GoldSrc

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"Powered by the Half-Life engine" logo used on some game boxarts.

GoldSrc (also known as GoldSource) is a 3-D video game engine created by Valve in 1996. It was the driving force behind many famous games of the late 90s, such as Half-Life, Team Fortress Classic, and Counter-Strike. GoldSrc is a heavily modified version of the Quake engine, and runs on C++ programming code. GoldSource and its level editor, the Hammer World Editor, were released by Valve for public use, making it the source of countless community-made modifications. GoldSrc was replaced by its sequel engine, Source, in 2004, which currently holds 1st place as the choice for modders. Though GoldSrc is past its prime, many gamers still seek to use it for mods and level design.

For information about converting GoldSrc content to the Source engine, see Porting Goldsource content to Source.

Screenshot in-game of Half-Life, using the GoldSrc Engine.

Features

• AI flocking - NPCs can group together, seen with Houndeyes;
• Skeletal animation - allowing for easier animating of models;
• Colored lighting - Quake simply had monotone lighting;
• Scripted sequences - Used extensively to tell Half-Life's story;
• Transparent textures - Glass can now be used in maps;
• Higher poly counts - GoldSrc allows for far more detailed models than Quake.

SDK

The GoldSrc SDK is known as the Half-Life SDK. As of August 2013, it is available on Steam under the "Tools" section. With it comes Hammer 3.4, the 3ds Max sources for many cut and retail NPCs as well as player and weapon models, tools for packing textures into WADs, and detailed documentation on implementing baseline features such as voice chat into a mod.

The full source code for the SDK can be found on Valve's Github Page.

Games using GoldSrc

Year	Title	Developer(s)	Publisher(s)
1998	Half-Life	Valve	Sierra Entertainment, Valve (digital)
1999	Half-Life: Opposing Force	Gearbox, Valve
	Team Fortress Classic	Valve	Valve, Sierra Entertainment (digital)
	Sven Co-op	Sven Co-op team	Sven Co-op team
2000	Counter-Strike	Valve	Sierra Entertainment
	Gunman Chronicles	Rewolf Entertainment	Sierra Entertainment
	Ricochet	Valve	Valve
2001	Deathmatch Classic
	Half-Life: Blue Shift	Gearbox, Valve	Sierra Entertainment, Valve (digital)
	Half-Life: Decay	Gearbox	Sierra Entertainment
2002	James Bond 007: Nightfire	Eurocom, Gearbox	Electronic Arts
2003	Day of Defeat	Valve	Activision, Valve (digital)
	Counter-Strike (Xbox)	Ritual Entertainment, Turtle Rock Studios	Xbox Game Studios (formerly Microsoft Studios)
	Counter-Strike Neo	Namco	Namco
2004	Counter-Strike: Condition Zero	Valve, Ritual Entertainment, Gearbox, Turtle Rock Studios	Sierra Entertainment, Valve (digital)
2008	Counter-Strike Online	Valve, Nexon	Nexon
2013	Cry of Fear	Team Psykskallar	Team Psykskallar
2014	Counter-Strike Nexon: Studio	Valve, Nexon	Nexon

See also

• GoldSrc on Wikipedia
• GoldSource SteamPipe Directories