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What is Cinematic Mod?

Cinematic Mod (CM) is a Half-Life 2 modification, that adds more details and a darker look to the original Half-Life 2 series.

Purpose of Cinematic Mod

  • Raise the quite outdated graphical appearance to a state-of-the-art level
  • Give the HL2 trilogy a more stressed, darker and minatory look
  • Complement the atmosphere with an emotional cinematic music soundtrack, that fits the action on the screen
  • Replace the low-resolution textures with high resolution counterparts and more detailed environments (hires melons!)
  • Complement the storyline with the unused content from the original games
  • Refresh the look and feel with optional new HD models
  • Add more replay value

Requirements for Cinematic Mod

Half-Life 2 software

  • CM version 1 & 2: Half-Life 2 installed and unlocked
  • CM version 3 & 4: Half-Life 2 + Episode 1 installed and unlocked
  • CM version 5 and later: Half-Life 2 + Episode 1 & 2 installed and unlocked
  • Fully installed and updated Steam client

Unlocked means you already started this game, so the game folders etc are already created.

Operation System

  • CM version 1 to 4: Win XP / Vista / 7 x86 (32bit)
  • CM version 5 and later: Win XP / Vista / 7 x64 (64bit)

Version 9 and later features basic versions without additional HD textures, which may run on 32 bit Windows, but this is untested.

Hardware

The latest versions require a fast pc, with:

  • a DX9 capable graphics card with minimum 512 MB VRAM. (1 GB recommended)
  • at least 3 GB RAM
  • a fast dual-core processor or better

Conclusion

The later Cinematic Mod versions need a 64 Bit Windows OS, because the Source-Engine was never designed for >2GB data in a 32 Bit environment, failing (= crashing) on the 2 GB per application limit on such systems. They also need the full Orange Box pack (HL2 + EP1 + EP2) installed and unlocked, because they use stuff from all episodes.

Future plans for the Cinematic Mod

What FakeFactory wants to add in the next versions of the Cinematic Mod:

  • Unified gameplay: HL2 -EP1-EP2-EP3 in one big continuous game with the latest engine.
  • A really-close-to-original HD-Alyx (tried that a million times, but was never satisfied with the results)
  • Full 32Bit support (this depends on the EP3-engine. I have some hopes, VALVE will update the engine for 32Bit-save memory handling with large amount of data)