Ventrilo - Miscellaneous Setup
Minimize to system tray
This option enables the program to minimize to a small icon in the System Tray (that little area on that task bar next to the clock). When in the System Tray you can also right click on the icon to get a popup menu for controlling features of the program without being forced to restore the full window.
Silent blank comments
When this option is enabled it will prevent the program from generating a "Comment Event" if a user sending a blank (or empty) comment thus clearing any previous comments next to their name.
Silent connections when in a channel
This option will prevent Ventrilo from generating sound events when other users connect and disconnect if you are in a channel other then the lobby.
Auto expand all channels when connecting
This option instructs Ventrilo to automatically expand all channels and their associated sub-channel when connecting to the server. This is very handy because you will then be able to see all users that are connected to the server and which channels they are in. If you turn this option off you can still expand all of the channels by right clicking on the server name in the user list window and selecting Display->Expand All.
Process priority class
This option should be used with care and left in the "Normal" mode unless it is deemed absolutely necessary to change it.
When set to "Normal" the program will run at the same priority level as any other program and will have the exact same effect as versions leading up to version 2.1.3.
When set to "High" the program will boost it's priority level so that it will receive more CPU time then any other program currently running on the system. This does not mean that the program will consume more CPU time during normal use, simply that it will be granted more time should it be needed.
Apparently some systems have a hard time distributing processor load when certain games are being played, which in turn starves Ventrilo for CPU time and prevents it from performing it's normal work load. This has an odd effect of causing things to be delayed whether they be voice communication or sound feed back events like "key clicks" and TTS notifications.
Be warned, certain types events can take a while to execute. For example, a very long TTS message takes a while (in CPU terms) to be generated into a machine voice. If you have this option set to high then it's possible that Ventrilo will momentarily starve the rest of the system for CPU time while it's generating the TTS sounds. The longer the TTS message the more time it takes to generate.
You should also consider the quality of your sound card drivers. The sound input devices don't work very well on some of the older sound cards or on-board sound systems. This in turn will cause Ventrilo to receive more sound input data then it should be which usually causes the program to generate a message because it has detected the sound input data coming in too fast. However, it's a good idea to enable the "Use DirectSound for Input Device" option as it tends to resolve a lot of these problems. But the point to this is that if your system is not behaving properly then setting this option to high could cause your computer to become unresponsive.