GoldSrc

GoldSrc

Developer(s)

Valve Corporation

Release date(s)

November 19, 1998

Platform(s)

Windows, macOS, Linux, Xbox, Xbox, PlayStation 2

Written in

C++, C

SDK

Half-Life SDK

Official website

GitHub page
(source code & bug reports)

GoldSrc (also known as GoldSource, and formerly just the Half-Life Engine) is a 3D video game engine created by Valve in 1996. It was the driving force behind many famous games of the late 90s and early 00s, such as Half-Life, Team Fortress Classic, Counter-Strike, and Day of Defeat. GoldSrc is a heavily modified version of the Quake engine and runs on C++ (with some "C" code). GoldSrc and its level editor, Valve Hammer Editor, were released by Valve for public use, making it the source of countless community-made modifications.

GoldSrc was replaced by its successor, Source, in 2004, which currently holds first place as the choice engine for Valve modders. Though GoldSrc is past its prime, many gamers and some third-party developers still seek to use it for mods and level design.

The engine is actively being updated and maintained by Valve as of 2023, recently with the Half-Life's 25th-anniversary updates which increased the engine limits and fixed many bugs.

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

Screenshot in-game of Half-Life: Blue Shift, using Rudimentary Shadows.

Screenshot in-game of Cry of Fear, which runs on a heavily modified version of GoldSrc.

Screenshot in-game of Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, using detail textures and higher-definition player models.

In-game screenshot of Xbox version of Counter-Strike.

Features

Todo: expand here or add links

• AI flocking - NPCs can group together, seen with Houndeyes
• Skeletal animation - allowing for more stable animation of models, compared to the vertex animation in Quake
• Higher poly counts - GoldSrc allows for far more detailed models than Quake
• HD models
• Scripted sequences - Used extensively to tell Half-Life's story
• Player Bots (only in ),
• A3D/EAX hardware accelerated audio - improves DSP sound effects (such as removing echo's buzzing noises), and add surround sounds support (Removed since 2013 SteamPipe update).

Since 2003 Steam update

• VGUI2 - Valve's custom GUI interface mimics most of the Windows controls.
• In-game advertisements ( Counter-Strike, removed since SteamPipe) - Introduced in 2007.

Since 2013 SteamPipe Update

• macOS support
• Linux support

Since 25th Anniversary

• Increased engine limits - Valve has increased engine limitations, allowing for more entities and detailed maps.
• func_vehicle entity support from Counter-Strike
• Native Steam Deck support
• Steam Input support - Steam Input support was added, which allows the game to support more controllers and buttons.

Renderer

GoldSrc has two in-game renderers Software Renderer and OpenGL (previously three as Direct3D 7 support was removed in the 2013 SteamPipe Update) both renderers have differences.

• Colored lighting - Quake simply had monotone lighting
• Transparent textures - Glass can now be used in maps
• Transparent Water
• Water ripple - Quake simply Water ripple
• Water waves
• Dynamic iris simulation - similar to HDR Rendering (only in )
• Detailed textures (only in )

Bug:Detail texture rendering has been broken since the 25th Anniversary update.  [todo tested in ?]

• Texture Filtering - Quake (GLQuake) simply Texture Filtering
• HD models

Since 2013 SteamPipe Update

• FBO renderer - A new method of rendering the game, which allows MSAA to work with GoldSrc engine. This also allows the game to run on fullscreen in a borderless window, and aspect ratio that are different from your monitors, for example, 4:3 on 16:9, will not be stretched to fill the black bars.

Note:You can disable the new FBO renderer using -nofbo command line, note that this will also disable MSAA.

• MSAA anti-aliasing - GoldSrc now natively support anti-aliasing, specifically, MSAA 4X, which is enabled by default on most modern hardwares. This will reduce the amount of jagged edges/staircases effect on the geometry.

Since 25th Anniversary

• Stencil Shadows

Note:This feature was originally from GLQuake. To enable Stencil Shadows r_shadows must be set to 1

• Software Renderer support on Linux

Versions and forks

This article or section needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality.
For help, see the VDC Editing Help and Wikipedia cleanup process. Also, remember to check for any notes left by the tagger at this article's talk page.

Todo: Most of these aren't branches; branches exist concurrently, rather than flat-out replacing old codebases.

Todo: when were SDK 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3 released?

Stub

This article or section is a stub. You can help by expanding it.

