Let's have a Half-Life thread.
Post comfy screenshots, discuss your favorite GoldSrc mods, and share interesting trivia.
Software mode master race.
>>3074831
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAOcdfCN-RU
A3D 2.0 sound is best sound.
>>3075536
What are the pros and cons of sotware versus opengl/direct3d mode?
I always assumed the gpu mode would be the best
>>3075565
Pixelated textures look so much better with low poly models. Also, the water in software mode is pretty cool looking while the water in OpenGL mode is taken straight from Quake.
>>3075565
software looks the way god intended
hardware mode took some load off the extremely crappy processors you were likely to get in 1998 and gave you more framerate. it looked like ass then because 3d accelerators took all sorts of wack shortcuts, and it looks like double-wide ass now because backwards compatibility to that era is so poor.
(for perspective on how weak that shit was, you needed an entire seperate hardware accelerator card to play mpeg2 video, assuming you could afford a dvd reader in the first place.)
>>3076000
Holy shit, never knew of this effect.
>>3075536
>>3075565
>>3076061
>>3076000
To be fair, OpenGL has 3D water in some places.
How do you easily merge two videos like that by the way? I want to do some comparisons myself.
playing CS1.5 with POD-Bots is still often more fun than CSGO with human players
>>3075536
>>3075565
>>3076064
Another example.
>>3076134
So which one is D3D and OGL?
>>3076134
Please explain this one. The above one is clearly better but it doesn’t look like software mode.
>>3076140
>Above is clearly better
Uhh no. It looks white while the lighting itself is yellowish. Notice the yellow penumbras, it looks like shit. Bottom is how it's supposed to be (it looks like that in software).
Both are D3D, with the gl_overbright variable being altered.
>>3076134
also the wastes looks fun
>>3076140
>>3076309
Here's the software renderer as proof. Note that it additionally brightens up the weapon model.
Now I understand if it ends up looking like piss, but that's the mapper's fault for using unrealistically tinted sunlight.
>>3075536
Disgusting. Using acceleration is better, you can still have your nearest neighbor pixellated junk as well - but you get proper mip mapping and super sampling as well AA on the edges which looks super nice.
>>3076000
>Pixelated textures look so much better with low poly models.
Depends on the textures themselves. Also gl_texturemode gl_nearest_mipmap_linear
>>3076450
Also no weird ass warping of the models as they animate.
>>3076450
Acceleration shits on textures that aren't a power of 2. It can be partially fixed with gl_round_down 0, but upscaling isn't nice either.
Which disc is best?
>>3076450
Software rendering is just about blocky textures from the lack of filtering. If your mind is set on going retro with authenticity, you wouldn't stop at just nearest neighbor anyway. You want the whole deal, warping polygons and all that stuff. I tried hardware with nearest neighbor before, it fucking sucks because all it does is affect textures. The rendering of the HUD is still very much hardware (there's a very subtle difference.)
Unreal's software texture filter is the best of both worlds. Doesn't look blurry up close, but it doesn't look blocky from a distance either.
Also one thing I just tested, the gamma value defaults to 2.5, but it's best at 2.0. At this level, the textures viewed in-game and in editors correspond 1:1. It's also darker where it's supposed to be dark (flashlight tutorial).
I find it very hard to play half-life, it makes me really tense. Not comfy at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJKjt13EBSI
>>3077004
>Unreal's software texture filter is the best of both worlds
It's kinda awesome how simple the effect actually is; it's explained in this good old article:
http://www.flipcode.com/archives/Texturing_As_In_Unreal.shtml
TL;DR: Ordered dithering that uses a 2x2 lookup table.
It's so brutally simple that Quake could have had it in 1996 if Carmack and Abrash would have spent even more time thinking about how to make Quake even prettier. And so could have Half-Life, and all other Quake-based games.
(The algorithm works, I tried it years ago in a simple software renderer that I unfortunately have no screenshots at hand right now.)
>>3076061
That actually looks a lot better, is there any way to put this in hardware mode?
>>3076348
So, is that why whenever I made maps the edges of shadows looked piss yellow?
