Counter-Strike Betas (From Beta 1.0 to Beta 6.2)
The earliest versions of Counter-Strike use an older version of the Half-Life SDK (known as HLSDK 1.X) that are incompatible with the current releases of Half-Life, thus requiring an older release of the game in order to play them.
Currently, we do not host any Counter-Strike beta server. This post here is only for preservation purposes.
We are also using Half-Life version 1.0.1.6 as it is the latest version that supports the first version of the HLSDK before VALVe breaks compatibility with these older mods. You can read their liblist.gam files to have an idea of what version of Half-Life 1 they were targeting.
Requirements
- Having a retail CD-Key of Half-Life 1.
Installation Guide
- Install Half-Life 1 (Retail).
- Patch your game to version 1.0.1.6 as well as this fix.
- Download the releases of Counter-Strike you desire below, in the root folder of Half-Life.
- If you did it right, you should see your mods in the Custom game category within the Half-Life 1 menu.
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Alternatively, you can download this archive on MEGA which contains Half-Life 1 already patched to this version, as well as containing all major builds of Counter-Strike (Beta 1.1, 2.1, 3.1, 4.1, 5.2, 6.1).
Versions of Counter-Strike's betas supported in HL 1.0.1.6
This table is adapted from the CounterStrike Betas repository on Github.
| Version | Release Date | Windows? | Hostable on Linux? | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beta 6.2 | March 26, 2000 |
❌ | ❌ | MISSING |
| Beta 6.1 | March 24, 2000 |
✔ | ✔ | Download |
| Beta 6.0 | March 10, 2000 |
✔ | ✔ | Download |
| Beta 5.2 | January 10, 2000 |
✔ | ✔ | Download |
| Beta 5.0 | December 23, 1999 |
✔ | ✔ | Download |
| Beta 4.1 | December 1, 1999 |
✔ | ❌ | Download |
| Beta 4.0 | November 5, 1999 |
✔ | ✔ | Download |
| Beta 3.1 | September 16, 1999 |
✔ | ✔ | Download |
| Beta 3.0 | September 14, 1999 |
✔ | ❌ | Download |
| Beta 2.1 | August 17, 1999 |
✔ | ❌ | Download |
| Beta 2.0 | August 13, 1999 |
✔ | ❌ | Download |
| Beta 1.2 | July 20, 1999 |
❌ | ❌ | MISSING |
| Beta 1.1 | June 27, 1999 |
✔ | ❌ | Download |
| Beta 1.0 | June 19, 1999 |
✔ | ❌ | Download |
Create a Server
Using Docker
Not all versions are supported as many Linux binaries are missing!
You can create a server using Docker by using my GitHub project.
Using Windows
Please note this section is incomplete.
Reasons:
- Misses the sw.dll binary patch that bypass WON authentication.
If you desire hosting a server that no Linux binaries are provided, the only way is to use Windows to create a server. You can create a batch to automate that (see example below)
Batch example: Hosting a CS Beta 1.1 server on cs_assault, using port 27015 (the default one) with a maximum of 16 players:
set MAXPLAYERS=16 set PORT=27015 set GAME=cstrk11 set MAP=cs_assault start hlds.exe -game %GAME% +maxplayers %MAXPLAYERS% +map %MAP%