Post #1552888
2025-11-21 21:53 UTC
OK cool now we can ship the game phew. But why did this EVER work? The guard's toe was in the way in the original version as well. As I say, we went back in time and compiled the original as-shipped source code - and the bug happened there as well. It's always been there. Why didn't the door slam closed again? How did this ever ship in the first place?
Replies (3)
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@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place 2025-11-21 21:53
So this kicked off an even longer bug-hunt. The answer was (as with so many of my stories) good old floating point. Half Life 2 was originally shipped in 2004, and although the SSE instruction set existed, it wasn't yet ubiquitous, so most of HL2 was compiled to use the older 8087 or x87 maths instruction set. That has a wacky grab-bag of precisions - some things are 32-bit, some are 64-bit, some are 80-bit, and exactly which precision you get in which bits of code is somewhat arcane.
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@vikxin@beach.city 2025-11-21 22:43
@TomF at this point in the story every cell in my body screamed x87 ahaha
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@bumbervevo@easymode.im 2025-11-21 23:34
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place HL2 confirmed to be haunted. You woke the ghost from its slumber and now it's stuck in VR lol