PARANOIA with 3D spatial sound in MetaAudio (OpenAL Soft HRTF audio)
Channel: I Drink Lava - 3D Game Audio
Date: 2018-10-24

Use headphones only with any virtual surround features turned off. Best HRTF effects at 4:15, 10:48, and 14:22.

https://www.moddb.com/mods/paranoia/downloads/paranoia-v-12
Coming up next on the Halloween marathon is Paranoia, a short-but-sweet Russian Half-Life total conversion. It's basically Half-Life meets S.T.A.L.K.E.R., but surprisingly this mod started development in 2004. Paranoia works perfectly with LAGonauta's MetaAudio plugin and the effect is truly amazing. The first timestamp legitimately scared me on my test run. Binaural audio really does elevate horror games to a new level, so it's a huge shame that so few developers nowadays bother with it. For once, I left the music on because it's integral to the mod's atmosphere. The new occlusion effects also sound awesome when you hear the clones firing guns behind doors.

Something that disappointed me was a lack of reverb. Oddly enough, reverb effects were only used in the pointless, dragged-out tutorial. Imagine how much better Paranoia would've sounded with monster growls echoing in those dark tunnels.

Remember that you MUST use the -insecure launch parameter not only for MetaAudio but the enhanced opengl32.dll that must be put in the main Half-Life folder (and deleted when you uninstall PARANOIA).

HRTF grade:
A+

Settings:
Windows Control Panel: Stereo
-32bpp and -gl launch parameter
Sound Quality: High
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
drivers="-dsound,"

Links:
https://github.com/LAGonauta/MetaAudio/releases
https://steamcommunity.com/app/70/discussions/0/828934913113943429

Credits:
https://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/5/4961/paranoia_dvd_cover.jpg
(Use of this logo falls under fair use laws.)



#3dsound #spatialaudio #binaural #3daudio #hrtf #headphones #audiophile #gameaudio #mod #halloween #halflife
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