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Reply 20 of 67, by UCyborg

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UCyborg wrote:

Unlike Valve, these guys actually care about Half-Life.

Oops, I take that back, Valve still does small maintenance updates.

leileilol wrote:

The original Half-Life pre-steam only supported CD audio.

MP3 support is implemented since 1.1.0.9 patch. It's not mentioned in the changelog.

leileilol wrote:

There is never music in valve/media

Well, yes, you have to put it there yourself.

leileilol wrote:

also -window

A workaround at best that assumes one doesn't mind windowed mode and obviously doesn't change fundamentally flawed menu implementation.

KT7AGuy wrote:

However, I just noticed that Audio only has 14 tracks compared to the original soundtrack's 28 tracks.

There are 27 original soundtracks.

KT7AGuy wrote:

If Half-Life seeks a track in the 15-28 range and doesn't find it, what happens? Does it play an available music track, or nothing at all?

Nothing.

Arthur Schopenhauer wrote:

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Reply 21 of 67, by leileilol

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UCyborg wrote:
MP3 support is implemented since 1.1.0.9 patch. It's not mentioned in the changelog. […]
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leileilol wrote:

The original Half-Life pre-steam only supported CD audio.

MP3 support is implemented since 1.1.0.9 patch. It's not mentioned in the changelog.

leileilol wrote:

There is never music in valve/media

Well, yes, you have to put it there yourself.

That alleged bit of unannounced unfinished featurecreep doesn't sound like a supported feature at all that one should judge an entire generation of half-life versions for. 🙄

Sounds more like grapsing at straws to plug an allegedly 'from scratch' illegal source port violating HL SDK licenses and is suspiciously derivative of 2003 leak code....

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Reply 22 of 67, by KT7AGuy

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UCyborg,

Can you detail how to use the MP3 support feature? It would be much easier if I could just rip the tracks to MP3. Then I wouldn't have to listen to my drive whine when playing. Also, I could simply double duplicate Audio's tracks for 15-28 so that I would get music throughout the entire game.

Or, I suppose I could simply double duplicate Audio's tracks for 15-28 on a DVD and do it that way too.

Reply 23 of 67, by UCyborg

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This is the track list from the original Half-Life CD that tells how you should name the MP3 files after you rip them so the right music plays:

  1. <data track, ignore it>
  2. Half-Life01.mp3
  3. Prospero01.mp3
  4. Half-Life12.mp3
  5. Half-Life07.mp3
  6. Half-Life10.mp3
  7. Suspense01.mp3
  8. Suspense03.mp3
  9. Half-Life09.mp3
  10. Half-Life02.mp3
  11. Half-Life13.mp3
  12. Half-Life04.mp3
  13. Half-Life15.mp3
  14. Half-Life14.mp3
  15. Half-Life16.mp3
  16. Suspense02.mp3
  17. Half-Life03.mp3
  18. Half-Life08.mp3
  19. Prospero02.mp3
  20. Half-Life05.mp3
  21. Prospero04.mp3
  22. Half-Life11.mp3
  23. Half-Life06.mp3
  24. Prospero03.mp3
  25. Half-Life17.mp3
  26. Prospero05.mp3
  27. Suspense05.mp3
  28. Suspense07.mp3

The files go into Half-Life\valve\media folder. The only purpose those file names have internally is mapping the track number to the corresponding MP3 file.

So the list also applies to expansion packs, the only difference is they have less tracks so you're done sooner and the files go to Half-Life\gearbox\media for Opposing Force and Half-Life\bshift_unlocked\media for Blue Shit (assuming you've converted your Blue Shift installation with Blue Shift: Unlocked 1.1 installer, by default, it's installed separately and uses some odd iteration of GoldSrc engine).

Speaking of expansion packs, I made a patch that fixes the issue I mentioned, so the right music will play if you put the MP3s of the expansion packs in correct folder.

