Valve favors updating Source to making new engine

Valve's Source engine is getting older, but the company is content to continue iterating on it rather than introducing a new "Source 2" engine.

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Valve's Source engine is getting up in years, having debuted in 2004. Still, the company isn't keen on dropping the engine, and claims that updating and iterating on it makes for an easier workload than creating a "Source 2" engine.

"That's just the way we work with that engine, [we] just update it not just replace it," said Valve's Chet Faliszek.

While Faliszek told GamingLives (via PC Gamer) they may create a Source 2 "at some point," the current model is easier for the time being. "When you replace an engine you're replacing the tools and the way that people work, there's an expense in man hours and people learning and people getting up on it right."

One part of the iterative process was adding Mac support last year. According to Faliszek, testing on Mac hasn't added too much time to adding new features to the engine itself. "There's always some weirdness when we add new features to the engine, and we need to make sure when we do it still works with the Mac, but it's always part of the process."

The Source engine will be powering Valve's next releases, Dota 2 and Counter Strike: GO.

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  • reply
    October 18, 2011 9:00 AM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, Valve favors updating Source to making new engine.

    Valve's Source engine is getting older, but the company is content to continue iterating on it rather than introducing a new "Source 2" engine.

    • reply
      October 18, 2011 9:07 AM

      define new engine?

      • reply
        October 18, 2011 9:18 AM

        [deleted]

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        October 18, 2011 9:38 AM

        The different between getting a new computer vs continually upgrading your components.

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          October 18, 2011 1:34 PM

          which is basically the same thing when every part been upgraded

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            October 18, 2011 4:31 PM

            Only when you replace every part at the same time. Valve upgrades the engine component wise, and not all components at once (at least, that's been the trend that I've noticed).

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              October 19, 2011 8:32 PM

              Doing some but not all parts at the same time doesn't mean you can't make meaningful changes and have something after several changes that is significantly different from the past.

              I'm not sure if you are aware but John Carmack has mentioned numerous times how he has changed the rendered in his various engines for his research while not replacing the entire engine. He has even had a voxel renderer working for Quake 2 or 3, I forget which.

              In the same way, Source was designed from the ground up with modularity so that major changes could be made to sections without necessarily having to change all the others.

              We know the pain of being limited in CPU upgrade if we don't also upgrade a motherboard, but there are also times when you can upgrade individual parts to the latest and greatest without having to change any other parts.

    • reply
      October 18, 2011 9:09 AM

      [deleted]

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      October 18, 2011 9:12 AM

      It makes sense though. There's no point in develop a new engine, that's based on DirectX, until DirectX 10 or 11 adoption crosses into the majority. Read an article yesterday saying that Win 7 has only just not surpassed XP in total installs. Steam has the advantage of being able to look at their hardware survey data, so they probably have more accurate numbers and I haven't look at them lately. But, it just makes sense that it's pointless to spend money on R&D like that until DX10/11 is closer to being mainstream. This is why Carmack went with OpenGL (and other issues).

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        October 18, 2011 12:05 PM

        DX10/11 systems are already a pretty healthy majority on the steam survey.

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          October 18, 2011 4:55 PM

          DX11 still isn't industry standards. Blizzard hasn't adopted it, EA just did, Activision has been toying with it. Blizzard just added 3 things to the DX11 option in World of Warcraft. My friend turned on DX11 and we looked at each other's screens and couldn't see a difference between D3D9 and D3D11. StarCraft II released with a heavily modified DirectX9 engine where it looked like 10. VALVe does it the right way. Release updates so as to not force their large community to relearn the SDK.

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      October 18, 2011 9:15 AM

      This goes hand in hand with yesterday's (?) thread about why games/companies keep recreating basic things like mouse code, menu layouts, etc. Valve seems to be the only company with a long-running standard like this and something sure as shinola is working for them.

    • Zek legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
      reply
      October 18, 2011 9:19 AM

      Isn't this pretty much what everybody does? I highly doubt that id is starting over from scratch every time they release a new engine.