Year	Version / Game	Company	Features	Base	Notes
1998 - 1999	v1.0.x.x/SDK v1 Old WON	Valve Software	Per-texture palettes Colored lighting Skeletal Models Support for HW accelerated audio (EAX/A3D)	Quake (id Tech 2)	v30 .bsp, v10 .mdl
2000 - 2001	v1.1.0.x/SDK v2.0 New WON Counter-Strike 1.0 - 1.3	Valve Software	VGUI Prediction-based Networking Miles Sound System (since 2001)	Old WON	v30 .bsp, v10 .mdl VGUI was introduced with May 25, 2000 update (1.1.0.0), used for new Scoreboard (replacing old Opposing Force/text-based scoreboard), and the console & chat font was also changed to be slightly bigger (plus removing the orange gradient on the font). The netcode (originally from QuakeWorld), has been replaced or significantly updated in 2001, adding prediction-based networking.
2002	v1.1.0.9-v1.1.1.0/SDK v2.0 v1.0.1.4 (Steam Beta) New WON & Steam Beta Counter-Strike 1.4 & 1.5 Day of Defeat Beta 1.3	Valve Software	VGUI2 (since 2002) Steam Beta/Tracker (optional, since 2002) VAC 1.0	New WON	v30 .bsp, v10 .mdl In 2002, the late WON build around 1.1.0.9 was the first version to support Steam Beta (and Tracker). Most users at the time did not use Steam Beta and install Steam Tracker so players will see "Tracker Error: TrackerUI.dll invalid, not loading", however user was able to open Half-Life Desktop overlay by pressing F1, providing limited functionality (Resume and Quit game option only) for those who did not have Steam Beta installed. VGUI2 was also introduced at the same time with Steam Beta, and used for Tracker feature aswell.
2001 (leak)[Clarify]	Dreamcast	Captivation Digital Laboratories Gearbox Software	Compressed model textures	v1.0.1.3/SDK v1	v30 .bsp, v11 .mdl
2001	PlayStation 2	Gearbox Software	LOD models	Dreamcast[citation needed]	v40 .bs2, v10 .dol
2002	007: Nightfire	Gearbox Software	Direct3D 8 renderer MSAA support	v1.1.0.x/SDK v2.0 (New WON)[citation needed] (For PC)	v42 .bsp, v14 .mdl Console version uses custom in-house engine while PC version uses heavily modified GoldSrc.
2003	Xbox	Ritual Entertainment Turtle Rock Studios	Improved lighting Dynamic iris simulation (HDR-like brightness adjust)	Counter-Strike: Condition Zero engine branch earlier version[citation needed]	v30 .bsp, v11 .mdl, .sxwad format instead of wad
2003	Counter-Strike Neo engine branch	Namco	Heavily modified OpenGL Renderer Native linux support	v1.1.x.x/SDK v2.0 Confirm:only for ver.1 Counter-Strike: Condition Zero engine branch (ver.2)[citation needed]	v30 .bsp, v10 .mdl [confirm]
2003	Day of Defeat	Valve Software	Widescreen resolution support	v1.1.x.x/SDK v2.0	v30 .bsp, v10 .mdl
2003	Steam	Valve Software Turtle Rock Studios Gearbox Software[citation needed] Ritual Entertainment	Detail textures (since 2004) Steamworks (replaces WON) Steam Friends VGUI on Main menu & Console VAC 2.0 (since 2005)	v1.1.x.x/SDK v2.0[confirm]	v30 .bsp, v10 .mdl [confirm] Starting with this version, game files are no longer packaged inside .pak files, and instead either stored directly on filesystem, or stored in .gcf files prior to SteamPipe. This version is compatible with most games/mods built on WON/Retail version (many speedrunners often use 2001 WON client/server.dll on 2005 version of Half-Life). Note:* - Initially at launch, Steam Friends is a instant messaging feature, allowing player to chat with friends, or play minigames (Parlor Games) with friends. Later it was updated in January 2006 with Friends v2 (aka Friends Beta), which removes Parlor Games and relies on newer Steam API. The Friends menu option was later removed around Agugust 2007 as Steam Overlay (released at the same time with the launch of Steam Community) replaced most of it's feature. The first version of Friends no longer works as the old Steam server for this version was offline, while Friends v2 still partially works with latest Steam client, but buggy (message will only shown on Steam client and will not appear in-game).
2013	2013 SteamPipe (SDK 2.4)	Valve Software	Linux and Mac support FBO renderer MSAA (4X) support Removed support for EAX/A3D surround sound and Direct3D 6 renderer Removed support for Quake MDLs (2019).	Steam	v30 .bsp, v10 .mdl GCF has been removed and game files are now placed directly on the filesystem after SteamPipe.
2013	Cry of Fear engine branch	Team Psykskallar	Improved Paranoia's OpenGL Renderer	Steam/ Paranoia HLSDK fork[3]	v30 .bsp, v10 .mdl [confirm] Heavily modified, and based on pre-SteamPipe version.
2016	Svengine	Sven Co-op Team	AngelScript FMOD audio (restores EAX/surround sound features) Extended engine limits	2013 SteamPipe	v30 .bsp, v10 .mdl Significantly modified with extended engine limits and scripting using AngelScript.
2023	25th anniversary, aka HL25 (SDK 2.5)	Valve Software	Increased engine limit Steam Input Shaders Steam Networking High-DPI support for VGUI Widescreen (Hor+) FOV WebM	2013 SteamPipe	v30 .bsp, v10 .mdl Introduced with Half-Life 25th Anniversary Update, fixing various bugs and increased engine limit. The HLSDK was later updated with code introduced with said update.