Edit:
Some notes when it comes using MP3s with the 1.1.1.0 version of the game. Its MP3 decoder doesn't understand IDv2 tags, which are commonly added with modern CD ripping software, so such MP3s won't play. That's why you can't copy over MP3s from Steam version of the game and except them to work with the old version. CDex allows to choose to use ID3v1 tags instead, which don't cause problems. Or you can take Steam version's MP3s and strip/edit the tags with Mp3tag.

Last edited by UCyborg on 2018-09-22, 19:14. Edited 1 time in total.
Arthur Schopenhauer wrote:

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Reply 24 of 67, by UCyborg

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Hm, so I tried Xash3D again for the first time after 2 or 3 years since I messed with it the last time and when it comes to pure technical observations, it still deviates from GoldSrc behavior in some critical aspects. Some events still cancel out some sounds, eg. at the beginning of Opposing Force, before the helicopter you're in is hit, the guy in charge is supposed to give mission briefing, but he stays silent.

Then I wanted to see if Half-Life: Decay (PC port in form of HL mod) still crashes on the level transitions and the cart got stuck in the elevator, so couldn't even complete the first map. And the exploding computer you encounter in Half-Life - Unforeseen Consenquences chapter still doesn't gib the dead scientist.

There is also an issue that I fixed in that crossplatform port of Xash3D of music not playing right at the start of Unforeseen Consequences due to server not sending the command under all circumstances under which GoldSrc does it, but the main guy behind Xash3D apparently didn't see fit to implement that fix.

So there are still a number of critical flaws. But original GoldSrc could use a number of touches from it, eg. increased limits, stabler MOVETYPE_PUSH physics (no twitching monsters and other entities on moving platforms, also impossible or at least more difficult to make the tram at beginning of the game stop by performing certain movements), more accurate game saving (decals from more types of surfaces get saved compared to GoldSrc, currently playing music track and position is saved, if a NPC talks when you save, its state will be properly restored so dialog continues where it left off when loading unlike in GoldSrc where you get silence), snapshots of locations where you saved in save/load menu etc.

And while the official version of Half-Life on Steam (I guess the only one players should be using in Valve's opinion) is supposed to be the best, Valve saw fit to remove some features from the Windows build when porting to Linux/OS X. Direct3D renderer, despite its shortcomings, could just be #ifdefed out for Linux/OS X builds, the same goes for 3D sound and EAX code if they didn't feel like implementing these features in a cross-platform manner. And what happened to ability to delete saved games from in-game menus?

There is no sane version of Half-Life, just a number of different versions, each with its pros and cons. On the somehow related note, I seem to remember reading few years back that the guys behind Sven Coop got the actual source code of GoldSrc. So one more variant of GoldSrc. So much fragmentation, instead of uniting to produce something great, everyone's doing their own thing...Yeah, I realize there's legal crap involved and Valve isn't like id Software, at least not like old id Software.

Arthur Schopenhauer wrote:

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Reply 25 of 67, by Marek

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KT7AGuy wrote:

My old CD version of the game still works just fine without needing to phone home or install any online clients.

You have a point there. Granted.

KT7AGuy wrote:

I don't need any trading cards or achievements or other silly useless bullshit, and I don't feel any need to share how many hours I've spent playing the game.

Steam has an offline mode which disables all of those things.

KT7AGuy wrote:

Also, their recent announcement with regards to continued XP support has given me cause to never spend another penny for their service.

Not really an issue in a forum for "new systems".

KT7AGuy wrote:

A company as large and wealthy as Valve could easily release an unsupported legacy client for XP as a show of goodwill.

Did they stated that they don't? I remember the Windows 2000 version kept working for quite some time after their support ended. (I didn't check if it still does, though.)

KT7AGuy wrote:

For that, I'll avoid STEAM as much as I possibly can in the future.

I also prefer DRM free sources. But most of the time, the developer of the game drop support far before the distributor, so no big gain in this regard. If a game doesn't work with the latest OS, you're on your own.

