From Sea Shanty 2 to the dreaded Armadyl Crossbow Special Attack jumpscare, Old School RuneScape’s audio is truly iconic. That’s why the audio team have been hard at work behind the scenes to elevate your listening experience beyond anything you’ve heard before. We caught up with the audio team's Mod Surma to get the lowdown.
Currently, all audio in Old School is played back at 8-bit. Some of you may have noticed that when 8-bit audio is triggered, it produces a layer of white noise, or a hissing sound, that accompanies all the sounds and music in the game. This can become irritating to listen to, so we want to clean it up!
To remove the residual white noise, we’re converting all the audio in the game from 8-bit to 16-bit. At 16-bit, no noticeable white noise can be heard. It’s a small change, but it will significantly improve the sound profile across the game, creating a more immersive playing experience.
Below you’ll find a video examples where you can hear the difference for yourself!
If you can’t see the video above, click here!
If you can’t see the video above, click here!
(Note: this one will send your dogs wild, headphones are encouraged)
If you can’t see the video above, click here!
If you can’t see the video above, click here!
Converting to 16-bit will not affect the DNA of OSRS audio, so the heart and soul of what you hear will not change. Iconic sounds like the chilling approach of an Ice Barrage or the familiar soundscape of goblins dying in Lumbridge will still sound the same. The only thing changing is that the layer of white noise generated from 8-bit Audio will be removed.
The teams working on this update have gone through loads of testing to ensure that the conversion to 16-bit has gone smoothly. So, once the new audio is live, if you do happen to hear anything unusual, you can let us know by filling in a bug report or by sharing your findings on Reddit, X, or the OSRS Discord.
You can also discuss this update on the 2007Scape subreddit, the Steam forums, or the community-led OSRS Discord in the #gameupdate channel. For more info on the above content, check out the official Old School Wiki.
Mods Abe, Abyss, Arcane, Archie, Argo, Ash, Ayiza, BigRig, Blossom, Boko, Bruno, Chilly, Criminal, Crystal, Curse, Daizong, Dylan, Ed, Elena, Enigma, Entropi, Errol, Gecko, Gengis, Gizmo, Goblin, Grub, Halo, Harold, Hend, Hornet, Husky, Jalo, Jerv, Keyser, Kieren, Kirby, Kurotou, Leebleh, Lenny, Light, Liron, Lykos, Mack, Manked, Markos, Maylea, Moogle, Morty, Necro, Nin, Nox, Nylu, Ori, Other, Philomel, Pumpkin, Rach, Redfield, Rice, Roq, Ry, Saiyan, Sarnie, Shogun, Shroom, Sigma, Skylark, Smithy, Sova, Squid, Starry, Suharun, Surma, Sween, Tide, Titus, TJ, Tsourorf, Tyran, Veda, Vegard, West, Wolfy & Yume
The Old School Team.