Logistics of hearing Discord and Game Audio at the same time

[Aiko.Octo]

How does everyone manage this?

Some solutions I've heard/seen, ordered extremely generally from (imo) less desirable to more desirable results.

• Having both on speakers
• Just having one on speakers and the other on headphones/earbuds
• Having one earbud from each audio source in each ear
• Having one audio source on earbuds and the other on large headphones worn overtop the earbuds
• Running an aux cable from your switch's headphone jack to the line-in on your PC and listening to it there while also using Discord on PC (I use this option when away from home which is a lot of the time)
• Running your switch audio through a capture card to your PC, same concept as above (I use this option in my home setup)
• Running both audios through some fancy sound mixer hardware (if anyone does this mind linking what you use and how you set it up?)
• Running both audios into a super fancy gaming headset with multiple audio inputs designed specifically for this purpose (supposedly these exist but I have not seen them.)

Most of these also assume running discord on PC and not phone. I am not sure what the solutions are for that.

Anything else you all have to add? Am I missing something super obvious? Or just tell us about your setup and share any details/tips/tricks you might have!

 

[Grushi]

I put both on speakers, caveman style, but I'd love to find an alternative because it's far from convenient

 

[Alphine_Agnitio]

How does everyone manage this?

Some solutions I've heard/seen, ordered extremely generally from (imo) less desirable to more desirable results.

• Having both on speakers
• Just having one on speakers and the other on headphones/earbuds
• Having one earbud from each audio source in each ear
• Having one audio source on earbuds and the other on large headphones worn overtop the earbuds
• Running an aux cable from your switch's headphone jack to the line-in on your PC and listening to it there while also using Discord on PC (I use this option when away from home which is a lot of the time)
• Running your switch audio through a capture card to your PC, same concept as above (I use this option in my home setup)
• Running both audios through some fancy sound mixer hardware (if anyone does this mind linking what you use and how you set it up?)
• Running both audios into a super fancy gaming headset with multiple audio inputs designed specifically for this purpose (supposedly these exist but I have not seen them.)

Most of these also assume running discord on PC and not phone. I am not sure what the solutions are for that.

Anything else you all have to add? Am I missing something super obvious? Or just tell us about your setup and share any details/tips/tricks you might have!

My solution was accidental, but I have my obs setup in a way that my capture card(not an expensive one btw, just a ****ty $30 amazon brand one) captures audio only, but in the advanced settings I have it output the audio to my desktop too

it takes a lot of tinkering to get the audio quality just right cause theres a noticable audio delay, but it works well enough once I get it down(I've gotten it to less than 5-10ms delay which is barely noticable)

 

[sevenleaf]

my setup is, uh, Bad

i’m in the “switch audio on speakers, discord audio in headphones” camp. my room is set up so that the tv i connect my switch to is on the opposite side of the room from my computer, so i play splatoon sitting on my bed facing fully away from my computer monitor. and it’s only even possible for me to play with others on vc because i have wireless headphones. the people i play with haven’t had a lot of issues with hearing my tv speakers over my mic, and i don’t have issues with hearing the game most of the time, but it’s definitely not ideal

actually, my biggest issue with my setup isn’t so much the audio as it is the “sitting several feet away from my computer and facing away from my computer’s monitor” thing. not only does it make better audio solutions near impossible without long cords i’m destined to trip on or break, it makes joining streamers’ ‘come play with me!’ sessions very impractical (since i can’t watch a stream and play at the same time without getting up and moving between games), and when i was playing jr’s draft back in january, i had to have battlefy open on my laptop that was precariously sitting on my bed and look back and forth between my tv screen and my laptop. my neck hurts again thinking about it 🧍

i’ve been wanting to completely redo my bedroom for a looooong time, in no small part because i need a better Gamer Setup. ideally i’d have a double monitor situation going on, plus a better solution (possibly involving a capture card? i’d like one anyway, once i get my switch and pc close enough to each other to use one) for audio than “on discord vc via headphones while my switch audio plays from my tv”. my computer desk just isn’t big enough for that right now, and i don’t have space for a bigger one unless i rearrange and get rid of other stuff…



also for a hot minute when my kittens were smaller and we didn’t like leaving them alone as much i was often playing in my living room. this was even worse - i had both discord and game audio on speakers then (discord was specifically via my phone on speaker), i was playing on a tv so big it was hard to take everything in at once, and the only place i could sit to face the tv was… in the middle of the coffee table. it was a weird era. also, this happened sometimes:

 

[missingno]

Capture card. As a bonus I've always got OBS replay buffer running, so I can save the last full match with VC at the press of a button.