>>3077794
You could do it easily with shaders (which GoldSrc can't do), or you could make a new custom water animated texture that looks like that, and then somehow stop the engine from drawing it with the Quake-like swirling.
Any other games similar to the Half Life series, where it's sort of just one big long map separated by loading screens?
Or was Half Life sort of the first?
>>3077909
Doom 3 is pretty much Half-Life with the fun removed.
>>3077909
in Quake 2 most levels are interconnected
>>3077746
Well grab the Quake source and add it then.
>>3077678
What's this?
>Lost my Sierra Half-Life disk years ago
>Stuck playing the shitty Steam version
Fuck man.
I miss my screen tilt, among other things.
Quick!
>OpenGL or Software?
>Sierra Version or Valve Version?
>16:9 Widescreen or the classic 4:3?
>>3077909
...I don't remember xen being so short
I actually liked Xen.
It may have been really short, and just felt long because of how retarded and difficult it's platforming sections were, but I'll be damned if it wasn't scary.
It felt like you were really reaching some sort of big ending to all of this, each area you progressed through getting more and more fucked up, and you knew something big was coming, but you didn't know what.
It was an excellent take on an alien dimension.
It's confusing, scary, fucked up, and you feel lost.
>>3076124
I spent countless hours playing with the good ol' Pod Bots. Made a lot of waypoints for custom maps and even modified some of the bot chat files.
My Internet was real shit back then.
>>3078642
OpenGL
Sierra
4:3 512x384
On a PII 366, 128MB RAM, Rage Pro 8MB and 98SE.
>>3078736
You're forgetting the Vortex 2.
>>3076061
I had a 3DFX card back in the day, so I've honestly never seen HL1 in software mode.
I have to say, it look better in every single way - not just the water. The textures aren't high res enough for the filtering to anything but make them look worse - in software, that pipe looks rough and rusty, but in hardware, it's smooth smeary blob.
Even the walls look better - the highlights on their upper edges is brighter and clearer, everything is more clearly defined.
I'm glad I saw this. Gives me an urge to go replay it.
>>3077004
>Unreal's software texture filter
Now that I am familiar with - because Unreal (98, not 99) refused refused to work with my card. The dithering does indeed look great - sharp at a distance, smoothed up close. Honestly the game looks just as good in software as it does in hardware.
UT99 is the one where hardware starts to look better - the higher res textures don't look as bad with binlinear filtering, and software mode doesn't support detail textures.
>>3076000
>>3076124
YES YES.
Ive never played the first halflife, or much of the second for that matter. I love me some Quake, and i hear the first one ran on a heavily modified version of the engine. I was wondering if the gameplay is as tight as quake, or if people like it for more of the story and overall game?
>>3078672
yeah, as a ...13 year old? in 2001, it blew my mind
I had no idea you'd go to an alien world in the game
>>3078769
all three
I found the PS2 version to be better in every way, so that's what Im talking about here
the game had great controls, a great story, and was overall a very excellent game
easily one of my all-time favorites
>>3078736
>Rage Pro
Someone in a very old thread had this disc.
>>3077909
gunman chronicles
http://quakeulf.suxos.org/musikk/grunts.ogg
Here's som oldskool retarded silliness.
Did you play Uplink?
>>3078958
>My friend swears that there was a Half-Life porn mod around 2001-2002 called Half-Life Buttlink
>Can't find it anywhere
>He'll fight you to the end of the Earth trying to prove that it's real
I really hope it exists, both for his sake, and for the fact that there'd be a HL mod called Buttlink.
Just went back and listened to some of HL's OST.
Holy fuck, I forgot how good this game's music/sound design was.
>>3078873
And? I've still got my disc also. And My Warcraft3 collection box.
>>3077794
why not just run it in software?
what are the changes between valve and sierra version?
>>3076678
>If your mind is set on going retro with authenticity, you wouldn't stop at just nearest neighbor anyway.
Uh... you do realize that HL1 supported hardware acceleration from the get go and it was absolutely common by that point. There isn't any retro 'authenticity' to be had here in using software mode. That sort of thing only exists in old consoles or DOS games where there were actual limitations like that on it. HL1 also supported high resolution. Albeit you were unlikely to have AA and most people stuck with 1024x768 or lower, but it could do 1600x1200.
