Overview
This is a guide telling you how to play Half-Life 2 on the old engine
Why play on an outdated version?
The new code may have better graphics motion blur bloom ect But there are more bugs such as the apcs going through the floor. And it can make speedrunning this game easier.
2004 standalone or 2006 modded?
You can use the original 2004 version or the mod that recreates the 2006 engine almost completely. The 2004 one is more nostalgic but some common problems are black screen on launch sandtraps crashing the game and you can’t save. In the 2006 everything works fine but It dosen’t look very different.
Installing the 2004 version
You can find the download link here mega.nz:#!n9MX0IwJ!qjp7m-oORpjJ3TzzfhBbjyV92TYOqNEO9m1ghMbn1ho
Use 7-zip to extract it anywhere you want on your pc and run the batch file in the folder. Credit goes towards bitrain
Install the 2006 mod
Installing the 2006 mod is a little harder to do.
1. Go to [link] and download HL2 Old Engine Unpack 2.0
2. Open the zip file in winrar (it dosen’t work in file explore and maybe not 7-zip)
3. Unrar it to your source mods folder. For me it’s located in C:Program Files (x86)Steamsteamappssourcemods
4. restart steam if it’s open.
5. Click on Half-Life 2 old engine and click play.