You have to keep in mind that the Direct3D version has a lot more technologies behind it, even if the game was launched in 2004. The second game in the series had only Direct3D and OpenGL support, and it took Valve almost six years to port it for Linux.Īs it can be easily observed from the screenshots below, the differences between the two versions can be barely distinguished. The first Half-Life had support for Direct3D, OpenGL, and Software (the rendering was done strictly by the processor). It needed a powerful computer to enable all the options and it remained a standard for long while.
The game is built on the Source engine and, at the time of the original launch, it was a very demanding title. The heavy hitters from their catalog, Half-Life 2 and the two episodes, took some doing from Valve's part. Valve released their Steam for Linux client for quite some time now, and some of their titles have been ported for the open source platform. We have put together a small comparison screenshot tour between the Linux and the Windows versions of the game.
It has recently been ported on the Linux platform. Half-Life 2 is a first-person shooter developed by Valve that was released back in 2004.
