Counter-Strike: Global Offensive engine branch

CS:GO engine branch

Screenshot in-game of

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, using

CS:GO engine branch. CS:GO introduces Cascaded Shadow Maps (seen on this image), which provides highly detailed dynamic shadows cast from the skybox.

Developer(s)

Valve Corporation

Release date(s)

August 21, 2012

Platform(s)

Windows

macOS

Linux (2014)

Xbox 360

PlayStation 3

SDK

CS:GO Authoring Tools

Forks

Strata Source

Predecessor

Portal 2 engine branch

Successor

Dota 2 engine branch (pre-Reborn)

The CS:GO engine branch was introduced in 2012 with the release of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, branching off from the Left 4 Dead engine branch (with some Portal 2 and Counter-Strike: Source additions and features). It is the newest (post- Left 4 Dead engine branch ) Source 1 engine branch available and succeeds the Portal 2 engine branch.

This branch has been continued to be updated for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (via csgo_legacy branch) after the Counter-Strike 2 release (which replaced CS:GO). But as of Jan 1, 2024, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is no longer being updated by Valve. The engine branch, however still remains maintained for third-party games that use the CS:GO engine branch, including Strata Source. It is still unknown whether CS:GO engine branch is still available for licensing.

Like other Source engine branches since Left 4 Dead (except Alien Swarm ), the source code was not publicly available. However in 2020, the source code for this branch (dated 2017-2018), alongside the full source code of Team Fortress 2's Source 2013, was leaked.

Note:This engine branch has been upgraded to have more features, so some games or mods on this engine branch may not have all of these features. Many features are exclusive to

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

Note:

Dota 2 used to be the latest

Source 1 branch available, succeeding the

CS:GO engine branch, but the 2015 Reborn update, which upgraded the game to

Source 2, makes

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive the latest

Source 1 branch available.

Features

New since the Portal 2 engine branch is:

FXAA anti-aliasing: Simple post processing effect aimed to remove jaggies on geometry and other object at the cost of image quality, but are much faster than other anti-aliasing method, such as MSAA.; FXAA can be also used with MSAA (such as 2X) at the same time. This will benefits most lower-end PC that struggles to run MSAA 4X or higher, it will also benefit models, transparent textures (without alpha to coverage) and other objects that MSAA was unable to remove jaggies or staircase effect on them.
Real-time dynamic shadows: env_cascade_light provides dynamic, high-resolution cascade shadow mapping for the outdoor light of light_environment.
Lightmapped Ambient Occlusion: VRAD can now bake ambient occlusion into the lightmaps for a map, leading to enhanced realism.
Bump mapped decals: LightmappedGeneric decals now support bump maps.
Scaleform (officially called Scaleform GFx): A vector graphics rendering engine used to display Adobe Flash-based UI and HUD for games. CS:GO uses Scaleform for the in-game HUDs and the main menu (until 2018).
VPK version 2: New version of VPK file format. Later backported to all Source 2013 games.

Newer Features

Features introduced with later updates to the branch.

Phong reflections on Lightmapped materials: LightmappedGeneric and WorldVertexTransition now support diffuse Phong reflections.
Texture streaming: Reduce system RAM and graphics card VRAM by streaming textures.
Vertex lighting for bumpmapped static props: Static props with bump maps can now receive vertex lighting, better blending them into the environment. All static props also now receive better lighting.
Anisotropic reflection emulation: Brush shaders can now emulate anisotropic specular reflections using new parameters.
Bump map blending for LightmappedGeneric: Two bump maps can now be blended together for high-frequency and low-frequency bumpmap variation on the LightmappedGeneric shader.
Lightmapped_4WayBlend: A displacement shader that can blend four different materials together by luminance.
Prop combination: VBSP now supports combining selected static props during map compilation, increasing performance and lowering draw calls.
Increased engine and compiler limits: The engine now supports more entities, more models and more displacements.; Note:Document all of the increased limits.
New first-person weapon lighting.: First-person weapon view now support more detailed lighting.
Static prop scaling
Panorama UI: Introduced in 2018, replacing Scaleform, Valve's new Custom GUI interface that resembles modern web design and authoring (HTML5/CSS/JS). Using .XML and JavaScript files, developers can create dynamic and clean HUDs and menus and even high-quality in-game intractable panels.
Direct3D 9Ex / Windows Aero DirectX Extensions (also in ): Introduced in April 2019 update, D3D9Ex improves performance depending on GPU hardware and drivers.
Vulkan renderer (only in )(also in ): A low-overhead, cross-platform graphics API, successor to OpenGL.; On Linux, where Direct3D is not supported, the Source Engine defaults to using Valve's in-house library ToGL to translate Direct3D calls to OpenGL. Using DXVK on Linux is usually recommended if the game supports it, as ToGL is known for having somewhat poor performance and causing some graphical issues.
Other improvements: Todo: Document these, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Removed features

Removed Shadow_control: Shadow_control removed due to env_cascade_light
Scaleform (officially called Scaleform GFx): Removed in later updates of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, in favor of Panorama.
Dropped support for Shader Model 2 GPUs: CS:GO branch drops support for all DX9 GPUs without Shader Model 3.0.

^[Todo]

Availability and usage

See also: Category:Counter-Strike: Global Offensive engine branch games

2012 Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (delisted, still available through csgo_legacy beta branch)
- Can still be obtained by selecting the csgo_legacy beta branch in Counter-Strike 2 in your Steam Library. No longer maintained as of Jan 1, 2024, which means that Counter-Strike: Global Offensive will now stop receiving bug fixes and other updates, but will remain available and playable, however any features that rely on the game coordinator such as the Inventory will eventually become broken or non-functional. As mentioned above, the branch itself is still continued to be maintained for third-party games.
- On macOS (OS X), aswell as all systems running on 32-bit OS or with DX9 only GPU, which does not support Counter-Strike 2, will automatically have the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive automatically downloaded instead.
2014 Insurgency (earlier version)
2014 Blade Symphony - Previously running on the Portal 2 engine branch.
2016 Day of Infamy (earlier version)
2022 Jabroni Brawl: Episode 3
2025 Military Conflict: Vietnam
- Planned to be released in 2025. Early access since 2022.
TBA Portal 2: Desolation (unreleased)
TBA Operation: Black Mesa (unreleased)
TBA Half-Life 2: Remastered (unreleased)