Physics Mayhem

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Revision as of 16:12, 29 October 2024 by Ficool2 (talk | contribs)
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Physics Mayhem is a physics engine bug present in all Source branches using Havok except Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

If an entity's solidity type or collision group is changed manually (for example, by using addoutput solid 2 with I/O or NetProps.SetPropInt(entity, "m_CollisionGroup" in VScript), internal cached physics information will not be updated. Eventually, Havok can implode attempting to run the simulation with the stale information when this entity comes in contact with other objects. Effects range from unpredictable, bouncy prop behavior to all VPhysics-simulated objects falling through all geometry. This bug is global and once it occurs, it is unrecoverable. The only fix is a full server restart.

To avoid this bug, do not set the solid or collision group fields manually. Instead, use the game's native routines to handle this. In VScript, this is SetSolid and SetCollisionGroup. In SourceMod, use CollisionRulesChanged.

The technical reason for this bug is a hack introduced for E3 2003 involving unused collisions. A global boolean variable is set to true when a specific edge case happens, intended to defer collision code later temporarily. Unfortunately, the boolean is never set back to false, and this causes all collisions to permanently fail.

Tip.pngTip:Offset for this boolean variable on Source 2013 Multiplayer Source 2013 Multiplayer into vphysics.dll is 0x73CC0 (for monitoring or patching purposes). On 32-bit Garry's Mod (64-bit is not affected as it uses Counter-Strike: Global Offensive VPhysics), the offset is 0xD7EFC.
Note.pngNote:Other than changing the boolean, it is also possible to recover from this at runtime by reloading the physics engine with the PhysSwapper plugin.

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