Counter-Strike: Global Offensive engine branch
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Dota 2 engine branch (pre-Reborn)
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 CS:GO the latest Source 1 branch available.
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)
Release date(s)
August 21, 2012
Platform(s)
Forks
Predecessor
Successor
Dota 2 engine branch (pre-Reborn)The Counter-Strike: Global Offensive 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) Source 1 engine branch available and succeeds the 
Portal 2 engine branch.
This branch has been continued to be updated for CS:GO (via csgo_legacy branch) after the 
Counter-Strike 2 release (which replaced CS:GO). But as of Jan 1, 2024, CS:GO is no longer being updated by Valve. The engine branch, however still remains maintained for third-party games that use the CS:GO branch, including Strata Source. It is still unknown whether CS:GO 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 CS:GO 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
LightmappedGenericand 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
LightmappedGenericshader. - 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 CS:GO, 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
- 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 CS:GO 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 CS:GO automatically downloaded instead.
- Can still be obtained by selecting the csgo_legacy beta branch in
- 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)
Confirm:While this game is currently unreleased, and not announced yet, it's most likely based off a heavily modified CS:GO branch (according to SteamDB when viewing the Review_Build depot files) to include support for HL2 entities as it contains some features that can be only found on the L4D engine branch and later (EKV files, replacing the old DirectX Versions system), Panorama/Qt UI, more...
A third-party, heavily modified version of this engine, called Strata Source, is also available, and it is used in the following games:
- 2024
Portal: Revolution - TBA
Portal 2: Community Edition - TBA
Momentum Mod
- 2024
Source code and SDK Base for these branches is not available. However, authoring tools exist for custom content.
