Extract text from High compression audio files (HCA)
To convert HCA Audio files to another format, you need CRI ADX2 or other Audio software.
To convert other file formats to the "Game Audio File" file type, you need software like CRI ADX2 or a similar tool.
The .HCA format stores High Compression Audio data. It is a proprietary audio format developed by CRI Middleware specifically for the video game industry. Developers use .HCA files to compress in-game soundtracks, ambient sounds, and character voices. The format drastically reduces file size while requiring very little CPU power to decode during gameplay.
The main disadvantage of the .HCA format is that it is strictly proprietary. You cannot double-click an .HCA file to play it on Windows Media Player, Apple Music, or your smartphone. It requires a specific game engine or specialized reverse-engineered tools like vgmstream to decode the audio.
Because it is unplayable on standard software, users typically need to convert .HCA to universal formats like WAV for lossless editing, or MP3 and OGG for regular listening. However, standard online converters usually fail to process .HCA files because the compression algorithm is closed-source. Often, only the original CRI software or specialized decoders like the CRI HCA Decoder can properly read the audio data. If our analysis detects a supported underlying audio stream, viewing or conversion may still be successful.
Convert.Guru analyzes your HCA file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted MP3, WAV, ACB, M4A, AWB, ADX, USM, FLAC, MP4, AAC, UASSET, ZIP and JSON files.
If you want to convert HCA file to WAV, MP3, AAC, FLAC, OGG, WMA, M4A, AIFF, OPUS, ALAC, APE or WV, you can use CRI ADX2 or similar software from the "Video Game Audio Storage" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert MIDI, AAC, TTA, AU, WV, DTS, MID, FLAC, RA, MP3, PCM or WAV files to HCA, try CRI ADX2 or another comparable tool in the "Video Game Audio Storage" category.
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our HCA converter.