sourcethreadfix: A C repository from mikesmiffy128

══════ Source Thread Fix ══════

This builds a wrapper executable to fix a bug present in old versions of various
Source games wherein having too many CPU threads available will cause a crash.

It supports Windows only; I don’t know whether this is also an issue on any
Linux game build but I’ll cross that bridge if anyone ever reports a problem.
This tool was originally created because some Left 4 Dead 2 runners have
high-end Ryzens and such with very high core counts, and were essentially unable
to play without a fix.

NOTE: Please read and understand LICENCE before redistributing this software!

════ Compiling ════

• Install the Windows 10 SDK and MSVC toolset via the Visual Studio Installer
  (if you don’t care what else gets installed, installing the C++ Desktop
  workload should be fine).
• Install native Clang from https://clang.llvm.org (NOT MinGW/MSYS2 Clang!).
• Run compile.bat.

You might be able to use MSVC instead of Clang for this but I didn’t bother
trying to find out.

════ Usage ════

The default build output is hl2.wrap.exe, which will wrap a neighbouring
hl2.exe. In the likely event that your game binary has a different name, just
match that; for example call it left4dead2.wrap.exe to wrap Left 4 Dead 2.

Then, in whatever script or shortcut you use to invoke your game binary, simply
invoke the wrapper instead. It will automatically find the original binary
beside itself and start it up with the necessary hook in place to fix the bug.

IMPORTANT: The wrapper forcibly passes -insecure to every game it wraps, to
reduce the risk of a VAC ban. Even then, do NOT join any servers that were not
also started in insecure mode, or (particularly with older game versions) you
might still be at risk of getting banned even with -insecure set on your end.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Lastly, note that if you don’t have more than 24 threads, this thing won’t
exactly do anything useful, so if you’re bundling this into an old version of
a game for speedrunning or other purposes, consider having the launch script
first check the core count and bypass this if it’s unnecessary. It doesn’t
really matter a huge deal, but you might as well.

Thanks, and have fun!
- Michael Smith <mikesmiffy128@gmail.com>
mikesmiffy128/sourcethreadfix