>>3077746
>It's so brutally simple that Quake could have had it in 1996 if Carmack and Abrash would have spent even more time thinking about how to make Quake even prettier.
Well except for the fact that it looks like fucking ass and not having it looks prettier.
>>3079398
It's a special CD with Half-Life and Counter-Strike packaged all in one, just thought that was interesting.
>>3080147
Nothing could do 1600x1200 in 1998, payable, that is.
A SLI'd Voodoo has a hard limit of 1024x768, a single can only be pushed to 800x600, and other cards from this time are slow, even if they can technically do higher resolutions.
Perhaps if you had a non-consumer oriented Intergraph card could you do 1600x1200 with tolerable frame rates.
>>3080147
Authenticity as in... if you want it to look shitty, you want more than just blocky textures, like warping models. I'm saying if you prefer your game looking old, you're better off actually using software instead of just hardware with a texture switch flipped, because the experience goes way beyond just blockiness.
>>3080653
Retro PC games were never known for warping models, that's the Playstation's trademark. Authentic retro 3D games on PC should simulate Doom.
>>3078628
HL running on a 3dfx card/render, it looks amazing. Lots of games based on the Quake engine look way better on a 3dfx chip
Unreal is the most amazing I've seen though
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLBgaLOi7N4
Counter strike is shit
Source >>>> CS
>>3078746
It's a laptop, so I am stuck with an ESS Maestro 2E. Doesn't sound bad in EAX mode.
>>3077909
>Xen
>literally another plane of existence
>drawn as the next room
>>3078873
I got still got mine. Box too.
>>3080691
Ultima Underworld has plenty of warping geometry.
>>3078958
>Mod claims to seamlessly add it back in
>Really just a jarring warp from climbing the reactor in lambda to it via teleport
>>3079426
Will custom models look good in software? Will sprites and lighting look good?
>>3080653
>Authenticity as in...
Not authentic at all. Authentic is not a synonym for shitty looking. In this context it means to match original graphics of the period.
Since opengl and d3d were of that period, they are authentic and they look 'old' because they are old.
>>3079426
Because he wants other benefits like AA/trilinear filtering while having a better water effect?
I enjoy being able to play the Sierra release of Half-Life, but I can't say the same for the sequel.
Does anyone remember the HL2 Mac update? It broke the game in many ways. Thanks to Steam, I can't even install it from the 2004 disc without having it update automatically.
Is there a way around this so I can enjoy the true old-school Half-Life 2 experience?
>>3082907
download a cracked version maybe?
>>3082972
I guess, but it would be easier if I could just install the game and get a small crack that allows it to play without Steam.
>>3082907
>I can't even install it from the 2004 disc without having it update automatically.
This is really bad and I'm mad that there's apparently no workaround.
Another reason I love retro shit. A disc, a patch and a no crack is all I need. Not that Steam botnet BS.
Which disk gets you the Sierra WON version?
I've got a Half-Life GOTY edition disk with Sierra and Valve on it, and the disk itself is black.
Says it comes with TFC extra.I really hope this is one of them because I've wanted to play the Sierra version for fucking ever.
>>3077909
unreal
SiN
gunman
shogo
>>3083263
Sounds like you have a WON edition, iirc my GOTY edition was like that too. An easy way to tell would be to open the disc up in a File Explorer. If it has a Steam install, stay away. But if it has a regular setup.exe/autorun.exe (Maybe installshield?), you should have the WON edition.
If you have the box for it, it should also mention WON at the bottom, pic related.
>>3083480
Sounds like I definitely have a WON then.
I don't have the big box, but I got it in it's Jewel case for1 dollar.
I'll probably look into picking up a full box/manual copy sometime.
![[takes intense bite].png](https://i.imgur.com/IyCcfM6.png "[takes intense bite].png")
>Install Sierra version from disk
>Going smooth so far
>Press new game
>Game shits itself and shows me my desktop in 640x480
>Can still hear game audio
>Can still hear my footsteps when moving
What do?
>>3083520
>What do?
gen-too
>>3083520
Install the steam version and you won't have any problems.
