- HLSS (Half-Life Sound Selector) is a program written by Disk2. It allows players to play .wav sound files over the Half-Life voice communication system (and Source games too) with ease. HLSS.US is only a support website for HLSS considering the original creator's whereabouts are unknown, and the last known release was in 2003. We did not create HLSS, nor can we provide software updates to the program. There are other HLSS-like programs out there that work similar to HLSS if you would prefer that, but we will keep this website running for those who are fans of the original HLSS program.

- See the 'Downloads' section.

- See the 'Setup HLSS' section.

- See the 'Converting Wavs' tutorial.

- For Half-Life 1 Mods: If you converted your .wav files as shown here and it still sounds bad, then the server you are playing at is using a voice codec that reduces the sound quality. You can ask a server admin to change the codec. All it really takes is a few rcon commands. See the 'Voice Codecs' article to learn more about this. If you still think it sounds bad, please know that the .wav files will not sound perfect after being converted, and then being played over the microphone.
- For Source Mods: As of 3/12/2007 all Source servers should be using the vaudio_speex codec. This codec allows for voice communication to be very clear, and that makes your .wav files sound very clear. If for some reason it is really choppy or bad, check the codec using the console command sv_voicecodec to make sure the server is running this newer codec. Then check to make sure you converted the your sounds as shown here.

- If you're using an AMD Dual Core processor, please see FAQ question #16 for additional information about bad sound quality.

- See the 'Bass / Volume' tutorial.

- The most common reason why it does this is because you converted your wav with Sound Recorder. You should use dBpowerAMP to convert your wav files. You can get more information about this by visiting the 'converting wavs' article. In rare cases, the server you are playing on might have a time limit set that only allows you to use the microphone for a short amount of time. I have never seen this, but it's possible. Try another server to see if the problem continues.

- No. Playing wav sounds over the microphone is no different than just talking over the microphone. There might be a very slight change in the amount of bandwidth usage, but nothing major that would cause you or other players to lag. If you encounter lag when using HLSS, it's most likely a coincidence, and something else is causing the lag. Don't let other's make you feel guilty for playing sounds when they say 'it lags them'. They can mute you if it's so bad.

- If you have already correctly set up HLSS for 2 or more games, you will need to make sure the 'game directory' folder option in HLSS the correct folder for the game you want to use HLSS in. Each time you want to play HLSS in a different game, you must change the 'game directory' setting to the correct folder. See your game's setup page to find out the correct folder.

- The black bar doesn't show up in Source mods (Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, etc..). You might be able to see it for a split second when you press a shortcut key while playing a Source mod, but it won't stay there. This wont cause any problems though. You can get to to stay longer by setting your game to windowed mode, or windowed mode with no border.

If you are playing a Half-Life 1 mod, and it still doesn't work for you, be sure that HLSS was activated (by clicking the thumbs up in the program).

- The folders mentioned in the tutorials are not the full folder's name, but a partial name. This is because one persons installation of Steam may differ from another person's. You must figure out where your Steam installation folder is before you can locate the folders mentioned in the tutorials. One of the most common locations for a Steam installation is: C:\Program Files\Steam\

- This bind should still be bound after you restart a game if you already typed it in console. If it's not, or it keeps getting unbound, then add the following line to the file userconfig.cfg: bind del "ToggleWav". This file can be found in the same directory where your autoexec.cfg is located. If you don't know where this is, see your game's setup page. If you do not see it in that folder, you can download our version of it by clicking here. Make sure to save it in the same folder where your autoexec.cfg file should be. By default, the version of this file we provide binds Delete to be your play key. You can change that key by editing this file.

- You can download that file by going to your game's setup page. But since the file is the same for all games, you can download it by clicking here too.

- A simple console command will fix this problem: voice_fadeouttime 0
By default, the value of this command is set to 0.1. If that console command's value is not changed to 0, the quality of a sound will get really choppy for a few seconds, and then go back to normal while it is playing.

The file autoexec.cfg that we provide on the website includes this command so you do not have to manually type it every time you start your game. To avoid having to manually type in the console command every time you start your game, update your autoexec.cfg file by clicking here.

This autoexec.cfg file is the same for all games and mods we support. You can just overwrite the old file with the new one. If you do not know where it goes, see your games setup page.

- This applies to Half-Life 1 based games only. There is no official fix for this problem. It happens if you press your microphone key while typing your message. What you can do instead is type your message using console (using the 'say' command). Doing this will not cause your wav to stop playing if you type something. There are third party autoexec.cfg files in our forums from other members that can fix this, and soon we will add this fix to our scripts.

- If you are using an AMD dual core processor your sounds may be very distorted, or even cause your game to crash. AMD has released a download on their website that fixes this issue for their dual core processors. This download simply adds "/usepmtimer" to your boot.ini file. This means when your operating system boots up, this command will be run and fix all the timing issues between the processor and applications you run. You can download the patch from AMD's website by going here and clicking the download link for the "AMD Dual-Core Optimizer". Be sure to restart your computer after you have applied the fix. Intel users do not seem to be affected by this issue from what I've read.

Also, make sure you have converted your .wav files correctly. If a .wav file is not converted correctly your game could crash, or the sound could be very distorted when you try to play it.

- This happens because the .wav file that was last playing was somehow stopped before you hit your start/stop key to stop it yourself. To fix this, simply tap your start/stop button (the delete button by default) once. Tapping it once shouldn't make the wav play again, but will instead fully finish running your script, and fix the problem.

- No. HLSS doesn't modify, or inject itself into any Steam or game files. HLSS is simply used to quickly copy/rename .wav files to a directory within Steam, and a .cfg script does the actual playing of the wavs. But there is a chance of getting kicked or banned from a server by the admin for using HLSS though.

- No, but some users have reported that they were not able to get HLSS working until they plugged in an actual microphone. However, this seems to be rare.

- Please visit the forums and ask your question there.