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Half-Life 2 released for Steam on Linux

209 points| jeffisabelle | 13 years ago |steamdb.info | reply

57 comments

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[+] aspensmonster|13 years ago|reply
I loved Half-Life 2. I loved Counter-Strike 1.5 (and 1.6 too). I loved Portal. Valve has done a good job of making games. But I reeeeally wish some other developers would step up to the plate and port as well. I'm thinking Borderlands, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and others. Those two already have Mac ports so I doubt it's unfeasible to move things over. Wine typically works well enough --assuming you're willing to either fiddle with it for hours or else pay for an out-of-the-box solution like Crossover-- but nothing beats native :)

Edit: Been playing the Portal Beta. The horizontal tearing without vertical sync is annoying. Mainly because, with vertical sync, there is substantial input lag. But hey, it's called "beta" for a reason.

[+] kayoone|13 years ago|reply
Many developers dont even port their console titles to the PC, or do so much later. Porting to Linux does not make any sense financially (yet), so its more or less good-will. You also need to have the resources to do it and many Devs are under heavy time pressure from publishers.
[+] shardling|13 years ago|reply
I don't know about Borderlands, but the Deus Ex mac port was not done by the main devs; it was a separate company that specializes in that sort of thing.

The catch is that the mac version isn't available on Steam.

[+] ekianjo|13 years ago|reply
Yeah, surprisingly (or unsurprisingly, depending on your POV) there have been very few major players stepping in to convert their historical or recent titles for Linux. They are probably waiting and wondering if there's any good reason to do it... If the Steambox ever sees a release based on a Linux environment, I would expect things to change, though.
[+] BuddhaSource|13 years ago|reply
Sorry little off topic : Is anybody working on HALF-Life 3 ?

I was really looking forward for this, I am old now but not old enough for HL3.

[+] barbs|13 years ago|reply
Valve indeed has done a good job so far, though I'm hoping they do the same with DotA 2 soon...
[+] mindstab|13 years ago|reply
Serious Sam 3 from Croteam :)
[+] gcr|13 years ago|reply
Wow, I'm going to go try this! Portal runs "surprisinly well" (eg. great performance but it has occasional graphical glitches) on my machine (Arch x64, Intel HD 4000), so I'm curious to see how HL2 runs.

I understand Valve hasn't gotten the bugs out quite yet, but this is an excellent start.

Edit: Oh man, "Half-Life 2 (Beta)", "Half-Life 2: Episode One (Beta)", "Half-Life 2: Episode Two (Beta)", and "Half-Life 2: Lost Coast (Beta)" are all in my steam library. It's like Christmas all over again.

[+] nathanb|13 years ago|reply
I assume you have 32-bit (multilib) support installed in order to install Steam?

Or is there some trick I'm not aware of to get native x64 Steam going under Arch?

[+] nickzoic|13 years ago|reply
Portal worked great on Wine / Linux for me right up to (what I think is) the last level, when the frame rate suddenly plummeted to barely playable. Now it's out for native Linux I'll have to see if the same thing happens.
[+] PakG1|13 years ago|reply
You know why I'm going to download this? Because I never played the game and when I finally downloaded it to play, there were major graphics engine or driver issues that made it dirt slow and unplayable on my m11x R2. And I couldn't figure out how to fix it so eventually gave up. Coincidentally, I have Linux on my m11x R2. Maybe it'll work on Linux.

What a silly reason. But true. Wouldn't it be ironic if the Linux beta was more bug free in my experience than the Windows version...

[+] brokenparser|13 years ago|reply
Will not buy, HL1 is still full of bugs: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues?labe...

They should at least fix the bugs which affect gameplay, so I won't end up with a library of broken games.

[+] gcr|13 years ago|reply
Half life 2 works OK on my Intel HD4000. The only bugs are graphical glitches, and they're not very noticable. (Keep in mind that Half Life and Half-Life 2 use completely different game engines; one's bugs don't necessarily translate to the other.)
[+] jsalinas|13 years ago|reply
You should try HL1, most of the bugs are just visuals and don't affect gameplay. I've played the game and it never crashed.
[+] Shorel|13 years ago|reply
I wonder if the Black Mesa mod works instead.
[+] workbench|13 years ago|reply
Way to support your niche platform
[+] Aardwolf|13 years ago|reply
Do they also have Portal?

Because I never played it, and if they release it for Linux, I could be this guy:

http://xkcd.com/606/

Even the date is about right :)

(I do play modern games as well, but due to the rebooting to another OS required for that it's a commitment which I don't make for every game)

[+] KayEss|13 years ago|reply
I wish I had the time to support this better by actually playing some of the Linux games I've bought.
[+] chii|13 years ago|reply
to support them, you only need to buy their games. Playing them is not needed!
[+] ekianjo|13 years ago|reply
Tried HL2 on linux yesterday. Very impressed to see that HL2 still does not look too bad even many years later. At full details on full HD, it's still very decent graphically speaking.
[+] kwijibob|13 years ago|reply
I know this is only HL2 beta - but unfortunately it doesn't run nearly as fast as HL2 on wine. I'm on ubuntu 12.10, 2010 mac mini (nvidia graphics)
[+] pezz|13 years ago|reply
Steam on Arch Linux here, old Core 2 Duo 3 GHz, but I added a nVidia GTX550Ti (2GB) card a few months ago and HL2 is running amazingly.

Playing it on a 46" TV at 1080p. Smooth as hell and looks fantastic.

[+] moystard|13 years ago|reply
I am waiting for DOTA 2 to be ported on Linux; this would really help the Linux Steam platform taking off.
[+] hexonexxon|13 years ago|reply
valve said last yr they would start porting to linux to avoid microsoft 8 store plans where they want to restrict software sales to the "microsoft app store" and shave 20% fees from all sales. this would destroy the steam delivery model so makes sense they are diversifying
[+] Yuioup|13 years ago|reply
Erm. Wasn't Half-Life 2 already out? Pretty sure I've had it in my library for months.
[+] gcr|13 years ago|reply
For linux? It wasn't in my library last week. Perhaps you got lucky and were chosen for a fancy linux beta test period?
[+] kbar13|13 years ago|reply
almost thought they released half life 3 exclusively for linux or something. Wouldn't that be fun?
[+] thejosh|13 years ago|reply
It's almost like it's a BETA or something.
[+] Murk|13 years ago|reply
Looks like my weekend is set, then.
[+] goggles99|13 years ago|reply
Isn't this game like 10 years old?
[+] OrsenPike|13 years ago|reply
It may be almost 10 years old but it is still one of the best FPS games ever created. Hell I still play Deus Ex as it is my favourite game ever made. Just because a game is not brand new does not mean porting it to a new platform is not worth it.