[HOW TO] Make any game standalone
- Credit goes to ChrisTX
First of all: What is a standalone and when should I use one?
If you know that already, skip that and continue with the next paragraph. A standalone is a version of a Steam game running without any installation, without Steam and therefore also offline and without any kind of a launcher. Basically, a standalone converts your Steam game in a normal game, the game's folder will afterwards also look similar to a normal cracked game. The disadvantage of standalones are that they can't share the files between each other as they'd share if they were be in a GCF.
Therefore you should use a standalone when you want to play only few Steam games. If you want to play different games with different engines, you should get a launcher like UCL or SB ReV .
However, if you like to play Portal for example and only Portal, a standalone could be the best for your needs.
But in case you like to play for example HL2, DoD:S, CS:S, Portal and TF2 a standalone is a bad choice.
So how do I create a standalone?
If you want to create a standalone of a Steam game, you'll first have to get the files of this game. What files you exactly need for your game can be looked up in this thread or use CFToolbox.
Some of those games can be downloaded through cracked Steam (In this thread you'll find a list of them), you can get all the others through CS RIN's
Steam Content Sharing section.
If you own the content of the game already, check if they're up to date (you can do so with CFToolbox).
1. Get the game's files- After acquiring the content of the game (GCFs or the NCFs plus the files in the 'common' folder), you'll have to extract the GCFs in a new folder. NCFs are already extracted; you just need to copy the common folder.
- Open the path to your GCFs/NCFs in CFToolbox and validate all of them. If they're not valid or if they're outdated, correct them and continue download or (with most file necessary) request updates for them first here. However in the end all your contents should be valid.
- For GCF-based games (any HL1/GoldSrc, Source game and some others) you have to extract all files, so the game's folder looks like a normal game with many files and folders and without GCFs.
To do so, get a GCF extractor first, like GCFScape or GCFExplorer.
Then extract the GCFs needed for the game you want to make standalone of in a new folder. Checkout which GCFs you need with CFToolbox
When extracting pay attention to the following things (listed by game/game type):- :arrow: Condition Zero
Extract the CZ GCFs after the ones from 1.6!
:arrow: Any HL1 (GoldSrc) based games
Extract platform.gcf to \platform in this new folder.
:arrow: Half-Life Source/Half-Life Source DM
Don't extract base source engine 2.gcf!
:arrow: Any other Source based games
Extract source engine.gcf before base source engine 2.gcf!
:arrow: Any Source 2007 based games (currently: Garry's Mod, Portal, Episode 2, Team Fortress 2)
Extract only source 2007 binaries.gcf, not the base source engine 2.gcf or source engine.gcf.
:arrow: Garry's Mod/Any Source Engine Mod
Extract source sdk base.gcf, which is needed for mods.
- :arrow: Condition Zero
- There are several emulators, at the moment only SteamEmu, rev-emu and rev-launcher are up to date.
For VALVe games I recommend you to use rev-emu, for 3rd party Steam games REVOLUTiON Loader. However SteamEmu which is currently a bit out of date is also listened here. Furthermore for Steam games ported from DOS there's a special method listened here.- 2.1 REVOLUTiON Emulator (rev-emu) (VALVe games only; only Emulator that support x64 HL2 & Lost Coast) *RECOMMENDED*
- Get the REVOLUTiON Emulator first (the non-GCF version). If you're working on a Half-Life engine game, extract all the files to the base directory, else if you're making a standalone out of a Source game, extract steam.dll and steamclient.dll in the 'bin'-directory and the rev.ini in the base directory.
In case you want to make a HL2 / Lost Coast 64bit standalone, use the Steam.dll of the x64 directory inside the archive.
If you want to create a standalone for a dedicated server, don't extract SteamClient.dll and set in rev.ini SteamClient value to false.
Now open up the rev.ini and set the desired player name there.
- Extract the REVOLUTiON Loader to your folder containing your standalone. Then copy the normal unpatched Steam.dll in the same folder (install Steam to get it or ask someone). Lastly open up rev.ini and change the 'ProcName' value to the executable name of your game. Then use the loader to launch the game.