DOS-PC: DFI k6bv3+, Pentium 200mmx, 64 MB RAM, Terratec Maestro 32 sound card, Roland MT-32 + SC-155, Winner 2000 AVI 2MB, Voodoo 1, Win98SE
Windows PC: GigaByte GA-MA790GPT, Phenom II X4 905e, 12 GB RAM, M-Audio Delta 44, NVidia 1060 6 GB, Win7 pro x64

Reply 26 of 67, by UCyborg

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I have updated the patch from the last time. Now all resolutions supported by the system should be selectable for both Direct3D and OpenGL renderer - no more hex-editing resolutions!

I also made "-32bpp" and "-24bpp" command line parameters effective for menus. Previously, the screen was always switched down to 16-bit color depth. While it didn't have any effect on Windows 8+, this still prevents activating compatibility shims dealing with emulated 8 and 16-bit color depths.

Also some newly discovered command line parameters of interest:

-lw <width> - Forces the engine to start with horizontal menu resolution set to <width>. Ex: -w 1024.
-lh <height> - Forces the engine to start with vertical menu resolution set to <height>. Ex: -w 768.
-noextracds - when the launcher resolution is set to 640x480 (default), upon entering menu, the game will switch to 800x600 and immediately after to 640x480. Passing this parameter skips the switch to 800x600 in such case.
-notopmost - doesn't mark the game's windows as topmost in fullscreen mode.

The menus don't exactly look right with custom resolution, but it's still better than delay for the switch and potentially messing up other applications' windows IMO. Menu functionality remains intact regardless of resolution, unless you go very high where things become really small without scaling.

Arthur Schopenhauer wrote:

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Reply 27 of 67, by KT7AGuy

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An update:

My 6800 GT started having memory issues last night and I was forced to replace it with a Radeon HD 3650. This video card truly sucks. It gets similar scores in 3DMark2001SE as my old 9600XT. However, it does do two things that my 6800 GT did not: OpenGL anti-aliasing in Half-Life and scaling over DVI/HDMI to my modern LCD TV. Phil was right about this and I will reconsider better Radeon cards for legacy gaming in the future.

With all Radeon video options maxed out, I still get a steady 60fps at 1366x768 with vsync enabled. The only option that seems to cause problems is "adaptive anti-aliasing". That one routinely causes things to drop to 30fps in some parts. Disabling that fixes the problem and I'm now able to enjoy the game with FSAA in OpenGL mode.

Reply 28 of 67, by UCyborg

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Here's the last update for now, I've added plugin that automatically adjusts field of view for widescreen resolutions, so there's no need to manually tweak default_fov console variable, which may not be effective under all circumstances anyway since it's under control of mod's client.dll. My plugin makes adjustment on the engine side. Also made some minor corrections in hl.exe. Should probably upload the whole thing on ModDB/PCGamingWiki.

BTW, I also updated the MP3 fix plugin, I noticed a bug that causes last MP3 file to not play because the variable holding total number of tracks is set wrong.

Arthur Schopenhauer wrote:

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Reply 30 of 67, by UCyborg

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Yes, it's on TODO list. Actually, I already patched Blue-Shift's executable to unlock the resolutions and also Half-Life v1.0.1.6. Just haven't got around implementing FOV fix yet. I'll upload everything at once when it's done.

The standalone Blue-Shift uses modified Half-Life engine based on 1.0.1.6, the one that still has shadows (have to turn them on in console), already supports Opposing-Force expansion, doesn't have some new physics bugs (1.1.0.0 version that followed introduced that famous entity twitching on moving platforms bug, here's the example of the bug in action, it can be deadly) and it's supposedly the only option to play ancient mods that weren't updated to work with newer versions (those few I've played all work with 1.1.1.0 and later).

Arthur Schopenhauer wrote:

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Reply 31 of 67, by KT7AGuy

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UCyborg,

Thanks again for listing the audio tracks to MP3 filenames for Half-Life. Do you happen to know what the MP3 filenames should be for both Opposing Force and Blue Shift? I'd like to rip both of my CD's audio tracks and just use the MP3 feature. It's so much easier.

