About First Contact Communicator

First
Contact is a multi-player voice communicator utility that allows gamers
to simultaneously communicate with each other while playing games on the
Internet.
One of
the advantages of First Contact is that there is no need to pre-agree on
servers, exchange IP addresses, or even know the other teammates. You
will just choose the game server, as usual, using any game server
browser and First Contact will establish the communication with the
players in your team, with no interaction from the client (For more
information about the Game Integration Mode, go here). First Contact
can determine the best parameters for the session, basing its decisions
on several factors including connection speed, CPU power for
encoding/decoding voice data, and codecs available, etc.
First
Contact is designed to minimize the bandwidth usage whenever possible,
being able to operate on a Client-Server setup (in the event when it can
find an available First Contact Server), or it can operate on a
Peer-to-Peer configuration. In both cases the impact on the games is
minimal, ensuring that it does not introduce latency or lag into the
gaming experience.
In the
case where First Contact finds a server it will employ a proprietary
technology, called "Adaptive Bandwidth Utilization", which
will enable each player to use the maximum capabilities of their
hardware, without imposing any penalty on players with slower
connections, or slower PCs.
First
Contact interfaces seamlessly with any supported game, without requiring
any type of special configuration.
Platforms
currently supported are Windows 95/98. Windows NT support is currently
under way, and initially will be in a listen-only mode. First Contact is
currently being tested under Windows 2000 to ensure compatibility with
different hardware.