- The DOS games on Steam are running over the DOS emulator DOS Box. The protection for the game is in DOSBox.exe and not the game's executable, as Steam.dll is a Windows DLL.
Thus a simple replacement of the modified DOSBox.exe with the original one removes the Steam dependency.
So first get the original DOSBox and install it. Then open the directory where you installed DOSBox to. Copy the DOSBox.exe there in the 'base'-directory and affirm the question if you want to replace it.
- 2.4.1 Get SteamEmu & install it
- You'll have to make the game non-Steam. First get SteamEmu 3.83
As you've got SteamEmu extract it in the game's folder or for any source game in the \bin folder.
- Next you'll have to create the emulator's config: Just create a new file called SteamEmu.ini with notepad in the game's directory and paste the following content into it:
Code:[Emulator] Extracted=1
- Copy steamclient.dll from Steam (It doesn't matter if it's cracked/uncracked Steam) and copy it in the game's base directory (the directory where the game's executable is).
- If you have a Source based game you'll now have to crack the engine.dll with ViTYAN's Universal Patcher (VUP).
Note: Don't use VUP for Source Engine 1 based games like HL Source, their engine.dll isn't supported. If you want to setup a HL Source DM server, you may try other patches/cracks in the thread linked above.
To apply VUP do the following:
Download this vupwrap.rar. Extract the archive, then simply copy the VUP binary to the root folder (hl2.exe or srcds.exe are in there) of the game/dedicated server you want to patch. (NOTE: On 32-bit Windows you can only use vup86.exe, on 64-bit Windows you can use either vup64.exe (optimized and faster), but also vup86.exe). Afterwards, just run the batch, it will do the rest of the patching automatically.
- You'll have to make the game non-Steam. First get SteamEmu 3.83
- Get the REVOLUTiON Emulator first (the non-GCF version). If you're working on a Half-Life engine game, extract all the files to the base directory, else if you're making a standalone out of a Source game, extract steam.dll and steamclient.dll in the 'bin'-directory and the rev.ini in the base directory.
- 2.1 REVOLUTiON Emulator (rev-emu) (VALVe games only; only Emulator that support x64 HL2 & Lost Coast) *RECOMMENDED*
- Now you'll have to create a shortcut to the game: enter as target the game's executable: it's hl.exe for HL1 based games and hl2.exe for Source based ones. If it's HL1 engine based or Source you'll have to add some parameters (to do that: create a shortcut; then right-click it -> properties and add to the target box those lines):
- :arrow: HL1-Engine (GoldSrc) based game
hl.exe -steam -nomaster -game GAMEDIR
:arrow: Any Source Engine based game
hl2.exe -steam -game GAMEDIR
:arrow: Any other game
nothing, just a normal shortcut
- :arrow: Example: CS 1.6
hl.exe -steam -nomaster -game cstrike
:arrow: Example: TF2 (NOTE: The folder is tf, though the game's TF2)
hl2.exe -steam -game tf
NOTE: If you want to enable console add -console to parameters (in hl1 you can open the console also without that, but in source it's necessary). it should look then something around this:- :arrow: HL1-Engine (GoldSrc) based game with console
hl.exe -steam -nomaster -game GAMEDIR -console
:arrow: Any Source Engine based game with console
hl2.exe -steam -game GAMEDIR -console
That should be all, if it's working by now then you're done.
NOTE: If you like to release your standalone, please add credits to all people's whom releases you needed, like hCUPa for SteamEmu/REVOLUTiON for rev-emu, ViTYAN for his server cracks and so on. Thank you. - :arrow: HL1-Engine (GoldSrc) based game
- :arrow: I have this problem: Application load error (0x03); what can I do?
This error occurs with some games that check for digital signatures on steam.dll. To resolve this, use rev-loader as crack or get a No-CD/DVD crack for your game at sites like GameBurnWorld or GameCopyWorld.
:arrow: Can I put multiple games in one folder?
Yes, you can if all those games have the same engine. You can't extract HL2 and GMod in one folder as GMod is a Source 2007 based game.
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