Thank you

Reply 32 of 67, by UCyborg

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I uploaded the new version of the resolution patch. I fixed an issue in Half-Life v1.1.1.0 that caused FOV to be increased dramatically on the load screens, I was intercepting it at the wrong place. Also added the patch for standalone version of Blue-Shift expansion pack and for Half-Life version 1.0.1.6.

The engine from version 1.0.1.6 has an odd quirk; when the FOV is increased, the left and right sides of the screen aren't blacked out when the game triggers that effect, so it looks weird in such cases. I haven't figured out how to fix that.

KT7AGuy wrote:

Do you happen to know what the MP3 filenames should be for both Opposing Force and Blue Shift?

The list is the same as for Half-Life. There's just less tracks for expansions. For Blue-Shift, you need Blue-Shift: Unlocked if you want to play it with v1.1.1.0 version of the engine, which does have MP3 support.

By default, Blue-Shift comes as a standalone game using an older version of the engine that doesn't have MP3 support, but also doesn't have that stupid elevator glitch I mentioned earlier.

Whether that glitch will start to hurt your character or even kill those scientists, preventing progression, may even be system-dependent. If I play on my Windows XP installation, elevator almost always starts to take my armor points away and sometimes the scientists die shortly after alarms goes off, but doesn't happen when I play on Windows 10. This is with the same settings on both installs, just different OS and drivers.

Supposedly lowering the frame-rate helps, if you don't have console enabled and don't know how to change frame-rate using it, the easiest way is temporarily switching from OpenGL/Direct3D to Software mode (and picking the highest available resolution).

There are some other differences between Blue-Shift and Blue-Shift: Unlocked, eg. in the former, loading text on level transistions and crosshair are yellow while in the latter, they're blue (like they're supposed to be). The former displays proper chapter titles in the load game menu, while the latter doesn't (you see the same map names that can be used in the console to launch them). In the former, some scientists' dialog at the Hazard Course and those texts telling what to press are missing, in the latter, these things work. In the former there's weapon bobbing and screen tilting when you move, in the latter there isn't.

Also the latter doesn't pack compatible so called graph files for game's AI, so when each map is loaded for the first time, game rebuilds them. It's a problem if you're starting from the old saves because loading saved games doesn't trigger rebuilding process of those files, so if they're not in order by then, NPCs (scientists, aliens, ...) will just stand still.

Arthur Schopenhauer wrote:

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Reply 34 of 67, by KT7AGuy

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Well, my old Radeon 3650 seems to be dead now too. It stopped outputting video on both the DVI and VGA ports. When I pulled it out, I also noticed that a cap is starting to swell. I suspect that the cheap-ass PSU in the machine may be to blame. I've now taken this box out of service and won't be using it again until I can replace the PSU with a unit that has some measure of quality. Is it even possible for a cheap PSU to be killing video cards while leaving other components intact? I'm guessing it's because the video cards require a power connection from the PSU.

I've been forced to reinstall Half-Life and Opposing Force on my old HTPC. I took this computer out of service in my living room a few years ago and relegated it to bedroom "movies & music duty". It's also got an old ATI HDTV Wonder in it, so it's perfect for converting old VHS tapes to movie files.

RetroBoogie asked what kind of FPS I'm getting in OpenGL. Here are my bedroom HTPC's specs:

WinXP Pro SP3
ABIT KV85 (rev 2.0) (Socket 754)
Athlon 64 3700+ ClawHammer @ 2.4Ghz with 1mb L2 Cache
2gb (2x1gb) PC3200 RAM (Single Channel, running at 166mhz)
GeForce 7300 GT DDR2 (Drivers v197.45)
Audigy 2 ZS

With these settings I get a solid 60 FPS @ 1366x768 on a 32" LCD TV (60hz):

