64-bit Half-Life 2 released

By Tom Bramwell Published 3 January, 2006

For Athlon 64 FX processors.

Valve's announced the release of 64-bit versions of Half-Life 2 and super-shiny HDR add-on Lost Coast through Steam.

The 64-bit versions, which should be available now, have been developed specifically for AMD's line of Athlon 64 FX processors.

"Bringing the Source technology to the AMD64 processor platform is an important step in the evolution of our game content and tools," according to Valve's Gabe Newell. "This investment in future processing will allow us, and third party developers working with Source, to push the boundaries of the gaming experience."

It's all a bit airy-fairy in terms of particular benefits, but we expect that anybody packing a 64-bit processor knows what to expect, even though Half-Life 2's one of the first games to take this particular plunge. Let us know what you make of the change.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (24) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Tyronne #1 6 years ago

    I thought you needed to be running a 64bit operating system before the 64 bit versions of half life 2 actually worked,and even then graphics drivers are buggy and its not that great a difference to the 32 bit version.

  • morriss #2 6 years ago

    Yay! I don't have 64bit \o/! ;)

  • TILT #3 6 years ago

    Is this only for the Athlon64 FX line (the fast and expensive ones, named FX-55, -57...), as the title implies? Or does it apply to all Athlon64 processors, as "AMD64 processor platform" implies?

  • ses #4 6 years ago

    It should work fine with any Athlon 64 (and even Intel's 64 bit CPU's for that matter). Of course, AMD's overpriced FX-line is mostly targeted at gamers, so they probably asked/paid Valve to talk about that.

  • DDevil #5 6 years ago

    It works with all AMD Athlon 64's but you DEFINITELY need the WinXP 64 edition. It will NOT work on plain old vanilla XP. I've tried...

  • Kiigan #6 6 years ago

    Bah I can't be bothered changing to WinXP 64-bit.

  • TILT #7 6 years ago

    Me neither. Thanks for the info, DDevil!

  • Darkedge #8 6 years ago

    "even though Half-Life 2's one of the first games to take this particular plunge"
    After Fear (which has 64bit support) and Far Cry..
    Nope Source is late to this party but at least it's doing it.

  • abigsmurf #9 6 years ago

    I've heard it's horribly buggy and isn't actually any faster than the regular version.

    Haven't got the system to test it though

  • jellyhead #10 6 years ago

    Anyone know the current state of 64 bit XP drivers?
    Worth having a go or not?

  • Darkedge #11 6 years ago

    most good components have full XP64 drivers - like ATi cards, realtek sound, etc...
    I run XP64 and it's fine no problems and faster than normal XP.

  • Scrumhalf #12 6 years ago

    I have an Athlon64 X2 and Windows XP x64, and HL2 is now 64-bit. The only change I have noticed is that it tells me it is in 64-bit mode on startup.

    In fact I reckon Lost Coast is a bit slower :(

    As for the buggy drivers, these reports are obviously coming from somewhere as it is well known - however I have been running x64 for nearly 3 months and the only real problem is the StarForce debacle. I have 2 GeForce 7800GTs running in SLI using the latest x64 Forceware drivers and there is no problem whatsoever.....

  • kangarootoo #13 6 years ago

    64bit isn't always faster. It essentially means you can store and calculate bigger numbers (64 bit number instead of 32 obviously). In some cases a 64bit OS will actually run more slowly than a 32bit one. It really depends on what your application is. I don't know enough to say whether games will benefit greatly or not.

  • Scrumhalf #14 6 years ago

    From my experience it is not a massive leap, or at least not a noticeable one - it is hard to judge as I have only one machine in this spec and nothing to compare it against. It does however appear to be far more memory hungry than normal Windows whcih really is saying something....

    I have it as it is quicker for Java development and it handles the dual-core of an X2 far better than normal Windows.

  • Talha #15 6 years ago

    What would HL2 need 64-bit power for? Despite it being used for benchmarking and all by hardware reviewers, I don't think it pushes hardware that much. I ran on on my P41.8 with Radeon 9600XT, and then on P4 3.0 with Geforce 6800GT - and noticed no large difference in framerate or even loading times (all settings turned up, 1024x768).

    Then again I am no expert and sound like a complete buffoon, but I guess that's what these forums are for, right folks?

  • drumbaby #16 6 years ago

    So, that's twice as much fun stacking barrels then?

  • Xerx3s #17 6 years ago

    Had xp64 for a while, went back to xp32. The problems and efford to get the system up & running are just immense.

  • jellyhead #18 6 years ago

    I tried Linux and XP about 18months ago and neither of them had mature drivers, i'll wait a while until the platform has matured a bit. Also i've no real need for 64bit stuff just yet.

  • Mashum #19 6 years ago

    There must be some overhead in running 32-bit software under a 64bit OS as well, is there guaranteed compatibility with old 32 bit apps?

    That said though credit to Valve who, true to form are investing in future technology rather than peddling out Basketball Dirge IV or Pimp my Nova: DUB edition.

    To say they are late to the party when only 5 or 6 PC games are 64bit compatible and at a point when few paying PC gamers are running in 64bit is a bit harsh.
    Edited by 1 at 03/01/06 @ 11:34

  • jellyhead #20 6 years ago

    i remember buying my Athlon 64 kit about 2 years ago and seeing "Far Cry 64bit - coming soon", heh as usual 2 years is "soon" in this industry. :)

  • Furbs #21 6 years ago

    Soooooo....EG GOTY 2006?

  • stephen #22 6 years ago

    Speaking of coming late to the party, Valve announced this about 2 weeks ago. Slow news day?

  • Stu #23 6 years ago

    I've noticed a difference!

    The boots on the combine soldiers are slightly shinier. The guns are a bit shinier too.

    I think that's all. Upgrade now!

  • fiske_laseter #24 6 years ago

    Is the combine AI twice as clever then as well (which still wouldn't mean a lot)?