no D3D on steam HL Created 7 years ago2017-09-04 22:21:19 UTC by 2muchvideogames

I found out why they removed it, it was to accommodate penguins. W. T. F. Why would you remove a video mode just because of that. Like, why would you even need to remove it at all, and not just leave it in there? Anyway, if you are one of those people that ask why people still use WON HL, here's your reason. Valve had removed the optimal video mode that my computer needs to run HL smoothly, and it was for penguins. As if there are that many people using penguins to begin with. You wanna know how many people on steam use penguins? Less than 1%.

Someone on github called this an 'abhorrent move on valve's part' and made the argument that valve was dumb to have removed this mode without optimizing the other video mode for current users. The next time someone says "why are you still using WON" you can eat the fudge right out of my used diapers.

The engine is set up to include renderers in its main library, so they would've needed 6 configurations on Windows (Software, D3D, OpenGL for Debug & Release, and possibly another set for No-Steam builds), and 2 for UNIX platforms (OpenGL Debug and Release).

Rewriting it to put the renderer in its own library would've taken a fair bit of effort and broken any hacks that rely on patching functions.

Rather than do all that they just threw out the only platform specific renderer instead, which reduces the number of configurations, gets rid of an OpenGL to D3D wrapper (which may have caused problems with the Steam Overlay at the time), and lets them optimize for OpenGL (as in write proper OpenGL code, not performant OpenGL code) on all platforms.

Why are you not using hardware that supports OpenGL?

I don't understand the fuss. My experience with HL on D3D was always terrible in every single computer I had it on. Input lag was outrageous, in the range of 3 seconds. I only use OpenGL.

Yeah, I've never had good experiences running HL1 on Direct3D. It was always sub-par compared to OpenGL, which has always been buttery smooth on the machines I've run it on.

Also, what's with using "Penguins" as a slur against Linux users?

The Direct3D renderer felt rushed in my honest opinion, it wasn't doing it's best (especially with smokes in CS).

I'm glad Valve focused on OpenGL and SDL2 because I have a massive performance gain by playing on Linux rather than Windows.

Desktop and gaming are the only areas where Windows dominate, Valve tried to give some love to Linux and Mac but they kinda failed.

Well... that's why it's good to make personal backups, hard drives are so cheap... but you can always download an older version of HL from the internet

I agree with those who've said that Direct3D performance was terrible. So I'm actually glad that they removed it.

Soooo... OpenGL

Actually yeah, now that I think about it, back in the early days, using the D3D renderer in Half-Life caused some immense input lag.

So much so that playing Sven Coop with my brother-in-law, he ragequit after dropping into a pit while trying to adjust his falling trajectory. He tried five times and overcompensated every single time because the input lag was about half a second. He was maaad.

Also, what's with using "Penguins" as a slur against Linux users?

OOOH! Ok. Glad you clarified. I thought the manufacturing of OpenGL based hardware was legit harmful to penguins...

every computer has a 'preferred' video mode, of course. You all have the lucky side of the coin, feels bad man

Also, what's with using "Penguins" as a slur against Linux users?

I got this term from an anime review article, of all places

What? The openGL renderer has terrible performance compared to the old d3d one... It doesn't matter on modern hardware, but if you only play older games and don't need to upgrade it certainly does.

Back when I had Intel GMA 955, I had horrible lags using OpenGL renderer. Got very good performance on D3D though.

OpenGL performance depends on your driver support for immediate mode, if it's a crappy driver you'll have a slideshow.