Game:

Halo: Combat Evolved (2001)

Duration: 3:34

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Use headphones for the best sound experience!
Because of my video editor's unwillingness to work with the multiple video captures I did on Halo's binaural/HRTF (head-related transfer function) 3D sound, I'm uploading a couple of short demonstration clips individually to showcase two scenarios of headphone 3D audio in action in Halo: CE on Xbox. I will definitely make a proper montage of binaural sound across Halo: CE in the future (and hopefully with unfiltered video) but this is all I can offer for now in a timely manner, unfortunately.

Halo: Combat Evolved has shockingly good audio on the original Xbox, it turns out! The MCP-X southbridge chip on the console has hardware based around Sensaura technology which not only allows for great audio effects like reverb but also really good 3D audio even in stereo. The binaural 3D audio sounds especially good on headphones due to how the drivers/speakers on headphones are situated on the listener's ears, mimicking how the listener perceives sound with both ears in real-life. The filtering of 3D sound sources in Halo gives the illusion of sounds appearing not just around the listener but also above and below them, all without needing the use of discrete speakers above and below the listener. It doesn't sound as good as the discrete solution but it is a really cool effect nonetheless and offers a lot of atmosphere within a small footprint offered by headphones!

The video footage was captured from an Xbox with a SCART RGB video output, hence why the interlaced filtering is blurring the footage! Capture was done on the 9th level called Keyes.

#halocombatevolved #originalxbox #hrtf #binaural #sensaura

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