How to Install Half-Life 2 on Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi

I recently installed Half Life 2 on the Raspberry Pi and the response was super great!

More than 25,000 of you tuned in and you can find that video here:

In this how to guide, we’ll explore how to install Half-Life 2 on your own Pi, with step-by-step instructions and a deep-dive on the graphics settings you need to boost performance.

What You Need

To get started you need:

  • A Raspberry Pi (Pi 5 is best) with Ubuntu installed
  • A copy of Half-Life 2 (e.g. from Steam)

Step 1. Install Build Tools

Open up the Ubuntu terminal and type the following to install the necessary build tools:

sudo apt-get install build-essential gcc-multilib g++-multilib pkg-config ccache

Step 2. Install Dev Libraries

Next, we need to add our dev libraries:

sudo apt-get install libsdl2-dev libfontconfig1-dev libopenal-dev libjpeg-dev libpng-dev libcurl4-gnutls-dev libbz2-dev libedit-dev

Step 3. Download Source Engine Code

Run the following command to download the Source Engine source code to the source-engine directory:

git clone https://github.com/nillerusr/source-engine.git --recursive

Then navigate to the downloaded files with cd source-engine.

Step 4. Configure the Build

Type the following to configure your Source Engine build for Half-Life 2:

python3 ./waf configure -T release --prefix=hl2 --build-games=hl2 --disable-warns

As a side note, we can also configure with different parameters to build other Source Engine games (see “Other Source Engine Games” below).

Step 5. Build Half-Life 2

With that done, we’re ready to build Half-Life 2 with:

python3 ./waf build -p -v

This will take some time on the Pi’s power-sipping CPU. Be prepared to wait!

Step 6. Install Binaries

Once the build is done, run the following to install Half-Life 2 to the hl2 directory:

python3 ./waf install

You should now have an hl2 folder with the hl2-launcher executable inside. Navigate and check this with:

cd hl2
ls

Copy Game Assets

Last but not least, we need to copy the Half-Life 2 assets to the Pi.

From your Steam PC, download Half-Life 2. In your Steam library, right click on the Half-Life 2 entry and select Manage, Browse local files.

This will show us the location of the Half-Life 2 assets. They’re normally located in /Users/USERNAME/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/common/Half-Life 2).

Use a USB stick or network file transfer to copy the hl2 and platform folders to the newly created hl2 directory on your Pi.

You might be prompted to merge files. Press Yes and once you’re done, the hl2 directory should look like this:

Run Half-Life 2

You’re ready to play! Back in the Raspberry Pi terminal, type the following to launch Half-Life 2:

./hl2-launcher

Enjoy!

Other Source Engine Games

These instructions are for building Half-Life 2, but you can also build other Source Engine games with the following parameters:

  • hl1 = Half-Life 1: Source
  • hl2 = Half-Life 2
  • episodic = Half-Life 2 Episode 1 and 2
  • hl2mp = Half-Life 2: Deathmatch
  • dod = Day of Defeat
  • cstrike = Counter-Strike: Source
  • portal = Portal

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