HLFixes

Fixing Bugs in GoldSrc

Download

Latest Release

Requirements

Latest Steam version of Half-Life

Also works with the last pre-anniversary version
Versions from before 2019 may or may not work with HLFixes

Windows

Windows XP (tested with SP3) or newer
Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable (x86)

If you're on Windows XP, you'll need an older version. I've confirmed that version
```
14.16.27033.0
```
works correctly. You can get that version here.

Linux

Should work on pretty much anything that's capable of running Half-Life.

Installation Guide

Windows

Make sure Half-Life isn't running
Download
```
Windows.zip
```
from here
Extract it somewhere
Run
```
Installer.exe
```
Click on
```
Install
```
or
```
Reinstall
```
if you're updating
If all goes well the fixes should be applied

Linux

Make sure Half-Life isn't running
Download
```
Linux.zip
```
from here
Extract it somewhere (
```
unzip Linux.zip
```
)
Run
```
./installer.sh
```
from a terminal
Select
```
Install HLFixes
```
or
```
Reinstall HLFixes
```
if you're updating
If all goes well the fixes should be applied

You can see if it's working by running

version

in console. It should say

Patched with HLFixes

at the end of the output.

Why?

Because there's still bugs in GoldSrc that have yet to be fixed, unfortunately.
Ideally, HLFixes will be made entirely obsolete by Valve but so far that hasn't happened.

How?

The installer modifies the Half-Life launcher so that it loads HLFixes instead of the engine. HLFixes then loads the engine and applies patches and hooks.

What's Been Fixed?

Quick save backup not functioning

When you make a quick save, the engine is supposed to rename the already existing

quick.sav

quick01.sav

before writing the new quick save.
However, this functionality was unintentionally broken in an update that fixed this issue. HLFixes restores the previous behaviour.

Technical Details

SaveGameSlot

is the function responsible for calling the save backup function. It does this by checking to see if the save is called

quick

autosave

and calling

Host_SaveAgeList

if it is.
However, after the update,

Host_Savegame_f

now appends

.sav

to the save name before calling

SaveGameSlot

, thus preventing

Host_SaveAgeList

from ever being called as the save is now called

quick.sav

.
HLFixes resolves this issue by hooking

SaveGameSlot

and changing the save name to

quick

if it was

quick.sav

.

GitHub issue.

Music stopping after a level transition

This is technically intentional behaviour. If the game isn't Half-Life 1, the engine stops music after a level transition.
However, the expansions and a lot of mods aren't expecting this to be the case. HLFixes removes the whitelist and makes it work in all games/mods.

Technical Details

CGameUI::ConnectToServer

checks to see if the game name is

valve

. If it isn't, it issues the

mp3 stop

command to the engine.
HLFixes resolves this issue by hooking

CGameUI::ConnectToServer

and changing the game name to

valve

Main menu music continuing to play while in-game

The engine never stops the main menu music after leaving the main menu. HLFixes fixes this by telling the engine to stop playing the music when going in-game.

Technical Details

HLFixes resolves this issue by hooking

CGameUI::ConnectToServer

and checking to see if the current track is

media\gamestartup.mp3

.
If it is, the game name is changed to something other than

valve

in order to take advantage of the music stopping behaviour.

Main menu music playing over top of the intro video

The engine starts playing the main menu music before the intro video starts playing. HLFixes fixes this by starting the main menu music after the videos are done playing.

Technical Details

HLFixes resolves this issue by hooking

Cmd_ExecuteStringWithPrivilegeCheck

and preventing the command that starts the main menu music from executing.
HLFixes also hooks

CVideoMode_Common::PlayStartupSequence

and issues the command to start the main menu music after the intro videos are done playing.

gl_overbright

This fix has been made mostly obsolete with the anniversary update.

The engine turns off texture sorting if it detects that your GPU supports the multitexture extension.
HLFixes turns texture sorting back on, which allows

gl_overbright

to work.

Technical Details

HLFixes resolves this issue by forcing

gl_texsort

to 1 when

gl_use_shaders

is 0.

Broken skies in Condition Zero Deleted Scenes

When the engine draws the sky, it needs to know what surfaces are supposed to have the sky drawn on them. The way it does this depends on whether texture sorting is on.
When

gl_texsort

is set to 0 (i.e. when the engine detects the multitexture extension), it simply checks to see if a given surface has the

SURF_DRAWSKY

flag.
When

gl_texsort

is set to 1, it'll check every texture the map uses to see if it starts with

sky

. When it comes time to draw the sky, it'll draw it on surfaces that use the texture it found.

The latter behaviour works well for the most part, but it assumes that there will only ever be one texture that starts with

sky

.
Condition Zero added a new texture called

skycull

that is supposed to be used on the exterior of sky brushes in order for weather effects to work properly.
If this texture comes after the real sky texture in the texture list, it will be incorrectly selected as the sky texture and thus causes the sky to break when

gl_texsort

is set to 1.

Technical Details

HLFixes resolves this by patching part of

R_NewMap

so that instead of calling

Q_strncmp

to determine if a texture starts with

sky

, it calls HLFixes.
HLFixes checks if the texture being checked is called

skycull

and prevents a match if it does. Otherwise, it calls

Q_strncmp

as normal.

Launch Options

Option	Description
--no-fixes	Causes HLFixes to not apply any fixes.
--no-music-fix	Causes HLFixes to not apply music fixes.
--no-startup-music-fix	Causes HLFixes to not apply the main menu music fix.
--no-quicksave-fix	Causes HLFixes to not apply the quick save backup fix.
--no-overbright-fix	Causes HLFixes to not apply the overbright fix.
--no-sky-fix	Causes HLFixes to not apply the CZDS sky fix.
--no-startup-video-music-fix	Causes HLFixes to not apply the music playing during startup video fix.
--persist-music-in-mp	Allows music to continue playing between multiplayer level changes.
--no-multitexture	(Windows only) Prevents use of the OpenGL multitexture extension. May improve performance when using a poorly written graphics driver. Incompatible with gl_use_shaders 1 .

Known Issues

Detail textures no longer work when
```
gl_use_shaders
```
is 0

This is a side effect of the gl_overbright fix
Most games/mods don't use detail textures so it shouldn't matter much
For games/mods that do use detail textures (i.e. Counter-Strike: Condition Zero), put
```
--no-overbright-fix
```
in your launch options if you really want them

Regarding VAC

While HLFixes is not a cheat, I would recommend disabling HLFixes before entering a VAC-secured server, just to be safe.

This can be done by putting

--no-fixes

in your launch options, or by uninstalling HLFixes through the installer.