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Half-Life 2 getting a new UI in prep for Steam Deck

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Valve continue burning the midnight oil as it's getting close to the Steam Deck launch now. Their classics continue getting updated, with Half-Life 2 getting a new UI.

While they've already added Vulkan support to multiple older titles using DXVK-Native, it appears they're now moving on to make more changes to help players on gamepads work with their games. It makes sense of course, since having their own games work great on the Steam Deck is a must.

You can opt into the Beta branch for Half-Life 2 on Steam and set "-gamepadui" as a launch option. Right now though, it doesn't seem to work in the Linux version but does show up when running it with Steam Play Proton. It's currently a work in progress. Update 28/01/22 - the new UI now works in the native version of HL2.

Will be interesting to see if / when they give the same treatment to other titles as needed to get them feeling a little bit more modern. The old grey boxed UI for Valve games is a bit rough now, it didn't age too well.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Beta, FPS, Steam, Valve | Apps: Half-Life 2
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21 comments
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BielFPs Jan 26, 2022
Quoting: EikeWe actually are doing this with our build servers when something goes wrong. And it does help more often than not. :-D
I did it a lot when I had to manage proxy servers using squid3 and iptables, so I know that feeling...
Nanobang Jan 26, 2022
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So don't update Half-Life 2 anymore. Got it.

TL;DR: Oops!

I skimmed the article and, I'm embarrassed to admit, wildly misinterpreted (possibly hallucinated) what I saw there. Skaine's good-humoured, nudge-in-the-ribs reply (below) got me to look at the article again, and I see what I wrote was, in fact, spaz-random drool. Thanks Skaine. :)

In fairness to myself, I can see where I had problems with this particular article, and why, so I'll just leave it here and go get a cup of coffee.


Last edited by Nanobang on 27 January 2022 at 4:41 pm UTC
scaine Jan 26, 2022
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Quoting: NanobangSo don't update Half-Life 2 anymore. Got it. ;)

...because you don't like clearer text??
notmrflibble Jan 26, 2022
Looks like it's not working because of a corrupted/broken file. (Yes, I forced re-fetching of that file.)

…/Half-Life 2/hl2 $ objdump -p bin/gamepadui.so
objdump: warning: bin/gamepadui.so has a corrupt section with a size (b1c9600) larger than the file size
objdump: warning: bin/gamepadui.so has a corrupt section with a size (b1c9600) larger than the file size
objdump: bin/gamepadui.so: file format not recognized
…/Half-Life 2/hl2 $ 



Last edited by notmrflibble on 26 January 2022 at 5:44 pm UTC
omer666 Jan 27, 2022
Dear Gaben,

An HL game we've been promised,
Cliffhangered in episode 2 and ever since
We've been waiting patiently for this
Release third episode, for we are those
Who'll spend any kind of money on an HL game,
Even when we don't have any.

omer666

P.S. If poetry ain't enough I'll do a power metal version of it and the whole web will be sorry
shadowboy813 Jan 27, 2022
All of this talk about the new UI and no one mentions the more significant update: The FoV slider goes well past 90 now.
Liam Dawe Jan 27, 2022
Quoting: shadowboy813All of this talk about the new UI and no one mentions the more significant update: The FoV slider goes well past 90 now.
That came with the previous Beta update https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2021/10/half-life-2-and-the-episodes-get-a-beta-with-vulkan-dxvk-and-more/
Ehvis Jan 27, 2022
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Quoting: omer666P.S. If poetry ain't enough I'll do a power metal version of it and the whole web will be sorry

In that case, poetry isn't enough!

Seriously though. It looks like they have every intention to continue with the HL universe. And I don't think that will only be VR games that follow Alyx.
Nanobang Jan 27, 2022
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Quoting: omer666If poetry ain't enough I'll do a power metal version of it and the whole web will be sorry

Lemmy bless you.
Nanobang Jan 27, 2022
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Quoting: scaine
Quoting: NanobangSo don't update Half-Life 2 anymore. Got it. ;)

...because you don't like clearer text??

Lol, no, I'm always fond of clearer text. I looked at the article again and, well, I've just edited my comment because wtf did I think I had read? Thanks for being funny and kind. :)
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