Half-Life SDK

Main article:  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 latest version of the SDK can be found on Valve's Github Page.

Note: Hammer 3.5 is the final GoldSrc-only editor released by Valve and can be downloaded separately, such as through the Sven Co-op SDK.

Products using GoldSrc

• See GoldSrc games category for more games, and for articles about the game which uses the GoldSrc engine.

Specifications

Engine Limits
Limits	GoldSrc Pre-25th	GoldSrc Post-25th	Xash3D	Svengine
Maximum number of dynamic sound channels	8	32	64	N/A
Default max number of server entities (MAX_EDICTS)	900	1200	600 - 8192	8192
Absolute max number of server entities (via liblist.gam edits)	2048	2048	8192	N/A
Maximum number of temporary entities (MAX_TEMPENTS)	500	N/A	300 - 2048	N/A
Maximum number of particles (MAX_PARTICLES)	4096	N/A	1024 - 131072	N/A
Maximum number of beams (MAX_BEAMS)	64	N/A	64 - 512	256
Maximum number of visible entities in the package (MAX_VISIBLE_PACKET)	256	1024	2048	N/A
Maximum number of pre-cacheable models and sprites (MAX_MODELS)	512	N/A	1024 (4096 in FWGS)	8192
Maximum number of pre-cached sounds (MAX_SOUNDS)	512	N/A	2048	4096
Maximum number of entries to read sentences made up of sentences (MAX_SENTENCES)	1536	2048	4096	N/A
Maximum number of user messages (MAX_USER_MESSAGES)	128	N/A	191	N/A
Max number of loaded textures (MAX_TEXTURES)	2048	N/A	4096 (8192 in FWGS)	N/A
Max number of GL textures (MAX_GLTEXTURES)	4800	10000	4096 (8192 in FWGS)	N/A
Number of messages titles.txt (MAX_MESSAGES)	1024	N/A	2048	N/A
Maximum size of indexed textures	512х512	512x512	8192х8192	N/A
Maximum size of full color textures	512х512	512x512	8192х8192	N/A
Maximum number of models on the map (MAX_MAP_MODELS)	256	N/A	768 (1024 in FWGS)	4096
Maximum number of map leafs (MAX_MAP_LEAFS)	8192	N/A	32767	65536
Maximum number of entities per packet (MAX_PACKET_ENTITIES)	256	1024	256	512
Maximum number of spans (software renderer geometry limit)	3000	6000	N/A	Removed
Maximum number of surfaces (software renderer geometry limit)	2000	4000	N/A	Removed
Maximum number of edges (software renderer geometry limit)	7200	14400	N/A	Removed

Bugs and Limitations

This article or section needs to be updated to include current information regarding the subject because:

Half-Life 25th Anniversary Update fixes a lot and breaks other stuff.

Remember to check for any notes left by the tagger at this article's talk page.

Use GitHub in order to prevent duplicate or outdated bug reports at the wiki.

Bug:Various GoldSrc non-standalone mods has been broken with the recent Half-Life update, as part of its 25th anniversary. Some of these games would crash on startup with Visual C++ error.
Other games like Team Fortress Classic was also affected, but appears to work almost perfectly fine aside from HUD scaling fixes were non-functional. And another one such as Counter-Strike, which has been fixed to support the 25th anniversary update, may have other problems and issues that can crash the game. Additionally, mods that use custom OpenGL renderer (such as Paranoia (non-Xash3D version) and older version of Cry of Fear, etc...) will be also crashed on startup aswell (Issues #3710).

