Category:VGUI

The Half-Life 2: Episode Two main menu, rendered using VGUI.

VGUI (or, technically, "VGUI2"), is used to display dynamic 2D images and graphical user interfaces in GoldSrc (since 2003) and Source, as well as Source 2 (in some games). This includes dialogues and buttons, the HUD, in-game menu, and even the surfaces of monitors and screens in the 3D world. It is platform-independent and Unicode-compliant.

VGUI2 forms can technically be displayed on the Windows, Mac and Linux desktop as well as in-game. Steam formerly used VGUI until June 15, 2023, when the whole Steam UI was replaced with Chromium Embedded Framework, however, Steam will fallback to VGUI only if CEF wasn't working properly, telling users to restart all or some Steam process (e.g. steamwebhelper.exe), or when Steam is running in Windows compatibility mode. This also meant that custom Steam skins (which uses VGUI) are no longer supported, and cannot be used except on few dialogs, as long it's was selected prior to the update (or through Steam registry path (HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Valve\Steam\Skin), which can be viewed with Windows's Registry Editor).

As of 2024, in games like Team Fortress 2, as well as both Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch since 20th anniversary update, and February 18, 2025 update for Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source, Half-Life Deathmatch: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, VGUI are now properly scalable on higher resolutions (1440p, 4K/3840x2160 or higher).

GoldSrc uses both VGUI and VGUI2, the former was introduced in 2002 during Steam Beta. Source and some Source 2 games^[confirm] (the latter is only used for console UI in Half-Life: Alyx when launched with -console) only uses VGUI2. Due to this wiki historically documenting Source more than GoldSrc, VGUI2 is oftentimes interchangeably referred to as VGUI.