This is an old revision of the document!

Half-Life 1

Batocera uses Xash3D FWGS, an open-source reimplementation of the GoldSrc (Half-Life 1) engine. It allows you to play Half-Life (1998) by Valve and several of its expansions and mods on modern hardware with gamepad support. This system scrapes metadata for the “ports” group(s) and loads the halflife set from the currently selected theme, if available. Grouped with the “ports” group of systems.

Quick reference

  • Emulator: Xash3D FWGS
  • Folder: roms/halflife/
  • Accepted ROM formats: .game

BIOS

No Half-Life emulator in Batocera needs a BIOS file to run.

ROMs

You need the original game data files from your Steam installation of Half-Life. Copy the game data folder from Steam/steamapps/common/Half-Life/<game folder>/ to /userdata/roms/halflife/<game folder>/, then create an empty .game file in that directory.

Supported games

Game Game folder Launch file
Half-Life valve/ valve.game
Half-Life: Opposing Force gearbox/ gearbox.game
Half-Life: Blue Shift bshift/ bshift.game
Deathmatch Classic dmc/ dmc.game

Additional mods may also work. See the supported mods list for more details.

Directory structure

/userdata/roms/halflife/
               ├── valve/
               |    ├── cl_dlls/
               |    ├── dlls/
               |    ├── maps/
               |    ├── models/
               |    ├── sound/
               |    ├── sprites/
               |    ├── liblist.gam
               |    ├── pak0.pak
               |    └── valve.game
               ├── gearbox/
               |    ├── (game data files)
               |    └── gearbox.game
               └── bshift/
                    ├── (game data files)
                    └── bshift.game

The valve/ folder (base Half-Life) is always required, even when playing expansions like Opposing Force or Blue Shift, as they depend on the base game assets.

Saves

Save location saves/xash3d_fwgs/<game>/

Emulators

Xash3D FWGS

Standardized features available to all cores of this emulator: halflife.videomode

Controls

Here are the default Half-Life controls shown on a Batocera Retropad:

Gamepad button Action
Left analog stick Move / Strafe
Right analog stick Look around
L3 (Left stick press) Walk (instead of run)
R3 (Right stick press) Crouch
D-pad Up Spray
D-pad Down Quick swap weapon
D-pad Left Previous weapon
D-pad Right Next weapon
A (South) Use
B (East) Jump
X (West) Flashlight
Y (North) Reload
L1 Duck
L2 Walk
R1 Fire
R2 Alt-fire
START Pause
SELECT + B Menu
SELECT + X Quick Save
SELECT + Y Quick Load
SELECT + L1 Screenshot
SELECT + START Quit

The button labels (A, B, X, Y) refer to physical positions on an Xbox controller. They are reversed on a Nintendo-style controller.

Troubleshooting

My game does not launch

  • Make sure you copied the complete game data folder from your Steam installation.
  • The valve/ base game folder must always be present, even for expansions.
  • The .game launch file name must match the game folder name exactly (e.g. valve.game for the valve/ folder).

Custom configuration

You can create a custom.cfg file in system/configs/xash3d_fwgs/<game>/ for per-game custom settings. This file is automatically executed on launch.

Further troubleshooting

For further troubleshooting, refer to the generic support pages.

  • systems/model1.1774723218.txt.gz
  • Last modified: 2 months ago
  • by wizzard