MP3

Moving Pictures Experts Group, Audio Layer 3
Developer:	Moving Picture Experts Group
Header:	Custom
Content:	PCM
Instruments:	Intrinsic
Target Output
Released:	1995-??-??
Extensions	*.mp3

Moving Pictures Experts Group, Audio Layer 3 (MP3) is the third layer in the MPEG-1 format. It uses a lossy compression algorithm to encode audio data into much smaller files than a lossless format. Although the format was impressive when it was originally developed, it has since been out-classed by more modern audio formats like OGG. Also, because MP3 is a closed-source format (although not patented since 2017), the VGMPF will do as much as possible to limit the use of MP3 on this site and instead focus on Vorbis. The only reason why we will have MP3 files is if the game's soundtrack is already encoded in MP3 format. Transcoding from lossy compression to a different lossy compression only makes the resulting file sound worse.

Players

(Category)

• Audacity - Linux, Macintosh, Windows
• DeliPlayer - Windows
• Digital Sound System - DOS
• foobar2000 - Windows
• GoldWave - Windows
• VLC - Android, FreeBSD, Linux, Macintosh, Windows
• Winamp - Android, Macintosh, Windows
• Windows Media Player - Windows
• XMMS - Linux

Editors

(Category)

• Audacity (with LAME) - Linux, Macintosh, Windows - AAC, AC3, AIFF, AMR, AU, FLAC, MP2, OGG, WAV, WMA
• GoldWave - Windows - AAC, AFC, AIFF, AU, IFF, FLAC, OGG, RAW, VOC, VOX, WAV, WMA, XAC

Converters

(Category)

MP3 to ?

• Audacity (with LAME) - Linux, Macintosh, Windows - AAC, AC3, AIFF, AMR, AU, FLAC, MP2, OGG, WAV, WMA
• Digital Sound System (with LAME) - DOS - WAV
• foobar2000 - Windows - AAC, AIFF, AU, FLAC, OGG, MusePack, WAV, Wave64, WavPack
• GoldWave - Windows - AAC, AIFF, AIFFC, AU, IFF, FLAC, OGG, OPUS, M4A, RAW, VOC, VOX, WAV, WMA, XAC
• VLC - Android, FreeBSD, Linux, Macintosh, Windows - FLAC, M4A, OGG, WAV

? to MP3

• Audacity (with LAME) - Linux, Macintosh, Windows - AAC, AC3, AIFF, AMR, AU, FLAC, MP2, OGG, WAV, WMA
• Digital Sound System (with LAME) - DOS - CD, MIDI, MP1, MP2, VOC, WAV
• foobar2000 - Windows - AAC, AIFF, AU, FLAC, OGG, MusePack, WAV, Wave64, WavPack
• GoldWave - Windows - AAC, AIFF, AIFFC, AU, IFF, FLAC, OGG, OPUS, M4A, RAW, VOC, VOX, WAV, WMA, XAC
• VLC - Android, FreeBSD, Linux, Macintosh, Windows - FLAC, M4A, OGG, WAV

Games

(Category)

Released	Title	Sample
2001-05-01	The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (W32)
2002-04-05	Dungeon Siege (W32)
2003-06-??	SimCity 4 (W32)
2003-09-19	SimCity 4: Rush Hour (W32)
2004-02-27	Sacred (W32)
2005-10-18	Age of Empires III (W32)
2006-03-20	The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (W32)
2007-06-26	Overlord (W32)
2007-11-13	SimCity Societies (W32)
2011-06-10	Duke Nukem Forever (W32)
2013-02-26	Brütal Legend (W32)

How to Obtain

MP3 files usually have to be extracted from a game's resource files, although they're sometimes left as is.

Links

• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3 - Wikipedia.
• media.io - Online converter.