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        October 18, 2011 9:30 AM

        [deleted]

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        October 18, 2011 9:32 AM

        It's almost a little weird that they don't brand it as a new version every so often...

        They must have changed a ton to make it run well on consoles. Didn't the first left4dead run like shit?

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        October 18, 2011 9:42 AM

        id used to do that, but that was back when the technology was so vastly different from game to game. Wolfenstein used real mode, DOOM used protected mode (I may have those backwards), Quake 1 used polygon enemy models for the first time, Quake 2 supported 3D accelerators out of the box, Quake 3 required a 3D accelerator, etc.

        And if I remember right, id made it a big deal that they tossed out and rewrote everything. This, I think, has cemented everyone's notion that you must occasionally sit down and rewrite the engine from scratch or else you're lame and will fall behind.

        Today though, I think game engines are like web browsers - there's no point in writing a new one from scratch. There's nothing wrong with Source that can't be fixed. At some point people will stop writing engines entirely - you'll just use the latest build of the Unreal engine and call it a day (this is already what a number of devs are doing). Spielberg doesn't need to invent a new camera every time he does a movie, game developers don't need to reinvent the wheel every single time.

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          October 18, 2011 9:45 AM

          To clarify, id made it a big deal back during the original Wolf3D/DOOM/Quake era. They've since made it clear that they iterate on existing work - they used the skeletal framework of Quake 3 for the DOOM 3 engine, for example.

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        October 18, 2011 10:05 AM

        within reason, but source was made for really dated OSes and hw meaning artificial bottlenecks for modern times.

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      October 18, 2011 9:37 AM

      Valve LOADING... favors updating LOADING... Source to making LOADING... new engine.

      (I have no problem with Valve updating Source, and it's a good basis for an engine. But don't cheap out and skip important functionality that everyone else has these days. I really like Source, but I don't think its evolution has been going fast enough.)

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        October 18, 2011 9:40 AM

        Yea it would be nice if they could refactor to allow for some sort of dynamic loading like virtually every other engine offers these days. I love a lot about Source but the loading frequency and times are still pretty behind the times.

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          October 18, 2011 10:21 AM

          Remember how amazed everyone was with the nearly instant loading times of the original Half Life, compared to every other FPS around back then?

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            October 18, 2011 12:46 PM

            yeah, it baffles me that they took a huge step back with Portal 2

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            October 18, 2011 3:29 PM

            Wasn't very instant on my rig when it first came out :(

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          October 18, 2011 12:02 PM

          They added streaming for the Xbox version of Half Life 2.

          I guess they didn't deem it necessary for Portal 2

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          October 18, 2011 12:07 PM

          [deleted]

          • Zek legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
            reply
            October 18, 2011 12:25 PM

            There's no reason they can't change the Source engine to support an entirely different map format. And if they did that they would probably still call it Source. That's what people are getting at.

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              October 18, 2011 12:43 PM

              [deleted]

              • Zek legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
                reply
                October 18, 2011 1:52 PM

                The only point in saying it isn't the same engine is for PR.

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                  October 18, 2011 2:12 PM

                  [deleted]

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                    October 19, 2011 12:35 AM

                    Valve isnt really pushing their engine in the same way Epic or id do. They also don't sell their games based on technical wizardry either. It isnt really and issue to them.

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        October 18, 2011 3:23 PM

        LOADING... or texture streaming glitches. That's what the choice seems to be right now.

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        October 19, 2011 2:55 AM

        You know Bungie only had you load maybe once or twice in Halo and Halo 2. Then when Halo 2 PC and Halo 3 launched, we had a load screen every mission/map load. Do you know why it's a standard now? Because it lessens the load on your computer, giving the game that much more performance to the game rather than giving half to performance and half to loading.

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      October 18, 2011 9:39 AM

      So waiting for dx11 consoles before new engine?

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        October 18, 2011 10:55 AM

        not everybody is using directX

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        October 18, 2011 7:54 PM

        as in video game consoles? my brains starting to melt.. ugh

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      October 18, 2011 10:09 AM

      There is nothing wrong with this approach, as long as its managed well with. Their toolset example (there are others) is the BEST way to describe the issues involved with gearing up with an all new engine, etc.

