Half-Life: Source

This page is for the Source engine port. For the original, see Half-Life. For the unofficial remake, see Black Mesa.

Half-Life: Source

Developers
	Valve Corporation
Engines
Original	Source 2004
Current	Source 2013 Singleplayer
Release dates
Windows	November 16, 2004
macOS (OS X)	September 12, 2013
Linux	September 12, 2013
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	First-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Shooter
Art styles	Realistic
Themes	North America, Sci-fi
Series	Half-Life

Warnings

The macOS (OS X) version of this game does not work on macOS Catalina (version 10.15) or later due to the removal of support for 32-bit-only apps.

A port of the Half-Life to the Source engine with additional enhancements such as ragdoll physics, shader effects, Oculus Rift support, improved controller support, extended console commands, and includes the High Definition pack.

This release has been superceded by Half-Life's 25th Anniversary update on November 17th, 2023 and hidden off Steam search results, only kept available for purchase for the asset files.

The 2013 update introduced several issues not present in the prior builds, such as graphical glitches and broken scripted sequences.

General information

GitHub Issue Tracker for Half-Life: Source and other Source-based games

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		SecuROM 5 DRM. Removed in a December 2004 update. Included in all copies of Half-Life 2: Collector's Edition.
Steam		Initially only available as part of Half-Life 2 Silver and Half-Life 2 Gold bundles. Received a standalone digital release later; includes Half-Life Deathmatch: Source. DRM-free when launched directly from the executable with -game hl1 command line argument.[citation needed]

All versions require Steam DRM.

Essential improvements

Half Life: Source Fixed

Fixes many issues and bugs.

Use replacement files
Download files from link above. Extract the hls_fix directory into the sourcemods folder and restart Steam.

Half-Life: Source Fix Pack

Fixes bugs and restores some behaviors from original Half-Life.

Intended to be used with "Old Engine" version, but should also work with newest Steam release.

Use replacement files
Download files from link above. Extract the hl1 and extra for steam version\hl1 directory and place it in <path-to-game>.

Skip intro videos

Use -novid command line argument[citation needed]

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Steam	<Steam-folder>/SteamApps/common/Half-Life 2/hl1/cfg/

This game does not follow the XDG Base Directory Specification on Linux.

Save game data location

System	Location
Steam	<Steam-folder>/SteamApps/common/Half-Life 2/hl1/save/

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
Steam Cloud

Video

General video settings

Advanced video settings

Graphics feature	State	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD			Some of the game UI becomes too small to read.
Field of view (FOV)		Values between 75° and 90° horizontal can be set via ingame slider. For higher values use this guide.
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed		See Borderless fullscreen windowed.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)		Double buffered
60 FPS and 120+ FPS		Capped at 300 FPS by default. Frame rate cap can be changed by changing fps_max in the developer console. To uncap FPS or cap FPS higher than 300 sv_cheats = 1 must be set first before using fps_max.
High dynamic range display (HDR)		Rendered image uses SDR color space. In-game HDR option refers only to HDR Rendering.

Borderless fullscreen windowed

-window -noborder[citation needed]
Right-click Half-Life: Source in the Steam Library Select Properties Select Set Launch Options... Input -window -noborder Press OK Launch the game

Input

Key map settings

Mouse/gamepad settings

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support		Use the console command exec 360controller to automatically setup Xbox controller support (if not already configured at startup). To also make controller vibration work, download an updated version of the SDL2 file and replace it with the one in the outside "bin" folder. SDL2
Full controller support		Use this Controller UI Mod for a console style menu that can be navigated with a controller. Newer "beta and beta_deck" version of the game supposed to include Steam Deck gamepad UI which normally can be enabled with -gamepadui Command line argument (requires Vulkan-supported cards) on most updated Source games, however, this was currently non-functional for now in HL: Source, use the above Controller UI mod instead.
Controller remapping
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion

Controller types

XInput-compatible controllers

PlayStation controllers

Tracked motion controllers

Generic/other controllers

Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

Disable autorun

Add script to userconfig.cfg
Add the following to <path-to-game>/valve/userconfig.cfg. Create the file as a plain text file if it does not already exist. Adjust keys as desired. +speed bind SHIFT +holdrun alias +holdrun -speed alias -holdrun +speed alias "runon" "-speed;alias togglerun runoff" alias "runoff" "+speed;alias togglerun runon" runoff bind CAPSLOCK togglerun