Workaround:To temporarily fix this, select the beta branch steam_legacy on Half-Life (and in some games such as Counter-Strike) by going to Half-Life > Properties... > Betas > select steam_legacy. Once those games has been fixed, you can opt out by set the beta branch to "None".

  [todo tested in ?]

Bug:Overbright lighting (gl_overbright 1) is broken due to an OpenGL extension used for multi-texturing, which is required for the detail textures used by Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, Day of Defeat, and some third-party mods.
This make the color less saturated and lighting much less brighter, as well as introduce chromatic aberration on brightly lit lightmaps.
The issue was fixed in the 25th anniversary update, which deprecated the gl_overbright 1 in favor of gl_use_shaders 1. However, there are more issues that was yet to be fixed with the new overbright lighting.
This issue can be also found on GLQuake, but for different reasons.

Workaround:To fix this for the older version of Half-Life (steam_legacy branch) and most standalone mods, see Overbright lighting section in PCGamingWiki's Half-Life page for more information.

Important:Please note that using DLL-based solutions in VAC-protected multiplayer servers may result in a false positive ban. Use -insecure to disable VAC for local servers. This is not an issue for singleplayer, which is unaffected by VAC. Additionally, GPU driver hacks do not trigger VAC.

Note:Even though the overbright was properly fixed with the 25th anniversary update and with the November 19 hotfix patch, which fixes the brightness issues after enabling overbright, along with another one that fixed the underwater fog bug, models may not be affected by the overbright lighting.

  [todo tested in ?]

Bug:On some systems running Windows Vista or later, the engine may suffer from extremely low frame rates during gameplay, especially on Intel iGPUs.

Workaround:

• Set the game (hl.exe) to "High Priority" in Task Manager.
• Disable multitexturing.

  [todo tested in ?]

Bug:Creative EAX and Aureal A3D Audio are no longer supported since SteamPipe update in 2013. This also removes support for surround sound, and drastically impacts how certain DSP effects sound (such as buzzing noises on DSP's Weirdo 1-3). A feature request about restoring EAX/A3D sound can be found at GitHub (issue #38).

Workaround:Use MetaAudio; see the Audio section on PCGamingWiki's Half-Life page for more information.

Important:Please note that using MetaAudio in VAC-protected multiplayer servers may result in a false positive ban. Use -insecure to disable VAC for local servers. This is not an issue for singleplayer, which is unaffected by VAC.

  [todo tested in ?]

Bug:Running any GoldSrc game other than Half-Life over around 100-120FPS or higher can cause issues with movable objects (and prior to October 8, 2019 update, NPC turn rate), being slower or faster. Player movements in Counter-Strike, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero and Condition Zero Deleted Scenes, after jumping, will be much slower than normal for few seconds.

Note:NPC turn rate bug will remains existed on most older, non-standalone mods (which was made on a older version of GoldSrc/HL SDK) when loaded on current version of HL1 (or other GoldSrc games) that have this bug fixed unless the dlls file (hl.dll and client.dll) on the mod folder itself was renamed. But keep in mind that this method may breaks some mods and cause it to crash, or made several new additions such as new weapons, new NPCs, etc... from the mod stops working.

  [todo tested in ?]

Important:OpenGL mode is somewhat different from software mode. Furthermore, the wave effect on water does not work with software renderer. See patbytes's "Half-Life - A Look at Water" on YouTube. Issue 2165.

Trivia

• The term "GoldSrc" comes from development of the Source engine. A few months before the release of Half-Life, the Half-Life engine's source code was split into two branches: Src and GoldSrc. The GoldSrc branch was the gold master version of the codebase, and would be used for the proper release of the game. The Src branch, comparatively, would be continually iterated upon, adding and changing features for use in the sequel, with the term "Source Engine" eventually being picked up by marketing.^[1]

See also

• For information about converting GoldSrc content to the Source engine, see Porting GoldSrc content (maps, models, etc.) to Source
• GoldSrc on Wikipedia
• GoldSrc SDK (Half-Life SDK) Documentation
• GoldSrc SteamPipe Directories

External links

• Source code + GitHub Issues - bug reports and the GoldSrc source code can be found here.

References

1. User talk:Erik Johnson (Revision as of 12:53, 1 September 2005)
2. Half-Life 25th Anniversary Update
3. Relation between Paranoia & COF