Mumble 1.2.0

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Status

status

We released version 1.2.0 of Mumble on December 10, 2009. This release uses a new protocol between the client and server, which means a 1.2.0 client is only compatible with 1.2.0 or newer servers, and a 1.1.8 client can't connect to a 1.2.0 server. The new protocol is designed to be easily extended, so we should never have this problem again. If your favorite server still runs 1.1.8 don't worry, 1.2.0 comes with a backwards compatible client.

Increased voice quality, decreased latency

voice

Mumble is now able to use a new codec called CELT, which means 48khz sampling rate, but most importantly reduced framesize to 10ms, half of what it used to be. This results in better audio quality and an even lower latency than with 1.1.8. Of course this also requires a bit of additional bandwidth and because we wanted to conserve the great performance Speex offered us in low bandwidth situations we simply decided to get the best of both worlds. Mumble automatically chooses the best codec for your quality and latency settings and hence is able to work in high, as well as low bandwidth environments.

Certificate based authentication

Certificate

When starting Mumble for the first time, users are guided through the process of generating a certificate. A certificate uses strong public key cryptography to securely and uniquely identify a user to a server without giving away any passwords or other sensitive information. If the certificate is ever lost, the ability to authenticate to servers will be lost, so making a backup is mandatory, and part of the guided process. Users that already have secure certificates will have the option to use these instead, and such a trusted certificate can be replaced by any other trusted certificate for the same user identity.

User management

With certificate based authentication, many of the social engineering attacks on password-based authentication are weakened. As such, we feel it's safe to do user registration from the client. There are a few new permissions possible, and one of them is the ability to rightclick and register a connected user with the server.

Once registered, the user will be remembered by the server for the future, and can be used in ACL lists and group memberships.

There is also the possibility to list existing users and unregister users.

New connect dialog

For the new version we completely redid our previous server browser. It is now able to display all the important information about favourite, lan and public servers in one comprehensive list. We also added additional important information like the ping of the server or the number of users currently connected to it. Of course you are able to use this information to filter and sort the list, for example you could prevent empty servers from being displayed. We also added drag and drop capability, if you want to connect to a server on startup just drag it from the list to your desktop.

Chatbar

Mumble is primarily meant to be used for talking. Nevertheless it can be useful to be able to send a quick message to someone. For this purpose we added the chatbar. Just select the channel or user you want to send the message to and type away. The bar is also able to complete usernames if you press Tabulator, or to directly select the user for a private message with Control + Space.

Layout presets

A lot of users asked us if it was possible to change the way mumble places its user interface elements, here is our answer: It is. This ability was already present in version 1.1.8 and earlier though not many users knew of it. For example if you place your mouse cursor on the top of the log and wait for a short time a bar pops up, click on it and drag the whole log where you want it to be. We realise that this is non trivial and without being told about it or reading it somewhere you most probably would not be able to find it. This is why we introduced layout presets. The user has the possibility to easily switch between three very common layouts directly from the options menu.

Classic: The standard layout all previous mumble releases shipped with (extended by the chatbar of course).
Stacked: A layout optimized for minimal horizontal space usage.
Hybrid: Same as classic but with the chatbar spanning the whole width of the window.

Friends

You can now add players to your friends list. Friends are recognized based on their certificate, so you will recognize your friends even on other servers than where you first met. Friends can be used as targets for whispering.

Native-feeling ConfigDialog on Mac OS X

Mac OS X

To better fit in with the look and feel of Mac OS X, Mumble now sports a very native-feeling configuration dialog on that platform.

Automatic Plugin Update and Enhanced Plugin Support

As the number of positional audio plugins increase, it has become a bit of a problem that games are updated much more frequently than Mumble releases. There is now a system to automatically update plugins, which means they'll be installed as soon as they are available.

Also, plugins are now configured so that one only hears positional audio from those who are playing the same game, and in some cases, only from those in the same server and team, depending on the plugin.

New Positional Audio Plugins

The following plugins have been added to Mumble 1.2.0:

Battlefield 2142 v1.50
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Multiplayer
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Special Ops
World of Warcraft (v3.2.2 Euro)
Manual placement plugin

and more.....

Mumble 1.2.0 - Bunkerwiki