Counter-Strike Receives Major Update for Half-Life's 25th Anniversary

Counter-Strike Receives Major Update for Half-Life's 25th Anniversary

By Marcus Thompson

March 15, 2025 at 11:45 PM

Here's the concise, value-focused rewrite:

A major Counter-Strike update has been released alongside the Half-Life 25th Anniversary Update, bringing significant improvements and modernizations to the classic game.

New Features:

  • Dozens of new sprays from "Half-Life: Further Data" CD
  • Steam Networking integration for easier multiplayer connectivity
  • Improved grenade throwing physics
  • Enhanced framerate stability fixes

Visual Improvements:

  • Scalable main-menu buttons supporting up to 3840x1600 resolution
  • High-resolution HUD sprites (2x or 3x size)
  • Optimized UI scaling for modern displays
  • Repositioned HUD elements
  • New texture filtering options
  • Widescreen FOV correction support

Performance & Input:

  • Lower input latency option
  • Improved keyboard and controller support
  • Fixed mouse/joystick input issues
  • Optimized OpenGL rendering for Steam Deck
  • Default gamma adjusted from 2.5 to 2.2

Engine Enhancements:

  • Increased dynamic sound channels (8 → 32)
  • Expanded entity limits (900 → 1200)
  • Increased texture capacity (4800 → 10000)
  • Enhanced software renderer geometry limits
  • Native Linux support with improved stability

Quality of Life Updates:

  • Streamlined settings menu organization
  • Controller navigation support
  • Steam Persona integration
  • Removed outdated video quality settings
  • Fixed various rendering and display issues

Mod Support:

  • Increased sentences.txt file limit (1536 → 2048)
  • Expanded MAX_PACKET_ENTITIES (256 → 1024)
  • Enhanced entity targeting capabilities
  • Legacy version available via "steam_legacy" branch

Security and System:

  • Multiple buffer overflow fixes
  • General security improvements
  • Updated localization files
  • Comprehensive Linux support with software rendering

Note: Previous version remains accessible through the "steam_legacy" Beta branch for compatibility purposes.

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