Half-Life 2: Update

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Half-Life 2: Update is currently available on Steam.
 🛒 Get it on Steam for free (via Browser | Steam client*)
Supported OS: Windows • macOS • Linux + SteamOS (See system requirements)

Notice: Requires Half-Life 2 to be purchased. Installation of Half-Life 2 is not necessary to play this standalone mod.

Half-Life 2: Update is a mod released in 2015 that improves Half-Life 2 by fixing most (but not all) of the bugs and improving the graphics.

When Half-Life 2 was ported from Source 2006 (Old Engine) to Source 2009 (also known as Orange Box engine or New Engine) in 2010, it introduced hundreds of bugs and issues, which was listed here. Half-Life 2: Update fixed most of them while also improving the graphics, increasing draw distance, adding new effects without changing the core gameplay (aside from maps, which was slightly modified to add more Lambda Locator crates and symbols while keeping total as 45). Unlike the original (vanilla) Half-Life 2, this mod is completely standalone and have it's own separate saves, separate achievements, separate AppID and configs. Additionally, it also fixed the issue that cause the game to enable fullbright lighting in some chapters (such as Black Mesa East, Highway 17, etc...) which was caused by Valve forgot to compiling some of the Half-Life 2 maps with both LDR and HDR lighting while porting the game from previous version of Source.

Features

Complete lighting overhaul including enhanced lighting, more detailed world shadows, and full High Dynamic Range Lighting (HDR).

The original Half-Life 2 maps are compiled for LDR only, with some of them are HDR only after 2010 update, but not both LDR and HDR.

New particle effects and improved fog

Countless bug fixes, correcting both visual and game-based issues.

Large amount of bugs is fixed, including bugs that are introduced at launch, / version (Source 2007), and PC after 2010 (Source 2009).

Community Commentary Mode

Featuring voices from various YouTubers, including Caddicarus, Brutalmoose, Ricepirate, Balrog the Master, ProJared, and Ross Scott from Freeman's Mind

Bugs and Limitations

Warning:As of 2023, Half-Life 2: Update runs on the outdated version of Source 2013 from 2015, and it is no longer receiving updates, including recent bugs fixes exclusive to the vanilla Half-Life 2 introduced with the Steam Deck updates, which fixes bugs related to Dropship gun no longer rotates (preventing it from shooting, and thus, spawn camping),^[1] NPCs eyes not blinking, and many other issues.
The game also lacks proper (Verified) Steam Deck support as it does not have Gamepad UI.

An unofficial patch to fix these issues and add Steam Deck features can be found here at PCGW and/or Gamebanana.

System Requirements

Windows:

• OS: XP, Vista, 7 or later
• CPU: 1.7 GHz and/or Dual-core
• RAM: 1GB RAM
• Disk space: 6.5 GB (15GB+ recommended)
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 6xxx series, ATI Radeon X1600, Intel HD Graphics 3000 (with 128MB VRAM)
• Direct3D 9.0 compatible video card (with atleast DirectX 8.0 compatibility level or higher)

Note:Due to Steam dropped support on Windows XP & Vista, users need run the game without Steam by running the hl2.exe executable directly. Achievements will be disabled when run without Steam.

OS X:

• OS X 10.5.8, 10.6.3 (up to 10.14.6)
• CPU: 2.0 GHz and/or Dual-core
• RAM: 1 GB
• Storage: 6.5 GB (15GB+ recommended)
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 8xxx series, ATI Radeon X1600, Intel HD Graphics 3000
  OpenGL 2.1 compatible
• Audio: OpenAL compatible

Note:Mac version are no longer supported after macOS Catalina (10.15), due to this game only have 32-bit binaries.
User can manually build Intel 64-bit/Apple Silicon version of HL2 by following this guide.

Linux:

• OS: Ubuntu 12.04, SteamOS 1.0 or later
  Other Linux distros supported.
• CPU: 2.0 GHz and/or Dual-core
• RAM: 1 GB
• Storage: 6.5 GB (15GB+ recommended)
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 8xxx series, ATI Radeon X1600, Intel HD Graphics 3000
  OpenGL 2.1 compatible
• Audio: OpenAL compatible

Note:The system requirements on Linux are unofficial, based off Windows/Mac info, as well as other Source games that support Linux, such as Portal 2.

References

References

1. User:leonidakarlach (June 10, 2024).  Half-Life 2 - The one Dropship gun bug that ruins the Sandtraps chapter (Now fixed). YouTube. Note:The bugs shown on the video are recorded from Half-Life 2: Update (both unpatched and unofficially patched), but these also applies to original version of Half-Life 2 (since 2007 for consoles, 2010 for PC, was fixed on PC in 2022). . Retrieved on June 10, 2024.