GoldSrc Last edited 2 years ago2022-09-16 14:58:13 UTC

Introduction

GoldSrc (also known as "Goldsource" or "Half-Life engine") is the game engine on which Half-Life (and several games related to it) runs on.

Origin of the name

"GoldSrc" was the internal codename for the Half-Life engine during the later stages of its development, when the engine code was forked into a development branch and a stable branch. Half-Life was released with the GoldSrc engine code, and the non-gold "Src" became known officially as Source, which would eventually be the engine used by Half-Life 2.

Technology

GoldSrc is a heavily modified version of the Quake engine and thus inherits some traits from it. Some systems were written from scratch by Valve like the artificial intelligence (AI) based on tasks & schedules, the skeletal animation system and much more. GoldSrc also reuse some code from QuakeWorld (update for Quake primarily designed for better networking play) and Quake II but only for precise parts.

Valve acquired Worldcraft and developed Valve Hammer Editor, the level design as we know today to create maps for Half-Life.

Post-release, Valve updated GoldSrc to add features such as client prediction during networking play, the transition from the WON network platform that was shut down to Steam and much more.

In 2013, the GoldSrc engine was ported to OS X (long before Apple made the call to replace Intel x86 processors by their custom M-series ARM processors) and a Linux client was made available (previously, only dedicated servers could run on Linux). Some people also refer to this update as "SteamPipe update".

On several times, GoldSrc did receive some updates, although those are more "quality of life/security" related rather than content related.

Games

Notable games running on the GoldSrc engine include:

• Half-Life
• Half-Life: Blue Shift
• Half-Life: Opposing Force
• Counter-Strike
• Counter-Strike: Condition Zero
• Counter-Strike: Condition Zero - Deleted Scenes
• Team Fortress Classic
• Day of Defeat
• Ricochet
• Deathmatch Classic
• Gunman Chronicles
• James Bond 007: Nightfire (Mac OS and Windows versions)