Half-Life 2 : MMod v1.0 with 3D spatial sound 🎧 (OpenAL Soft HRTF audio) New Source mod!

Channel:

I Drink Lava - 3D Game Audio

Subscribers:

2,170

Published on January 1, 2019 11:17:19 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wD3tHNZWec

Game:

Half-Life 2 (2004)

Duration: 14:04

4,203 views

82

Use headphones only with any virtual surround features turned off. Best HRTF effect at 6:50.

https://www.moddb.com/mods/hl2-ep2-enhased-mod
To kick off 2019, here's a demonstration of the new Half-Life 2 MMod (outdated 1.0 version) with OpenAL Soft's HRTF through DSOAL. It's a gameplay overhaul mod that is meant to bring HL2's combat up to modern standards. While I do appreciate the sentiment, I feel a lot of the changes are pretty rough. For starters, all the hitscan weapons have been replaced by modelled projectiles by default. This really changes the feel of the gameplay a lot and it feels a bit janky to say the least. The shotgun is hit worst by this change, making it take an extra shot to kill something. Fortunately, there is an extensive mod configurations menu (https://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/15/14768/Half-Life_2_Screenshot_2017.11.22_-_18.45.40.12.png) that can restore hitscan tracers and remove all the unnecessary dirt and water screen effects. You can even install a .VPK file that removes the ear-bleeding sniper gunshot sounds!

I think with time, MMod will become a classic Source mod that will overtake the popularity of all the other "remastered" mods. The 1.1 update has already made a huge impact by finally making enemies react to getting hit. It even lets you dismount the Tau Cannon from the car to use on foot! I can only hope the future 2.0 version will rework the projectile system to feel more realistic (higher velocity, actual ballistics etc.) and fix some of the glitches like the sprint button not responding.

What CAN'T be fixed, however, is the audio mixing. Good lord, what happened to the audio mixing? It sounds like it's been brickwall compressed. Again, I compared MMod to vanilla HL2 which still has some of the best audio mixing to date and the difference was night and day.


HRTF grade:
B- (no vertical HRTF)

Settings:
Windows Control Panel: Stereo
In-game speaker settings: 4 speakers
fps_max "59" (MMod seems to have the same microstutter problem as BM)
V-sync: On
snd_legacy_surround "1" (despite Satsun's new findings, it still makes DSOAL's HRTF more accurate)
IRC_1037 HRTF tables placed in %APPDATA%/OpenAL/HRTF
(in alsoft.ini located in %APPDATA%)
channels=stereo
frequency=44100
stereo-mode=headphones
cf_level=0
sample-type=float32
periods=3
period_size=128
default-hrtf=irc_1037_44100
hrtf=true
resampler=linear

Links:
https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/65094
https://mega.nz/#!OTpDkQhY!i6NIUTAwopa2pilAiEL-pBxPOzrPLD_vHQMcCRdFLLs
(download personalized HRTF presets here)
http://repo.or.cz/dsound-openal.git
http://satsun.org/audio/

Credits:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Half-Life_2_text_logo.svg
By Valve (The HalfLife2 font found in Half-Life 2 game files) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons



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