HLDJ / News: Recent posts

Command line tools are slick, but outside of hacker circles and hollywood operating systems they can fall out of favor. That's why the audio converter has now been integrated into HLDJ and given a face. Among the somewhat obvious and intuitive controls are Engine, Volume percentage, and Quality. Be sure the first is set to the appropriate engine for your game (HLDJ will try to guess based on the current selection); the second, volume control, is key to creating audio that isn't blaring... the difference between music and snap-crackle-earbleed (the default of 85% is a good starting value); finally, the quality control determines the accuracy (quality) of the conversion process, so unless you happen to be on a hollywood OS running dangerously short on time as the entire server threatens to explode around you, it's highly recommended to leave this setting at its default value (Best) and wait a few extra minutes- the difference in quality is worth it.... read more

Now that the dust cloud has settled around the alpha, it's time to properly introduce the updates that were only hastily mentioned before. The smallest of these is the new 64-bit release, which finally offers a native flavor of HLDJ for 64-bit users (you could even say it removes some of the "WoW factor"). It's small because unlike other updates, it has no effect on functionality. Really, the only joy to be had is in savoring the thought of a few extra microseconds saved to optimization. Cheers to the little things.

Recently it seems an increasing number of users have been hearing themselves instead of their audio files. Thanks again to our forum members, we were able to track down the source of this problem to a lack of user permissions in Windows 7 (explaining why it may affect only some users). We're on the case, and the latest 1.6.0 alpha 7 addresses this issue (along with other minor updates) and should fix it for the majority of those experiencing this problem. Whether 1.6.0 has any affect on people talking to themselves has yet to be determined.

Who needs a perfect shot, when you have a high rate of fire, right? Repairs were speedy once it was apparent I had unknowingly undone a previous 1.5.05 fix. I guess old habits die hard, but the alpha still lives.

Thanks for your help, as some users have let me know, I'm no perfect shot. I'm temporarily recalling 1.6.0 alpha until the beta is ready, but I'm glad for the feedback sooner rather than later. You can still download 1.5.05 beta from the downloads page.

Writing update news, changelogs, manuals, these all take time; time away from actually testing the update in the wild. That's why rather than sitting here reading through a bunch of well-documented changes at a later time that's not now, you can actually test said changes, right now (at your own peril!) in the 1.6.0 alpha. Maybe you'll notice a few big changes, or a few bigger bugs; and maybe I'll throw up a beta later, or maybe - just maybe - I nailed it on the first shot this time around.

As promised, the audio converter is here! It's in alpha stage right now which means command-line interface and mp3's only. Fortunately, for the click-happy among us there are batch scripts available for click-&-run use. Just download and place both the audio converter and batch script into a directory containing your mp3 files. Run the script and watch as the directory is (slowly) populated with wav files, correctly formatted for use in-game.... read more

Who can resist those? With the new version, I decided to whip up a few more sample audio files for variety: sample_src.wav, sample_src2.wav (the original sample is now sample_src3.wav). The plan is to eventually include a few in the release so users will have something to test with a fresh install.

As alluded to earlier, HLDJ 1.5.02 will now attempt to create hard or soft links when you select an audio file (rather than make a full copy). This not only results in more efficient disk usage, but more importantly, load times will become nearly negligible. For those who have entire albums or cycle through songs faster than weapons, this update should noticeably improve response times.
There are some limitations though, depending on the location of audio files and the operating system:... read more

Created by Radio Raheem (an avid user, and maintainer of the HLDJ Steam group) HLDJ Sound Library has just made it even easier to share and download audio files for HLDJ. Check it out here: http://hldj.ucoz.com

"Radio Raheem has just released HLDJ Sound Library, what it does is it installs a small program that lists all converted HLDJ songs and lets you download them straight into your HLDJ audio folder, you can also listen to them before you download, it's categorized, and it includes a search option. It also lists how many times a song has been downloaded and who uploaded it. If you are an admin you can easily add songs."

It's been on the "Future features" list for ages now, but the integrated audio converter is finally nearing completion. At about 70% done, it's capable of converting from mp3 to mono-channel, 16bit wav (using libmad); all that is needed now is to integrate resampling (via libsamplerate) to either 8000hz or 11025hz. With the need for manual conversion eliminated, I think we may just see the end of the 'Help' forum...

I'm not entirely ready to give up XP, but with everyone moving to the greener pastures of Windows 7, it does at least allow me to make use of some neat new features. One of which is going to be Symbolic Links. They've been around for years on Linux, but are only now making their way to Windows. They'll allow HLDJ to simply create a 'link' to your audio file rather than having to make a copy of it. This will save many precious seconds of loading, especially for those of you who have entire discographies in one wav file!

Many of you may be wondering "what's up with the permanent beta?", and "when's the next official release coming?". I'll be honest, official releases mean I can't sneak in ninja-updates without having to worry about updating version numbers, manual, etc. Keeping it 'beta' means I can update it faster and put in fixes on the spot, albeit without anyone really being aware of it. Sometimes I myself forget what's gone into HLDJ 1.5.0 since the last version, and the changelist is slowly growing large enough to need its own documentation...
So what are some of the things that have been changed?
Here's the most important stuff:... read more

No surprise, I have a vested interest in PC gaming, more than I let on sometimes. So it more than just irks me to see that the latest trend in gaming is to either port from console, or go mainstream (or both). Thanks to our friends over at pcgamingcorner.com, I was able to sound off on the issue.

It's been a long time coming, but the site has finally received a much-needed facelift. Among other things is a completely re-designed logo, which I hope to start using in more places. A lot of credit goes to Rusty100's Steam & Source Icon Redux icon pack, which proved to be a nice base to work from. I'll also be maintaining this spiffy new dev log - a clever ruse to get out of actually having to work on HLDJ. Thoughts / comments? Send them my way on the forums!