WAV

Waveform Audio File Format is an audio format with a .wav file extension, used by all of Valve's engines. It is required for lipsynced dialogue and looped sounds without a custom audio backend.

GoldSrc supports uncompressed 8-bit or 16-bit PCM, although lip-synched audio must be 8-bit. It supports sample rates of 11025 Hz or 22050 Hz; other sample rates can sometimes be used, but they will be resampled to 22050 Hz before playback.

Source supports uncompressed 8-bit and 16-bit PCM, as well as compressed 4-bit Microsoft ADPCM. It supports sample rates at 11025 Hz, 22050 Hz, and 44100 Hz; files at other sample rates, such as 32000 Hz and 48000 Hz, will not play.

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Bit rates

WAV files have a consistent bitrate depending upon their sample rate, bit depth, and channel count. The following tables indicate what bitrates files will be at supported sample rates.

Template:ModernTip Mono sounds (1 channel)

Sample Rate	16-bit PCM	8-bit PCM	4-bit ADPCM	Quality
11025 Hz	176.4 kbps	88.2 kbps	44.1 kbps	AM radio; used by most sound effects
22050 Hz	352.8 kbps	176.4 kbps	88.2 kbps	Max sample rate of sound effects
44100 Hz	705.6 kbps	352.8 kbps	176.4 kbps	CD quality