The long-awaited Audio for VATSIM has just been officially released to all members. Audio for VATSIM vastly improves on the network’s audio codec. The software has been using a low bandwidth audio connection which was decades behind current technologies for many years, delivering poor audio quality and frequent cut-outs. So, the online multiplayer network’s announcement of the new codec last year was celebrated by many and has been highly anticipated ever since.

The update is scheduled to take a full twenty-four hours starting at 20:00z on October 13th. At the time of this article’s writing, the upgrade is ten hours through and connections by all members have been permitted. Though there are some bugs, with reports of ATIS frequencies not working yet, there are still fourteen hours left in the upgrade so you should expect full coverage by 20:00z on October 14th.

Many controllers have already connected to the network, along with pilots. So how can you connect? VATSIM has provided a helpful website which details all the steps members need to take in order to connect to the new network. We recommend visiting it for yourself but in short, you can either download a new client to use for your connections (for instance, X-Plane 11 now has a program named XPilot), update your current client, or download the Audio for VATSIM standalone client in order to connect. 

This article will be edited as the update progresses though you can also stay tuned to the VATSIM Network Status Page.

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UPDATE 10/14/2019 12:39PM EDT

VATSIM has released many updates over the past few hours to their standalone client software. Since the update is still in progress, there are still lots of bugs including XSquawkbox users unable to transmit voice transmissions. We will keep you updated on when this issue is fixed.

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UPDATE 10/14/2019 4:08PM EDT

Audio for VATSIM is now fully operational.