Strata Source
Strata Source (more informally known as Strata, and formerly known as the Chaos Engine) is a third-party Source engine branch using licenced code. It is a modified version of the CS:GO engine branch that combines the features of both CS:GO and the Portal 2 engine branch, along with many improvements that bring Source close to modern standards. This engine branch was first released publicly with the launch of Portal: Revolution, and is still in active development.
Features
Feature list from the Strata Source Wiki
New since the CS:GO engine branch:
- Native DirectX 11 renderer
- Support for DX11 by default
- DXVK support on Linux for DirectX 11
- 64-bit support
- Supports 64-bit on all platforms; 32-bit and previous OS support [Clarify] has been dropped
- PBR shaders
Introduces a new
PBR
shader that attempts to create realistic reactions to light
- Ported Portal 2 engine branch features
- Including but not limited to World Portals and Portal gun
- Backwards compatibility with BSP v19-21, as well as BSP v25 support
- Backwards compatibility with Source 2013 (and older) branch models
- The model format found in games such as is now supported.
- WEBM video support, replacing older Bink videos
- Increased framerate, lower file sizes, and easier to author
- New v7.6 VTF version
- Adds support for the higher-quality ATI1N, ATI2N, BC6H, and BC7 texture compression formats, as well as lossless deflate compression on top of existing image format, for reduced size. Better support for 4K textures.
- Many improvements to Linux support
- Fully cross-platform engine tools and utils
- Steam Audio
- Many improvements to the Hammer level editor, named Strata Hammer
- Many code quality improvements (Refactors, cleanup, and C++20)
- Sentry crash report integration
Availability
The following titles run on the Strata Source branch:
- Portal 2: Community Edition
- Momentum Mod
- Portal: Revolution (Uses older version of P2:CE as a base)
The source code for this branch is not available, however, authoring tools exist for P2CE, Momentum Mod, and Portal Revolution.
See also
- Strata Source's Wiki
- Mapbase, a mod for Source 2013 Singleplayer with similar goals
- Alien Swarm Deferred
- Strata Hammer