Written By Tom "Hucky" Fairbairn
12 May, 2010 07:27 PM

UPDATE: If you have TF2 installed, THIS GUIDE has been confirmed to work in getting the beta running.

SO, WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH BETA?

As many of you already know, Valve released a closed beta update to Counter Strike: Source on May 8th and have since extended the availability to public closed beta. Luckily for us the dedicated and knowledgeable Josh "numky" Garden snapped up a copy and has taken the time to explore some of the modifications and additions present in the beta. Through Josh's extensive knowledge of the Source engine and with some additional comments from TotalEclipse, we hope to deliver a more competitively minded analysis of the beta changes in this article.

To clear up a common misconception before we get into the interesting stuff, this update will be applied to your CS: Source installation automatically once it comes out of beta. This means that it will replace the current version of Source that we all know and love today.

BETA ACCESS

Close all running Steam games, then CLICK HERE (only works if you own CS Source already). This will not give you a working version of the game, but it will preload it for immediate availability once more beta slots become available.

GAMEPLAY CHANGES

There are a lot of things you can't do in the Beta that you can do in the current version of Source. There are also tons of new additions and changes that haven't been listed properly in the press releases.

Some things we've discovered:

- Various instances of clipping have been removed; for example, you can no longer sit on the ledge between upper and lower ramp on train.

- cl_interpolate no longer exists. This means no more getting killed when your opponent appears to be behind a wall on your screen.

- The crabwalking bug which occurs when a terrorist stops planting the bomb and moves around has not been fixed.

- The crouch bug is now fixed independently of ZBlock. This is a direct result of cl_interpolate being removed.

- When you enter a buy zone the game plays a notification sound.

- The bomb explosion animation has been vastly overhauled and a personalised "awards" display now appears at the end of the round. A screenshot incorporating both can be found here.

- The scoreboard has been changed to mimic the larger TF2 style scoreboard. Screenshots can be found here (empty scoreboard) and here (full scoreboard).

- Major changes have been made to the net_graph command. There are now 4 graphs; 1 is a basic text interface, whereas 2-4 all incorporate coloured visual representations of your in/out packets and several other statistics. Additionally, every time you hear a loudish sound or fire a gun a small marker appears when using net_graph 3 or 4. Screenshots; net_graph 1, net_graph 2, net_graph 3, net_graph 4

- A TF2 style killcam has been added; this means that when you die, the camera zooms in to the player that killed you and gives a profile of their player model with some statistics superimposed in a separate frame. This can be disabled in the Multiplayer section of the Options menu. A screenshot of the killcam in action can be found here.

- Ragdoll & death animations are different as a result of the new game engine. One of our contributors described them as being similar to ProMod animations...but better.

- Grenades now leave your player model higher up than in the current version. This will take a bit of getting used to for most people; most importantly, you'll need to relearn all of those smokes. Chewy and co might go out of business for a while!

- Many mat_, sv_ and r_ commands no longer exist. Most omitted commands are directly related to graphical changes resulting from switching to the new game engine.

- Several new Video options have been added, including a "Very High" setting for textures, a Bloom effect and multi-core rendering support. Screenshot here.

- All forms of sideways movement are much faster in the beta, although this is apparently due to the new acceleration variable being set incorrectly.

- You can now prevent your game from automatically downloading custom sounds via the Multiplayer tab in the Options menu.

- There's a debugging console that shows by default in the top left corner of the screen - this can be seen in most screenshots. Bug reporting also appears to be broken in the beta release.

- The server browser has been changed to mimic TF2's server browser. A screenshot can be found here.

- Your ingame name is now controlled by your Steam username; this means no more aliasing unless you want the same name to appear on your friends list.

- A joystick option has been added to the Mouse options menu...god knows why!

ACHIEVEMENTS & STATISTICS

Another key part of the beta update is the addition of TF2 style achievements, with a total of 144 being added to the beta. A full list is currently only available ingame, but we're working on getting one for your perusal as soon as possible. There's also a detailed statistics display available via the achievements menu, which shows stats for weapons, maps and various other categories.

THE NEW ENGINE

Perhaps most importantly, the Source Beta now uses the Orange Box game engine - the same engine used for games such as TF2 and Portal. The main additions present in the OB engine are multi-core rendering support and motion blur (screenie here) - a visual effect which holds great potential for moviemakers as well as those inclined to pimp their GPUs. These new features are clearly aimed at taking advantage of the latest gaming hardware, and are a timely respsonse to the current prevalence of dual core gaming systems.

With a new game engine inevitably comes major gameplay changes, and there hasn't yet been enough time to flesh these out. If you discover any effects of the new engine that we haven't mentioned here, please post them in the comments.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR US

TotalEclipse had this to say:

Speaking from a competitive perspective, the only things I can see becoming annoying are the killcam, death notices, scoreboard and achievements which now permeate gameplay mid-round. If Valve makes these removeable via cvar settings I think the overall effect of this beta update for the competitive community will be positive.

numk had this to say:

At first glace it mostly looks the same, but once you start moving around you notice that it feels a lot sharper than source and the shadows are much better. Interpolate is gone completely now and there's no more crouch bug by default. I think there's a lot more work that needs to be done on the netcode and recoil, as recoil seems pretty nonexistent in the beta. I think the patterens have changed slightly as well. Strafe speed is ridiculous, making it hard to bunnyhop - I hope this is a bug. I couldn't get onto the yellow container on nuke, or the ledge inside on train.

I think it's fixed a few competitive problems but added a lot more pub style gameplay as well. I hope with WarMod updates we can fix some of the new additions, as the engine itself is very nice and smooth. I find the deathcam, acheivements and new server browser (TF2 style) interesting but not very good for competitive Source. I think we'll see many more updates over time, as Valve appear to be working hard on this.

Hucky had this to say:

Although I haven't actually played the beta yet, I think there's one great thing which we can take out of this beta release. Valve are showing an interest in making changes to Source as a game - an amazing prospect for a game whose community has been thoroughly neglected over the years. The fact that the developers have removed interpolation and fixed a few exploits is fantastic. As long as the new scoreboard, killcam and other "pub features" can be reverted with cvars in the new update, I'm extremely optimistic about the implications for competitive play.

VIDEO REVIEWS

Many casual American gamers and others with beta access have produced basic video reviews of the new features. None are very complete or comprehensive; an extensive list can be found here.

CONCLUSION

It may seem bad on the surface, but we truly believe that this could be the start of a new era of competitive play for Source. How the community will respond to the changes remains to be seen; either way there are a lot of surprises in store for us in the near future :)

Massive shoutouts go to numk and TotalEclipse for their help with writing this article, and to vctm for the ticker image.