      Carmack made a point about it during his Quake/Doom engines upgrades. His core of netcode/input/audio/graphics connections worked out really well, so he would keep a majority of it during the "next" engine development. The largest items he kept removing and updating was the graphics engine and I'm guessing they have added on the "texture" and potentially "physics" engine to the mix as well.

      I'm really interested in the work Valve did with their particle benchmark and how they intend to use that knowledge with Source.

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      October 18, 2011 11:31 AM

      Did they fix the audio stuttering yet? :D

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        October 18, 2011 12:30 PM

        I like that tf2 still crashes on exiting the game for me

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          October 18, 2011 5:52 PM

          best time for it to crash

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            October 18, 2011 6:04 PM

            Wouldn't the best time be upon loading in?

            Snap.

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              October 20, 2011 8:55 PM

              If you have things to do elsewhere, sure!

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      October 18, 2011 12:30 PM

      Epic has been doing this for eons...it's not a new concept people.

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      October 18, 2011 2:21 PM

      This would be better if Valve actually had one version of the engine. Instead we get multiple variations with different code bases, broken tools with fan made workarounds, an MIA source 2009 sdk base etc.

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      October 18, 2011 6:16 PM

      As much as I like that engine, their next engine is certainly something I'm looking forward to seeing at this point. With all their money hats I'm surprised they don't have a separate team handling it.

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        October 18, 2011 8:32 PM

        It seems one of Valve strategies is to make sure that money pays and retains employees and expertise. Which is fine by me. You never read about major lay offs at Valve each time they release a new game like almost every other developer out there. They keep the same pool of talent and take on new projects and still remain profitable.

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      October 18, 2011 10:35 PM

      Meh as long as their games are excellent (they usually are) i don't mind.

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      October 18, 2011 11:48 PM

      Source is a bit long in the tooth. I'm surprised you guys are giving them a free pass. They are considered the bastion of PC gaming yet have one of the most dated engines out there. With all the constant clamoring for games that push the hardware envelope, Source runs just fine on my 6 year old laptop.

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        October 18, 2011 11:52 PM

        It's cause the games look good. The "how" doesn't matter so much then

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          October 19, 2011 12:37 AM

          still hardly any games with faces that look as realistic as source. I think it's the eyes

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        October 19, 2011 12:40 AM

        you say dated, i say more advanced than most with their cinematic effects like vignetting and their facial animation is second to none.

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        October 19, 2011 12:58 AM

        My only technical beef with source is the lack of streaming and segmented map loads. It seems to be getting worse as time goes on if Portal 2 is any indication. It's quite bothersome in the HL2 and Portal games because they are set up to be continuous experiences, while many other games with separate level loads and breaks aren't.

        Aside from that, the engine is fine. Runs well, feels solid, still looks really good thanks to artists and animators.

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        October 19, 2011 2:43 AM

        The engine has been updated with almost every new game that uses it. A lot has changed since HL2 came out, and people don't really care that Valve haven't given it a new name or rewritten the entire thing because the games they make with it are still fucking amazing.

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      October 19, 2011 2:03 AM

      Funny. I remember when the first screenshots of HL2 came out and I thought "holy shit that looks awesome".

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      October 19, 2011 8:26 PM

      Why is this news? Right from the very beginning they explained how Source engine was designed in a modular way from the ground up so that they could update parts and keep it current for a very, very long time. They don't need to create Source 2 unless there is a major paradigm shift required (though arguably a MegaTexture style tech may require such a paradigm shift to allow for complete custom texturing of the world).

      Their stated goal was to avoid having to develop a new engine every few years. And that is exactly what they achieved. The first notable example was probably when they released the HL2 Lost Coast level where they updated the renderer to add HDR lighting tech, and also added the commentary system. Since then there have been many changes and Source engine games of 2011 like Portal 2, look a lot different to HL2 in 2004.

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      October 23, 2011 2:30 PM

      Source is old and it shows. Frostbite and CryEngine 2 deliver better graphics. Valve should be working on source succesor and left game developing to trird parties for now....

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