Summary
- ReactOS can now run Half-Life 2. This news comes 30 days after the team behind the OS got Half-Life running.
- The game seems to play smoothly on a GTX 960 using Nvidia 368.1 legacy driver and Sound Blaster Audigy drivers.
- ReactOS has been in development for two decades, but it’s still considered to be in an alpha state.
Just a month ago, ReactOS, an open-source Windows effort, got Half-Life up and running, and only 30 days later the operating system is now compatible with Half-Life 2 (via Phoronix).
Back in early June, the team behind ReactOS revealed Windows software game/app and driver binary compatibility with Half-Life running on an Intel Sandy Bridge-era desktop with Nvidia GeForce 8400GS GPU. Fast-forward a few weeks, and ReactOS has shown off Half-Life 2 running on the operating system on a PC powered by a GeForce GTX 960 GPU with Nvidia’s 368.1 legacy Windows driver, alongside Creative Sound Blaster Audigy Windows drivers. The project comes courtesy of @AotorHibiki (check out the video of the game in action below).
Valve’s FPS seems to run great on ReactOS
This is the second time Half-Life 2 has popped up in the news recently
Based on the YouTube video of the 21-year-old game in action, it seems to run very smoothly on the Windows binary-compatible alternative OS. For those who are unaware, ReactOS is a free, open-source operating system designed to work with Windows drivers and software without requiring you to use Microsoft’s operating system.
It’s an effort to build a Windows-compatible OS from scratch that isn’t based on Linux or tied directly to Microsoft’s code. It also aims to natively implement Windows NT architecture. ReactOS is still officially in alpha after roughly 28 years of development, which even by open-source OS standards, is a really long time.
Earlier this month, we reported that Half-Life 2 is now playable in a browser thanks to a three-month project from a teenager. The browser-based version of the first-person shooter is based on the code that powered a similar browser-based port of Portal.