 

[neonscreenlight]

god i really want to have a proper solution to this. my current solution is "discord on headphones, speakers on switch" but a lot of my gamesense skills rely on being able to use the stereo sounds that come with headphones so i'm kinda significantly impairing myself with this method

 

[Aiko.Octo]

i’ve been wanting to completely redo my bedroom for a looooong time, in no small part because i need a better Gamer Setup. ideally i’d have a double monitor situation going on, plus a better solution (possibly involving a capture card? i’d like one anyway, once i get my switch and pc close enough to each other to use one) for audio than “on discord vc via headphones while my switch audio plays from my tv”. my computer desk just isn’t big enough for that right now, and i don’t have space for a bigger one unless i rearrange and get rid of other stuff…



also for a hot minute when my kittens were smaller and we didn’t like leaving them alone as much i was often playing in my living room. this was even worse - i had both discord and game audio on speakers then (discord was specifically via my phone on speaker), i was playing on a tv so big it was hard to take everything in at once, and the only place i could sit to face the tv was… in the middle of the coffee table. it was a weird era. also, this happened sometimes:View attachment 11308

I will say dual monitor setups are fantastic; I don't know how I ever survived with one monitor before. Sometimes I think I'd like a third, lol.

The way mine is set up I have a (relatively cheap, ~$50 ish) capture card with an HDMI passthrough (I didn't know this starting out but you cannot typically play directly on your PC through a capture card unless you have godlike hardware because the video delay is intolerable, which is why so many cards have HMDI passthroughs) and manage audio via OBS' monitoring. Sometimes if I leave OBS running for too long I'll start to get some audio delay but otherwise any audio delay it might have is imperceptible to me.

Anyway, I also have a one-button $5 HDMI switch that makes it easy to switch between my switch (lol) using my left monitor and my PC using it. So I can stay at the same setup, same headphones, and when I'm playing on my left monitor I still have use of my right monitor for PC stuff. It's pretty nice. Only thing I think I might improve if I had infinite money is getting a better capture card and upgrading my PC because while it technically can handle video recording from the card it's low frame-rate and sometimes audio de-sync'd and it cannot handle streaming at all (which it's not like I do anyway but every so often I feel like it would be nice to be able to easily 'screen share' my switch to show something to someone over discord).

(Also omg the cat looking at the Judds that is SUCH a good photo)

Capture card. As a bonus I've always got OBS replay buffer running, so I can save the last full match with VC at the press of a button.

...Well, today I learned OBS has a replay buffer feature, lol. This is more reason I should upgrade my hardware eventually because I feel like I would use the heck out of that.

 

[Alphine_Agnitio]

Capture card. As a bonus I've always got OBS replay buffer running, so I can save the last full match with VC at the press of a button.

How do you turn replay buffer on?

 

[missingno]

Settings -> Output -> Replay Buffer

 

[AdphæeXD]

I wear two headphones like the image attached. Under is discord, and on top is Splatoon. I wear the discord headset on my left ear and my Splatoon headset on my right (the mic stopped working.)

That is, if I don't forget to listen to Splatoon audio.

 

[☆Oblivion☆]

I just have seperate volumes turned on for both my laptop and switch. I have my switch on loud enough so that I can hear it but my teamates can't while I will have my teamtes on a louder volume so I can hear callouts clearly. I do it like this cause I don't have the equipment to have 2 sources coming out of one headphone.

 

[Hokuto]

Laptop to my right, TV to my left. (The TV does not have the 16:9 aspect ratio of Nintendo Switch output.) Discord with Push to Talk on headphones, Splatoon on speakers, volume low on both. (I won't tolerate above 10 most of the time.) I don't have space to put my microphone on the right side of my desk (imagine preferring to write and draw on paper in the 21st century!), so it has to go in front of the TV. This is objectively a terrible solution, but I am a menace and this is what I could do with what I had. A capture card sounds nice someday, but right now I have too much stuff and not enough money.

 

[briank913]

I have Airpods so I use one for chat and I use my other ear for the game. It takes a bit to get used to but it's doable! If you have a wired earphone, the concept is the same!

if you wanna practice getting used to it, do Salmon Run or PBs!