ValveSoftware / halflife

Half-Life 1 engine based games
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HL 25th Anniversary update: Implement Steam Audio in the place of A3D and EAX #3432

Open MFKitten opened 10 months ago

MFKitten commented 10 months ago

The original Half-Life release had EAX acoustics modelling and Aural 3D binaural/3D positional audio. After these licenses became unavailable, the Steam version of the game has had a simplified in-house solution for both. Since then, Steam Audio has been created to step up and fill the shoes of the former A3D and EAX technologies in modern Valve titles.

It would be fitting to use Steam Audio to replace the third party solutions that was present in 1998, instead of the less advanced solutions in the modern version.

SamVanheer commented 10 months ago

It is already possible to implement a new audio engine in a mod. Sven Co-op (FMOD Ex) and the Unified SDK (OpenAL Soft) are two examples of this.

MFKitten commented 10 months ago

It is already possible to implement a new audio engine in a mod. Sven Co-op (FMOD Ex) and the Unified SDK (OpenAL Soft) are two examples of this.

I've heard warnings about VAC trouble and inconsistencies in how the OpenAL mods actually work in-game because of the way they have to be implemented. I have been attempting to get fmod fully integrated into goldsource before, but everyone in the modding community pointed to Sven Coop as the only mod that actually managed to do it somehow. The common integration of fmod has just been used to play back music .mp3's during gameplay.

Edit: I see Sven Coop devs had full engine access after negotiating this with Valve. Their version of the engine is very modified. I don't know how much of this contributed to their ability to implement fmod?

I understand you're the developer behind the Unified SDK. I've been aware of the project for a while, but I will look into it more now that you have brought it back to my attention. Thank you!

SamVanheer commented 10 months ago

FMOD was added to Sven Co-op long before they had engine access.

MFKitten commented 10 months ago

FMOD was added to Sven Co-op long before they had engine access.

That's very interesting! I still stand by my wish for Valve to officially add Steam Audio, however far fetched that is.

ZeroYamaoka commented 7 months ago

Not a bad idea implement SteamAudio as a sound option called "Sound Engine"

Also add "Simulation mode" If SteamAudio is selected here will be: