Portal
67 ratings
How to Disable the Transmission Received Radios
By Calmly Frenetic
Sick of the extra radios (and loud music) while playing Portal?

Option 1 : Modify the volume/music played by the radios.
Option 2 : (Redundant).
Option 3 : Disable post-game radios.
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Option 1 : Modify the volume/music played by the radios
Go to where your game files are stored:
In your Steam Library, select Portal, select Manage (gear icon), then Manage > Browse local files

Open the "portal" sub-folder, then create a new folder named "custom".
Create another folder inside "custom" and name it whatever you want (example: my_mods).
Create three more nested folders named "sound", "ambient" and "music" so the final folder structure looks like this:

...\Steam\steamapps\common\Portal\portal\custom\my_mods\sound\ambient\music\

In this folder, place ANY sound file in .WAV format, then rename it to looping_radio_mix.wav
The WAV format should be PCM, 44.1 kHz, 16-bit. Either stereo or mono will work.
For help changing the format, search the Portal Guides section for "music".

(If you have the "Hide extensions for known file types" option enabled in your file browser, the file name should appear as "looping_radio_mix", with the "WAV Audio File" type.)

Restart the game, and radios will play your "custom" sound instead of the original music.
To make the custom sound "loop", add cue points to the .wav file, as described here:
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Looping_a_Sound


A low-volume version of the original music (downloadable):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4rn058lib72h12d/low_volume.wav

To completely silence the music, use a blank/empty text file.


To restore the original music: move, rename or delete your custom sound file.

Option 2 : Temporarily remove all the extra radios (in Offline mode)
(Use Option 3 instead of this!)

To make the game play like it did on the first playthrough, we need to make it think you have not yet received the Heartbreaker achievement for completing Portal.
Only the original few radios will appear in the game, with no red or green lights, the volume of the music will be normal, and the radios will not turn to face you when you pick them up.


First, set Steam to Offline mode.

Then exit Steam completely, either by right clicking the icon and choosing Exit, or by choosing Exit from the Steam file menu.

Then, delete(*) these two files:

...\Steam\SteamApps\common\Portal\portal\gamestate.txt
...\Steam\appcache\stats\UserGameStats_<numerical user ID>_400.bin

Start Steam. When prompted, choose START IN OFFLINE MODE.

Finally, play the game, with no extra radios.


To return to normal, set Steam to Online mode.


* If you are part-way through the Transmission Received achievement, and want to keep your progress, make a backup copy of the gamestate.txt file. When back in online mode, replace the new file created by the game with the backup copy.

Option 3 : Disable post-game radios
As part of the March 2022 updates, Valve finally provided an option to disable the radios.

Using the developer console:
portal_disable_radios 1
(Or set it to 0 to enable the radios.)

Using the new "gamepad" user interface:
Run the game with the launch option
-gamepadui
then go to Options, select the Portals tab, then set "Post-game Radios" to Disabled.


41 Comments
ForgottenGamer 7 Aug @ 1:34pm 
nevermind, it does work after i did it another time. i don't know why.
ForgottenGamer 7 Aug @ 1:27pm 
This does not work on my end. server cheats set to on, (can noclip and such) but it doesn't seem to work at all.
DevilMcSheep 18 Jan @ 3:13am 
THANK YOU! :D
These totally ruined the vibes :steamfacepalm:
c5 11 Oct, 2024 @ 7:54pm 
It's worth mentioning, if you make a file called autoexec.cfg in Portal/hl2/cfg and put the portal_disable_radios 1 command in that file, it will automatically execute when you open the game and you'll never have to worry about it again.
сэр мангоглот 24 Sep, 2024 @ 4:31am 
"[Peppy music]"
blakeblake1219 15 Jun, 2023 @ 9:07am 
the music is so good why would you turn em off
Unknown 11 Mar, 2022 @ 7:19pm 
why the hell would you turn off the beeping radios I thought it only triggers in specific spots
Junior GPT 8 Feb, 2022 @ 7:52am 
@Calmly Frenetic Thank you so much!
omasque 28 May, 2021 @ 9:05pm 
no thanks
PRETTY PINK! 26 May, 2021 @ 5:24pm 
IT WORKED YES