Anisotropic Filtering Off
Antialiasing - Gamma Off
Antialiasing - Setting 4x
Antialiasing - Transparency Off
Extension Limit On
Max pre-rendered frames 3
Multi-display / mixed-GPU Single
Texture Filter - Anisotropic mip Off
Texture Filter - Anisotropic sample Off
Texture Filter - Negative LOD Allow
Texture Filter - Quality High
Texture Filter - Trilinear Off
Threaded optimization Off
Triple Buffering On
V-Sync On

Some observations:

I used NVIDIA drivers v197.45 for both my 6800 GT and this 7300 GT. While the 6800 GT could not do anti-aliasing in Half-Life, the 7300 GT does it just fine. The Radeon 3650 also did it too. Perhaps this is a limitation of the 6800 GT?

Does Anisotropic Filtering even work at all in Half-Life, Opposing Force, or Blue Shift?

Anti-Aliasing at 8xS causes a drop in FPS and also makes everything look blurry. AA at 4x has things looking sharp while keeping jaggies to a minimum.

I love how the security guards in Opposing Force seem to have gained 70 lbs.

UCyborg: Thank you for the help and information. It is much appreciated.

Reply 35 of 67, by UCyborg

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Anisotropic filtering does have an effect.

On a slightly related note, some textures will never look right when using OpenGL/D3D renderers in Valve's implementation of GoldSrc (unless someone can hack it to fix it). They have a bug that cause some textures to be blurred even if you turn off texture filtering by inputting "gl_texturemode GL_NEAREST" in the console. Supposedly happens with non-square power of 2 textures.

Software mode:
HLOixBV.png

OpenGL mode:
lYjKqMx.png

Ignore the D3D11 part in the first screenshot, the guy used dgVoodoo2 when he made it.

Arthur Schopenhauer wrote:

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Reply 36 of 67, by leileilol

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That's not a bug, that's working with limitations, as non-power-of-2 texture support wasn't until OpenGL 2.1 and even then it was buggy among the vendors to not bother with. If they didn't resample the texture first, then the ICD would either crash or reject the texture entirely - now THAT would be a bug.

gl_round_down 0 will upsample them (still aliases but not as bad of a quality loss as 3, the default)

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long live PCem

Reply 37 of 67, by KT7AGuy

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I jacked up Anisotropic Filtering to 16x. I can't tell any difference visually, but I'm still getting 60 FPS with vsync enabled so I'll leave it as it is.

Another observation:

I'm a veteran. I have a NDSM but never saw any action, nor do I suffer from PTSD. However, hearing Reveille in Opposing Force's boot camp training mission immediately makes me tense, nervous, and irritable. If this is the most anxiety I carry with me from my time in the service, I suppose I should consider myself lucky.

Reply 38 of 67, by UCyborg

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No Anisotropic Filtering:
3IWcuZz.png

16x Anisotropic Filtering:
K8VHP08.png

About the lack of non-power of 2 texture support and the resulting blurring, you can call it whatever you want: bug, oversight on the part of whoever painted them, whatever, it doesn't change the fact that they don't look as intended. Xash3D does support them properly though. So the waiting for a perfect GoldSrc clone continues.

Arthur Schopenhauer wrote:

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Reply 39 of 67, by DosFreak

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KT7AGuy wrote:

I jacked up Anisotropic Filtering to 16x. I can't tell any difference visually, but I'm still getting 60 FPS with vsync enabled so I'll leave it as it is.

Another observation:

I'm a veteran. I have a NDSM but never saw any action, nor do I suffer from PTSD. However, hearing Reveille in Opposing Force's boot camp training mission immediately makes me tense, nervous, and irritable. If this is the most anxiety I carry with me from my time in the service, I suppose I should consider myself lucky.

heh. It's weird what triggers people. When I got back from Iraq and I'd hear a loud explosion like noise like a car backfiring or something I'd get stressed for a couple of secs and sometimes duck even though while we were over there we all usually treated the mortar attacks as mostly normal since they were usually far away....until they were not.

Haven't had a game bother me yet though.

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