I made a small adjustment to the audio code and Andreas Ley confirmed that it now works natively on his iMac Intel Core Duo 2Ghz with 2GB Ram running Mac OS X 10.4.4 (thanks for testing Andreas!). Here is what he had to say:

Works perfectly! And it’s quite a lot faster than under Rosetta. The native Version peaks at 4.7% CPU usage (out of 200%) when talking and listening while running it under Rosetta peaked at about 20%.

Thanks a lot!

So if you want to run TeamSpeex natively on your brand spankin’ new Intel Mac (lucky you), grab the updated Universal Binary from here:

TeamSpeex-1.0beta-r406.dmg

I have not tested if this really runs on Intel Macs since I do not own one. So if you own an Intel Mac or if you have access to one, please test if TeamSpeex works or not. Maybe you can try running it under Rosetta as well to see how it performs.

You can grab the revision directly from here:

TeamSpeex-1.0beta-r403.dmg

You can discuss this revision here, or just leave a comment on the blog.

Please note that is a test revision and should not be considered as a new Beta release.

And the most important is that I have fixed most of the critical bugs that were found in the previous beta. Thanks to all the testing and the bug reports from you guys and gals!

Unlike the previous beta, this beta build is compatible with Panther and Tiger, but it will probably not run on a Mac OS X version below 10.3.9.
For all the Jaguar users out there, I am sorry that this doesn’t run on your Mac yet. but don’t feel left out, I will work on it.

For the ones that still dont know about it, I have setup a forum where you can ask questions, report bugs or discuss anything regarding TeamSpeex. You may still use the blog comments for feedback but it’s recommend to use the forum for complicated questions.
I occasionally put new test revisions (non public release) on the forum as well, so keep an eye on it if you are interested in testing the latest revisions.

The creators of Ventrilo have made a first release of their Mac client available, marked 2.3.2.Prototype.6.

I hope the release of TeamSpeex speeded up their development a bit

Quoted from Ventrilo’s page:

Flagship Industries is pleased to announce the first public release of the official Ventrilo client for Mac OSX. Designed and developed by the same company that created the Ventrilo product line, Flagship Industries is totally committed to future development and suppport of the Macintosh client. This includes custom PowerPC and Intel (when available) architectures to fully optimize the online voice communication experience.

This Ventrilo client is compatible with all Version 2.3.x servers and is 100% interoperable with all 2.3.x Windows clients.

The Mac client is a functional prototype, meaning that it does not have all of the features that are currently available on the Windows platform. However, base functionality has reached the point so that the general public can begin using the program and provide feedback. Over the next several months we will release periodic updates to the Mac client as more features are added and as the new architecture is finalized. This will include Channel and Server admin features, sound events and changes to the User Interface.

Their Mac status page indicates that their prototype only supports the Speex codec, just like TeamSpeex. But I think they will work on supporting other codecs in the future.

I don’t use Ventrilo myself so I haven’t tested it, but this is good news for all Mac users as this closes another huge gap between the PC and Mac platform.

You can grab a copy from their downloads page.

While i’m still here, I can give you some news on TeamSpeex.
I’m awaiting some last reports from Panther users and I hope to make the build available for public tomorrow. The build has alot of bugs fixed and has a few new features, including Voice Activation.

Also I have put a simple forum online for people to post problems and such so it wont clutter the blog comments anymore.

The reason was that due a Denial of Service attack the server didn’t come back online again, it actually didn’t boot into Linux anymore So the server underwent a complete new distro install, which is up and running perfectly now. It should feel a little “snappier” as well because the server got a small hardware upgrade too

If you haven’t got any email replies from me the couple of days, it was because of this unfortunate incident. I will try to catch-up with replying.

I have gotten very positive feedback on the open beta, very good bug reports, and alot of help offers, which range from users offering to mirror my files, suggestions from other Mac developers, to someone working at the abuse department of XS4ALL (the #1 ISP in Holland) asking if I needed help with this DDoS issue. Now ain’t that cool?

About the bug reports, I will make a seperate page that will list the current know bugs and planned features. I will also put a page to list all the suggestions and features which I wish to implement.

Now, to hopefully clear up some future misunderstanding regarding TeamSpeak-Systems, they do not intend to take legal action.

We have been mailing back and forward a bit the past few days, and they said I shouldn’t be alarmed by the first email and then we discussed some issues.

So you should know they are not working against me, infact they are helping. They have offered to host my files, and a seperate section for TeamSpeex on their forums as well until TS3 arrives, so really there is no need to worry. Thank you TeamSpeak-Systems, it is much appreciated

The icon you see here on the left is made by Aakash Soneri and is set as TeamSpeex’s application icon with his permission.

I hope you all like the icon, I certainly do, and it beats the hell out of the standard application icon, so thank you Aakash!

Make sure you visit Aakash’ DeviantArt page to see all of his deviations.

