)
@realstyli I have everything on the computer set to use one microphone as the default, default device, default communications device, I have the xbox chat settings set to access that microphone as well. Everything is set to use that microphone, but this one single game constantly tries to use my headset mic instead. I can't find anywhere where the mic I want to use is not set as default. But not Sea of Thieves, despite setting everything to use one mic, this game uses the headset mic.
@jonnymiskatonic said in Add a setting to allow us to select what Mic we're using.:
@realstyli I have everything on the computer set to use one microphone as the default, default device, default communications device, I have the xbox chat settings set to access that microphone as well. Everything is set to use that microphone, but this one single game constantly tries to use my headset mic instead. I can't find anywhere where the mic I want to use is not set as default. But not Sea of Thieves, despite setting everything to use one mic, this game uses the headset mic.
If you're not using your headset mic for anything then disable it as an input and remove it physically, if you can.
@jonnymiskatonic said in Add a setting to allow us to select what Mic we're using.:
I even have the headset mic disabled in recording settings, yet Sea of Thieves manages to pick that one up and make the game sound like I'm listening through a tin can.
Sea of Thieves can ONLY use the microphone that Windows uses for its Default Communication Device - if I am correct in assuming that's to do with Xbox Live's Privacy settings then using any other input would be a major legal issue. If it's using anything other than what you've set, that's a bug with Windows, and not one I've come across... yet.
Are you are 100% sure that it's your headset mic that the game is using? And not that your proper mic is having problems?
Season 8 update broke support for 44100Hz sample rate devices, and I'm not sure if that's been fixed yet. It will make your mic sound awful unless it's set to 48000Hz or above, basically. Get a friend to have a listen while you scratch or tap the mics to confirm if it's the correct input or not being picked up.
You can check the sample rate format in the device's properties/advanced tab within the Sound Control panel. "DVD quality" 48000Hz should be fine.
In addition, I know some headsets have had driver updates in the past that have had issues with Sea of Thieves/Windows, so you could try rolling back the drivers and firmware to an older version (or update them if there's an update), see if that works.
To be clear, none of this is to minimise the issues you're having and any complaints about how Sea of Thieves handles its audio support are valid, in my opinion. I've been very vocal about how lacking it is in the past and how it should be improved. If they can't give us in-game control to input and output settings, then at the very least we should have a way to test the Windows settings within the game and verify they work.
@realstyli If it is then this again is the only game that's causing that. I use this particular mic on dozens of games, streaming stuff and elsewise. Mic works great in absolutely everything else.
So it's not that my mic is sounding awful, it's that as soon as it connects to the game it halves the fidelity on my headset and makes it sound like I'm on a conference call instead of having the same audio it does at the very start of the game.
I appreciate your assistance, and none of my frustration with this is directed at you by any means. I'm just wanting to make sure I'm relaying what my setup here is correctly so you have all the information. That it's this solitary game that I have issues with, even with other games that have in game voice chat, because they all let me pick the mic I want to use and this problem doesn't happen.
Here's the mic I'm actively using. It's running through NVIDIA Broadcast. Running windows 11, when both options are set for default both default device and default communications device the option no longer appears.
Here's showing it when I check another device how the options to set them to default is there.
Also I have tried setting the mic without the NVIDIA Broadcast as default, but still the same.
I'm using a Sennheiser MB660 for my headset, and when I connect to this game it basically switches over to conference call settings, but only in this one game. I just can't figure out out, sounds absolutely horrible. I'll keep trying, but as is it's significant enough for me that I can't play the game very long, but that's my own personal issue =D
Yep, everything looks correct and you've done all the right things.
@jonnymiskatonic said in Add a setting to allow us to select what Mic we're using.:
I'm using a Sennheiser MB660 for my headset, and when I connect to this game it basically switches over to conference call settings, but only in this one game.
That's a wireless headset? I think I know what's happening here and I've actually heard about this before with some other Bluetooth wireless headsets. As much as I love Sennheiser (I use HD599s and HD25s daily), this is likely a driver issue.
Basically, it's reconnecting occasionally and that's causing Windows to re-enable it and switch to it for Communication. Because SOT is using that input and other games (non-Xbox Live) don't, it's most likely you'll notice it when playing this game only. Have you noticed it happening in other first party Xbox Live games (Halo/Forza Horizon)?
This behaviour of Windows to auto switch to a newly connected Communication device is one that's caused headaches for a lot of folk over the years.
You could try disabling it in Device Manager/Audio Inputs and Outputs. Disabling just the input might prevent the Mic being able to re-enable in the Sound Control Panel.
You could also try turning on the "do nothing" setting in the Communications tab within the Sound Control Panel, but I believe that's just a volume setting.
Unfortunately... Beyond that, I can only suggest trying a different pair of headphones, wired if possible.
Not that any of this gets SOT off the hook for very poor audio support.
Here's the mic I'm actively using. It's running through NVIDIA Broadcast. Running windows 11, when both options are set for default both default device and default communications device the option no longer appears.
11 / 1
