CRI ADX is a proprietary audio container and compression format developed by CRI Middleware specifically for use in video games; it is derived from ADPCM but with lossy compression. Its most notable feature is a looping function that has proved useful for background sounds in various games that have adopted the format, including many games for the Sega Dreamcast as well as some PlayStation 2, GameCube and Wii games. One of the first games to use ADX was Burning Rangers, on the Sega Saturn. Notably, the Sonic the Hedgehog series since the Dreamcast generation and the majority of Sega games for home video consoles and PCs since the Dreamcast continue to use this format for sound and voice recordings. Jet Set Radio Future for original Xbox also used this format.
The ADX toolkit also includes a sibling format, AHX, which uses a variant of MPEG-2 audio intended specifically for voice recordings and a packaging archive, AFS, for bundling multiple CRI ADX and AHX tracks into a single container file.
Version 2 of the format (ADX2) uses the HCA and HCA-MX extension, which are usually bundled into a container file with the extensions ACB and AWB. The AWB extension is not to be confused with the Audio format with the same extension and mostly contains the binary data for the HCA files.
CRI ADX has been suggested to play 2 roles. Click below to see other actors suggested for each role, and vote for who you think would play the role best.