>>3083540
Gross.
Why do people here keep talking about the Sierra version like it's the best?
You have to keep the disc in literally whenever you want to play, it's severely fucked up on newer computers, there's no control for music volume itself, and the mouse feels really heavy/lagged behind.
As far as I know, literally the only upside it has is view-tilt when turning.
>>3083520
Try all three video modes.
>>3083818
These, including the CD music volume, are non-problems on a good old Windows 98 rig.
There are also a bunch of minor gameplay differences that Valve broke later, such as:
-More accurate SMG (it's fucking shit in the Steam version)
-More crowbar damage
-Extra pistol round (removed in an early update)
>>3078951
Pretty good game actually. I liked the unique style and variation, but it did feel rushed in places. Was a blast in multiplayer as well.
>>3083829
I did.
One of them gets me some functionality, but they're all fucked in one way or another.
Software = No game visuals at all, pause menu works
OpenGL = Game works, but no pause menu
Direct3D = Game and pause menu work, until I exit the pause menu
>>3083863
Try running it with compatibility mode. Otherwise you might need some virtual pc shit
>>3083870
Fuck man, I think I'd need some sort Virtual PC.
Nothing seems to be working.
Doesn't seem like it's worth it though, just to play the game with some screen tilt and different weapon balances.
Fuck.
>>3083863
I have the same problem with D3D, but the others work fine for me.
What card are you using? What resolution?
>>3083480
What package is that?
I see it's from 2002.
>>3083818
It's kind of petty, but I really miss the old menus for HL and OpFor. The Steam versions also have this horrible glitch where loading during elevators gets the player stuck and crushes them. I ended up working around it by jumping right before the loading starts but it was till super annoying. At least, I don't remember that ever happening to me on my GOTY edition copies.
>>3084068
I got that elevator glitch once with hl1110, at the elevator just before "We've got hostiles"
>>3084068
Why did Valve ditch those beautiful menus anyway? Like, do thry hate aesthetics?
>>3084765
Nah, but they like to George Lucas their games as they get older.
I'm not part of the pc master race. But I did love playing half life on my ps2
>>3085474
That's cool.
I'd imagine homeless people feel pretty exalted too when finding a morsel to eat from a dumpster.
>>3084094
I guess it's not Steam specific then, but it seemed to happen way more consistently on those versions. Blue Shift especially was almost unplayable for me because of the initial elevator, after messing around for a half hour or so I ended up getting wedged in the window and surviving the fall with half my health and no armor. This was years ago though so they may have fixed all this with those updates where they restored the original soundtracks.
>>3084765
Who knows, it's pretty inexplicable why Valve took away such a nice menu and replaced it with a stretched out JPG.
>>3085690
>Who knows, it's pretty inexplicable why Valve took away such a nice menu and replaced it with a stretched out JPG.
When I play the Steam version, I sometimes mouth the sounds myself.
>hover over an option, do pigeon noise, crrrrrrrrr
>select something, go CHEEE
>>3085748
Sometimes I just do in-game sounds too.
>Hit a scientist
GRUAAHK
NO
STOGHP
>Use a Med-station
THANKSSSSSSSSSS
>Beat a dead corpse with crowbar
BRBRBRBRBRBRBRBRBRBRSQUANCH
>>3085867
>BRBRBRBRBRBRBRBRBRBRSQUANCH
I thought I was the only one with the machine-gun crowbar thing.
>>3076000
>Pixelated textures look so much better with low poly models
Fucking THANK YOU. Holy shit, do you know how fucking annoying is to some bunch of shitbabies turning filtering on textures that have like 32x32 pixels? It turns into fucking mud.
>Playing HL over a decade ago, might've been the PS2 version
>Get to the part where you get to some blast doors and a guy behind bulletproof glass is in a room with the button
>He's scripted to get pulled into the vent and die by something
>Shoot the glass with the shotgun
>It actually does damage through the glass and he runs through the locked door at me
>Shoot him in the face, press the button
>Skipped multiple chapters of the game you spend getting to that switch
I had already beaten the game to shit, so I was pretty happy to find something new.