Audio

Audio settings

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Over-all game volume and separate music slider.
Surround sound		7.1, 5.1 surround sound, 4 speaker surround. 7.1 output may require DirectSound3D restoration software.
Subtitles		By default, option exists but is non-functional, install this Half-Life: Source Fixed mod to fix subtitles.
Closed captions		See above.
Mute on focus lost		"Silence the audio while the game window is in the background" check box.
EAX support		Set snd_legacy_surround 1 in console, 4 speakers in options, and use DSOAL for binaural HRTF mixing.
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Russian				By default, in steam version only the H.E.V suit is voiced in the game (the voice acting is taken from the translation of half life 2 by SDL), but there is also a full unofficial audio translation
Spanish
Thai
Polish				Fan translation including subtitles, download.

VR support

Headsets	State	Notes
SteamVR		This game might be playable with the Revive Compatibility Layer (compatibility list).
Oculus VR (LibOVR)		Available under Video Settings. See Oculus Rift for more information.
Windows Mixed Reality		This game might be playable with the Revive Compatibility Layer.

Devices
Tracked motion controllers
Traditional controller		See Input for details.
Keyboard/Mouse

Oculus Rift

By default VR mode will run full screen, to switch back to a borderless windowed set the vr_force_windowed convar.

Issues fixed

Purple and black broken textures

A generic fix for this issue can be found on our Source engine page.

Graphical glitches in the Residue Processing chapter

The glitches seem to have been introduced by a batch of updates & SteamPipe engine update in late 2013. An official fix is unlikely at this point, but disabling multicore rendering in the advanced video options seems to work or use this Half-Life: Source Fixed mod.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	9, 9Ex
OpenGL	2.1	OS X and Linux only.
Shader Model support	1.x, 2, 3

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)			This 32-bit-only macOS game does not work on macOS Catalina (10.15) or later.
Linux

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Physics	Havok	Heavily modified variant.
Audio	Miles Sound System
Input	SDL
Cutscenes	Bink Video	Used for startup videos and in-game movies.

Console commands

Games running on the Source engine can utilize Source Engine Console Commands for various tasks.

Enabling the console in Source games[citation needed]
Launch the game From the main menu select Options Select the Keyboard tab Click the Advanced button Check the box next to Enable developer console (~) Click Apply Notes Press ~ to open the console. Some commands may first require enabling sv_cheats via sv_cheats 1. Users without a US keyboard may experience some problems.

Mods

• Classic Half-Life Blood by super_toy1 - Replace the Half-Life 2 blood decals with the blood decals from the original game.

Launch options

View this Steam Support Article regarding launch options as well as the relevant Valve Developer wiki page for further information and a list of useful Source engine launch options.

Enabling a launch parameter[citation needed]
Right-click the game in the Steam Library Select Properties Select Set Launch Options... Type the selected launch options and separate each command with a space Press OK Launch the game

System requirements

Windows

macOS (OS X)

Linux

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	XP
Processor (CPU)	1.2 GHz	2.4 GHz
System memory (RAM)	256 MB	512 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)
Video card (GPU)	DirectX 7 compatible	DirectX 9 compatible

Must be run without Steam to play on XP and Vista.

macOS (OS X)
	Minimum
Operating system (OS)	Leopard 10.5.8, Snow Leopard 10.6.3
Processor (CPU)	Dual core from Intel at 2.8 GHz Dual core from AMD at 2.8 GHz
System memory (RAM)	1 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce 8 ATI Radeon X1600 Intel HD 3000

Linux
	Minimum
Operating system (OS)	Ubuntu 12.04
Processor (CPU)	Dual core from Intel at 2.8 GHz Dual core from AMD at 2.8 GHz
System memory (RAM)	4 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	8 GB
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce 8600/9600GT ATI/AMD Radeon HD2600/3600 OpenGL 2.1 compatible
Sound (audio device)	OpenAL Compatible Sound Card
Other	(Graphic Drivers: Nvidia 310, AMD 12.11)