Now, about the beta, as noted in the previous blog post, it is very barebone. Alot of things are not implemented yet and there is alot of room for improvement and optimizations. But you can expect all the basic functionality.

So go over to the downloads page and get your self a copy to join the open beta.

Other small bugs which I couldnt fix in time was proper support for servers with the type set as ‘public server’, which I found out that it will only show the users in your current channel and not the others. It introduced a few new packet types which I have not identified yet. I had also some reports that a large channel-list will result in unexpected “features”.

So this beta will probably work best on small private servers and not large public ones, and ofcourse the server must have the Speex voice codec enabled.

Last minute additions to this beta were support for Unicode characters, button to open the sound preferences directly from TeamSpeex’s preferences and changed NSDateFormatter to NSCalenderDate, which might enable support for the older OS X versions.

So if you are using Jaguar (10.2.x) or Panther (10.3.x), and it doesnt work, i’d like to hear about it, just make sure you provide some useful info if you can. (Console.app might give alot of info on why it doesnt work).

And ofcourse post any bugs you find and any feedback (good or bad) I can use is always welcome.

I’d like to thank all the testers that participated in the private beta test, you were all very helpful.

PS: This page was ready to be published and was setting up the download page until I got hit with a DDoS

You guys and gals deserve an info update and some answers to your questions, so here it goes.

Can I join the private beta-test? Or when will the public beta be available?

I currently have enough testers at the moment and im not accepting any more because I’m already wrapping up the closed beta-test and preparing things for the public beta. So dont worry, you are better off testing the public beta since I will make it available before the end of the weekend (before Mon 17 Oct 2005). I promise.

Why not just make the beta public right now?

The reason for the small private beta test was to ensure it will work on all or at least most of the Macs without any problems and that you guys dont get any unexpected “features”. I hope you understand my reasons.

Ofcourse that doesn’t mean the public beta will not contain any bugs tho, its still a beta after all. And by beta I also mean the product is not entirely finished and is a work in progress.

What features can we all expect?

My main goal of the public beta release is to allow Mac users enjoy TeamSpeak so that they are finally are able to voice chat with other users/gamers. So you can expect all the basic functionally like joining and switching channels, receiving text messages, muting sound/microphone, and Push To Talk.

The non-goals, but are on my TODO list: admin commands such as moving and kicking players, support for other codecs, voice activation, scriptability, etc. Well, basically all the stuff you dont need to have a working TS client for voice chatting.

I will try to start working on these after the public beta and improving things. Most of the client commands are already there, but just need to be properly hooked to the GUI. The idea is to make the client fully capabable (or even better) of what the official TS client can do.

Will there be support for other codecs like GSM, CELP?

I want to implement those eventually but have low priority. I personally think Speex’s sound quality is way superior to those 2 codecs anyway.

How about a Ventrilo client?

I have no plans to make a Ventrilo client and have no desire to as I dont use it and dislike it’s default sound quality. I have tried it one or two times, but the quality of the sound just sounded “funny”. (I’m not flaming Ventrilo here, I heard very good things about it, but just had bad expierence with the included sounds codecs.)

Are you going to opensource it?

I strongly believe in opensource. and I fully intend to make this opensource, but only after TS3 is released

Can I help with coding?

I currently dont need extra help for coding, I like coding and figuring stuff out myself. But thanks for the offers so far, I really apreciate it. I will definatly make a blog post if i’m stuck on something Ofcourse when it goes opensource you can fully help out with any coding.

Can I help with Localization/Translation?

The public beta will not yet have localization support, but after that I will start localizing it and you guys will be able to help.

Have you received any feedback from the TS group?

I certainly have, I was contacted by the company that represented the sales and marketing of TeamSpeak via email yesterday. I will not go too deep into the details, but basically they told me I had two options:

• Based on my actions they may either choose to take legal action on me,
• Or I can choose to cooperate and work together with them so that I may make my client available as an unsupported client for Mac OS X.

I have told I choose the latter, which is to cooperate but i’m not sure what that means from their end. I’m still waiting for their reply…

(note that this will not affect my intentions to release the beta on the promised date above)

TeamSpeak is a Voice over IP program used by alot of gamers to communicate with each other with voice. The TeamSpeak client is available for Windows and Linux users and an official Mac client has been announced more than 1 year ago but there is still no Mac client as of today..

So I was tired of waiting and seeing Mac users being left in the dark and not supported by not having a client, up until now ofcourse because (you probably already guessed it) TeamSpeex is a TeamSpeak client for Mac OS X!

I named it TeamSpeex because it only supports the Speex codec. It is fully compatible with existing TeamSpeak servers, and with PC and Linux users.

Here is a screenshot showing the User Interface:

Currently the client is being beta tested by several Mac gamers, an open beta will be available soon for everyone to download, so stay tuned!