SSE High Quality Voices

NEW VERSION NOTE

As of 1. 1, the voices are now packed in BSA Archives for easier installation, faster loading and better compatibility.

Be sure to check the new install instructions.

English and French are available. However I do not plan to work on other languages. Keep in mind that voices

from this mod are a bit louder than vanilla and may not match with others voiced mods.

If you are playing with another language or if you are not interested with the louder voices, I suggest you to look at

Unofficial High Definition Audio Project, which covers any language and voices loudness same as vanilla.

Audio quality is identical. Thanks !

Introduction

From the original release of Skyrim back in 2011 to Skyrim VR in 2018, the original voices files has always been compressed in a format called XWM (or xWMA). Compression is used to save space by reducing the files size. However, the XWM format is a lossy compression, which means some of the file data is destroyed, impacting the sound quality.

What Bethesda did for Skyrim, is to use XWM's default ratio between file size and sound quality, which is approximately 48kbp/s. The result is, average file size but poor sound quality.

Higher quality

Since the Special Edition release on PS4 (or before if you were playing on PS3), you may have noticed that the sound quality (music and voices) is definitely better than PC and Xbox 360/One versions.

If PS3 and PS4 versions of the game are not affected by this compression issue, it's because they are using Sony's proprietary audio format instead of Microsoft's XWM. This proprietary audio format remain a lossy compression, but is much more efficient, preserving the sound quality.

What this mod do

This mod will replace the vanilla voices files with new ones, in much higher quality (192kbp/s), from the PS4 version. This quality upgrade will make the voices crystal clear compared to canned vanilla compression. The new voices also have slightly higher volume than vanilla, because I've always thought that the vanilla voices were not loud enough.

This mod support all voices of the main game, including Dawnguard, Dragonborn and Hearthfire.

Why ?

Because Skyrim is by far my favorite game and as an audiophile, audio quality is just as important as graphics for a true immersion. To me, the audio compression was a huge disappointment with the "remastered" Special Edition and unacceptable for the VR version. Modders did a bloody superb job on graphics, but like someone told me, better audio quality is the last piece of the puzz