Playing MP3's In Counter Strike

Alot of Counter Strike players use external media players like Winamp or WMP to listen to music (mp3's mostly). Apart from using up memory and processing power of the CPU, these external media players 'can' cause slight FPS drops. Unknown to most gamers, Counter Strike has a built in mp3 player. Just like media players, the Half Life engine(used by Counter Strike) is capable of playing mp3's, increasing/decreasing volume and with a little bit of scripting , you can even make your own playlists with countless number of mp3's.

How to Play MP3 files in Counter Strike?

Now firstly you have to have some knowledge of the Counter Strike folder structure. The main directory "cstrike" is found at:

C:/Valve/Steam/SteamApps/your account name/Counter-strike/cstrike
or
C:/ProgramFiles/Valve/Steam/SteamApps/your account name/Counter-strike/cstrike

In the cstrike folder will see a folder called "Media". The entire Half Life Soundtrack can be found in this folder (if you happen to have Half life installed you will probably not find it in cstrike but in the half life folder). Since the Engine uses the media folder for mp3's , i will be using it here as well.

The command for playing a mp3 file is: mp3 play folderName/mp3Name. 'folderName' is the name of the folder in which the mp3 you are trying to play is placed. 'mp3Name' is the full file name of the mp3 your are trying to play eg. outofcontrol.mp3. To play a mp3 called noob.mp3 which you placed in the media folder, you would type in the console: mp3 play media/noob.mp3. To stop playing the mp3 you would type:mp3 stop.

play mp3 : mp3 play FolderName/mp3Name
stop mp3 : mp3 stop
Increase/Decrease mp3 Volume : mp3volume x (eg. mp3volume 2)
Change Fade Time for mp3's : mp3fadetime x (eg. mp3fadetime 2.0)

Playing The Half Life Soundtrack
The Half Life soundtrack features 17 tracks and are playable if you have a copy of Counter Strike. As I mentioned earlier, the soundtrack mp3 files are stored in the Media folder of the Half Life directory. When you try to play a mp3 file placed in Media folder of your Cstrike directory, the engine will look in both the 'Media' folders located in the Cstrike and Half Life directory. The following is a list of the HL soundtrack mp3 files.

To play them simply type in console: mp3 play media/half-life#.mp3

example:mp3 play media/half-life01.mp3

List of Half-Life Mp3's:

half-life01.mp3
half-life02.mp3
half-life03.mp3
half-life04.mp3
half-life05.mp3
half-life06.mp3
half-life07.mp3
half-life08.mp3
half-life09.mp3
half-life10.mp3
half-life11.mp3
half-life12.mp3
half-life13.mp3
half-life14.mp3
half-life15.mp3
half-life16.mp3
half-life17.mp3

Creating Custom mp3 Playlists

We be will using the file called 'autoexec.cfg' for our playlists. It is found in :

C:/Valve/Steam/Steamapps/your account name/CounterStrike/cstrike

or

C:/programfiles/Valve/Steam/Steamapps/your account name/Counter Strike/cstrike

Any text editor can be used to open and edit .cfg files , notepad is most commonly used. Now for the playlist part , firstly place all the mp3's you want to be in the playlist in the 'Media' folder found in the cstrike directory. Open up autoexec.cfg with Notepad. We will now need to write a script for the playlist. One key will play mp3's in the order as defined in the playlist and one key will stop the playback of mp3's.

Lets assume you have 5 mp3's named: awp.mp3, m4.mp3, ak47.mp3,famas.mp3 and scout.mp3 . The playlist script will look like this:

alias song "song1"
alias song1 "mp3 play media/awp.mp3; alias song song2"
alias song2 "mp3 play media/m4.mp3; alias song song3"
alias song3 "mp3 play media/ak47.mp3; alias song song4"
alias song4 "mp3 play media/famas.mp3; alias song song5"
alias song5 "mp3 play media/scout.mp3; alias song song1"
bind "KP_MINUS" "song"
bind "KP_PLUS" "mp3 stop"

Pressing - (minus key on the keypad) will play the first mp3 defined in the playlist, press it again
and the second mp3 will start playing. Pressing + (plus key on the keypad) will stop the current mp3 playback. The playlist will loop. I have used the '-' and '+' keys but you can use any keys for the binds.
The script may be a bit difficult to understand at first but try looking at the patterns. I will show
you a similiar script to the above but this time its for 7 mp3s so you can have a basic idea of how to edit the script when you add more files. (added glock.mp3 and usp.mp3)

alias song "song1"
alias song1 "mp3 play media/awp.mp3; alias song song2"
alias song2 "mp3 play media/m4.mp3; alias song song3"
alias song3 "mp3 play media/ak47.mp3; alias song song4"
alias song4 "mp3 play media/famas.mp3; alias song song5"
alias song5 "mp3 play media/scout.mp3; alias song song6"
alias song6 "mp3 play media/glock.mp3; alias song song7"
alias song7 "mp3 play media/usp.mp3; alias song song1"
bind "KP_MINUS" "song"
bind "KP_PLUS" "mp3 stop"

Notes:
1.When some mp3's dont work in Counter Strike, simply reconvert them to mp3 format using a program like dbPowerAmp (search on google for this)
2.I have used autoexec.cfg file here but you can make your own .cfg file (eg mp3.cfg) however make sure you execute it everytime you start CS by typing in console: exec filename (filename is the name of your mp3 playlist file eg. exec mp3.cfg) or simple place the command in yourconfig.cfg or autoexec.cfg , this will it will automatically load when you start CS.