Half-Life 2

What works

-All DirectX version: 7.0 -> 9.1.
-Fullscreen.
-Sound (with ALSA or OSS).
-And all except that's wrote in "What does not work".

What does not

Change video settings when game started with DirectX 9.0 or upper. (The game change DirectX to 7.0).

Workarounds

What was not tested

The full resolution with all video settings on the higher level.

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU:
• Driver:

Additional Comments

Tested in fullscreen "1280x800". With an ATI MOBILITY RADEON HD 3650 512MB with CATALYST drivers 8.12. And sorry for my poor English I'm French.

Installing

First of all install Steam and make sure it's working properly. It is a simple and fast install. You don't want to go through all CDs installing HL2 to find-out that Steam is foo-bared.

Half-Life 2 can be installed from a) multiple CDs; b) DVD or c) downloaded from Steam. b) and c) should work as-is without any major problems.

For multi-CD install:
- Run winecfg and make sure that your cd-rom drive is mapped to a drive (d: for example).
- Start install from outside mount point ex: open CD-ROM in winefile then double click on hl2.exe

cd ~ && wine explorer d:\\

- When asked to change CD, in the separate terminal run

wine eject d:

- Insert next CD and mount it (browse to it with Window Manager's "file browser"). If CD isn't mounted Wine won't see it

Playing

General

In Steam -> File -> Settings -> In-game disable "Steam Community In-Game". Of left enabled Half-Life 2 will not crash on the startup.

Sound

Half-Life 2 doesn't work well/at all without sound. Use ALSA (recommended) or OSS (problematic on most hardware).

Video

On modern GPUs Half-Life 2 should be able to run in all dx-levels (70, 80, 81, 90). However there are might be some visual problems on higher dx-levels. Some drivers known to have problems:
- nVidia: recommended driver: 1.0-9631. Older 87xx drivers have number of bugs.
- ATI: Appears to have numerous problems with advanced features. Ok for dxlevel 70 & 80. Anything above won't work or will be exactly the same as 80.

For better graphics quality you might want to use "-dxlevel 90" command option (might be much slower then with -dxlevel 81)

To fix number of problems with "water in the sky" and lighting add this to the registry:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Direct3D]
"OffscreenRenderingMode"="fbo"

Starting

You can start Half-Life 2 by double clicking on it in Steam. Also you can start it with:

cd ~/.wine/drive_c/Progam\ Files/Steam
WINEDEBUG=-all wine steam.exe -applaunch 220 -novid -dxlevel 90 -width 1024 -height 768

Known problems

• Some objects are over-bright or too dark
• Shadows are broken
• Several areas with noticeable FPS slowdowns.