The Audio for VATSIM beta has officially completed its first public test. Posted on the VATSIM blog by President Gunnar Lindahl, the first 100 sign-ups for the beta had the opportunity to try the new audio system. Yesterday evening, many of these 100 joined controllers in the Southern UK region to stress test and bug sweep the software.

“We reported some great results from the test, with the server performing better than expected, which means that our infrastructure will not only be stable, but future proofed for expansion, when the whole VATSIM network switches over.”

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Lindahl also explains the layout of the new versus the old voice systems. The new audio system is run on a dedicated separate server, as the old and new systems are entirely incompatible with each other.

“This is because the architecture has been completely rewritten to bring us into the 21st century.”

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But as with all new technologies, big adjustments must be made. Once the new audio system is fully released to the public, all VATSIM users will have to update their clients in order to connect to the network.

“We’ve been working hard to prepare for this and will be ready once the Audio for VATSIM team declare themselves ready to go live.”

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The post also announces the discontinuation of multiple clients in the wake of the new audio system. The list of newly unsupported clients is as follows:

• Squawkbox
• Squawkbox747
• Squawkbox for Fly!
• XConnect
• FSInn
• ASRC
• SPARC

*Note: XSquawkbox is NOT affected and will continue to be supported.

Additionally, the post also says that those who were not called to the first beta should pay attention to their email inboxes, as there will be another bigger test within the next few days.

The original blog post by VATSIM can be found here.

Thanks to Discord user Recoil for the tip off over on the Threshold Discord server.