>>3086139
But that's wrong. Texture filtering almost always looks better, unless the texture has an extremely uniform pattern. It's simple signal processing mathematics.
There is no exponential factor to it.
>>3086157
That has to be PS2. In the PC version you can’t shoot through walls but you can just talk to the scientist right after he says “They’re coming for us” to stop the scripted sequence and push him against the door so that he opens it.
>>3086193
Low res textures often show pixel precise details. Smoothing them out can potentially hurt.
You can always disable filtering in hardware, but you can't get around the non^2 texture problem.
Its nice to see people discussing that old legend.
Half life was my first FPS. I played the HL Uplink demo about 10 times until I got my first edition of HL (ger version with robots instead of soldiers, hillarious though). It became even better when I found out that theres an generation pack with Blue Shift and Opposing Force. Damn Shephard was awesome. Also Azure Sheep, Redemption or the ETC mods were awesome. Also CS 1.5 with PODBots :D These were the childhood days.
When I found out about Gunman Chronicles, I thought youre going to play the Gman cause of the big G in the logo :D
>>3086923
>Low res textures often show pixel precise details
if it's low resolution then there's not much detail to begin with
>>3086923
>people thinking not wanting HL's textures to look like like they were smeared with vaseline is nostalgia goggles
>>3085557
The most annoying thing is that mods sometimes were too detailed for the software renderer to handle. That is what's causing the short n surfaces spam in your pic, it's just not drawing everything in view.
>>3080492
Nothing could do 1600x1200 in HL in 98 coz 1600x1200 was added in later patch in 2000.
>>3086923
What problem is there with non-power-of-two textures?
>>3087548
That corridor is literally the entire map. Everything is being shown.
>>3074831
Any Sven Co-op players here? I spent hundreds of hours in the early 00s playing SC. It was released on Steam like a month ago, too. 17 years of history.
>>3087679
I had a /v/ server when it came on Steam, but it died quickly.
>>3087624
They're scaled down by default, making them ultra blurry compared to software. They can be upscaled with some artifacts.
>>3085570
It included Decay which was pretty good desu senpai
>>3085474
its better-looking than the computer version, has better guns, and is easier to control
I find it vastly superior
>>3088126
>Easier to control
It's literally the same except for auto duck jumping, which is already piss easy to do.
>Better-looking
Assets are, but the resolution and frame rate drops aren't.
>>3078642
>Sierra Version or Valve Version?
What's the difference?
>>3089639
Cool menus, view bobbing when strafing and no crowbar machine gun glitch.
>>3090096
>no crowbar machine gun glitch.
You act like this is an upside
Anyone still mapping for Half-Life..? Share some of your work.
>>3090831
Why is it so dark?
>>3086898
what a lovely collection, i love the older box arts without the main protagonist on the title
guys, did somebody try enabling those shadows
which there were from alpha? How well do they work?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSqvYioc658
WHO KUNG FU HERE
>>3091287
>How well do they work?
obviously not good if the shadow is on the same side as the lamp
>>3090831
This looks awesome.
>>3090831
I understand that this is some kind of hangar, but it could use more variety.
>>3090831
http://i.imgur.com/Lmjbvz0.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/42usLbi.jpg
Some mapping I was doing because I was bored recently.
>>3091283
>US version
Interesting that these were sold in Germany. Is it actually the US version or the UK version on the disc?
>>3091747
They fixed the audio recently in an update, actually.
They even fixed that bug where the music cut out when the game loaded.
Too bad they didn't fix much of anything else and OpFor is still broken. At least OpFor has the original music now.
>>3092182
>OpFor is still broken
In what way?
I just remember that the 1.1.0.8 HL patch introduced the microphone, but the Opposing Force 1.1.0.8 patch did not implement it in the UI, so it's quirky as fuck.
>>3092419
I still get stuck in elevators a LOT in OpFor.
They didn't fix the music problem I mentioned, too.
There's plenty wrong with it, unfortunately.
>>3092182
Yes it's true the current Steam pipeline version of Half-Life was given high quality MP3 playback, shipping the HL music tracks as V0, but the state of goldsource overall is still fucking trash, critically speaking.
