If you’re a hardcore CS fan or just happened to have played the game since the recent compulsory update to the Steam client, you will have noticed the ingame ads on the scoreboard and in maps such as de_dust2 and de_aztec. So what’s the big deal? It’s just the usual story: Company has popular game. Company wants to make more money. Company places ads in popular game. Company makes revenue. Unfortunately, these ads make the game look ugly and annoy those people who want to simply play the game. The ads can be viewed at CS-Nation via these links.
So the question is raised: how do you remove these damn advertisements? Well, after doing a little bit of googling, I stumbled upon a .rar archive on Rapidshare. The archive simply contains copies of the game files before the Steam compulsory update. It is legal as of now (March 2007) so I have hosted the .rar archive here for you to combat corporate gain and take back your gaming experience.
Download The File - 828kb, includes readme
RapidShare Mirror
Here’s what a certain individual had to say about this patch in regards to a VAC Ban:
“The only ‘modified’ file is iga.dat, where i made a 1-character hex edit. This file could not actually be used for any cheating purposes, and since it’s such a new addition to CS, there are no cheats which make use of it for any exploitable purposes and VAC therefore doesn’t check it.
As for the rest of the files, they’re all resfiles (effectively a skin/gui - you’re not banned for that.) and client content from the last working version. VAC really shouldn’t detect VALVE’s own (albeit old) content as cheats. Besides, many users may have steam set to not update their games, and play with the old content in any case. VALVE won’t ban them for such a scenario. They bought the game, and therefore can choose whether or not they wish to keep it updated or not.
In essence, this patch simply ‘forces’ CS to use content from before the update, which is perfectly legal, since you bought the game and can choose whether or not to update it.
NOTE
I will not be held responsible for any damage done to your computer or your Steam Account through using this patch, or anything you may do with the patch as I am not the creator of the patch. You are free to redistribute the patch. I am only posting this for your educational use.
Shame on Valve for stooping to EA’s level.
There was a post on Digg with a rar archive containing files not exactly the same as the provided rar archive in this post which has been reported on Digg as not working through user comments
My conclusion: gg valve.
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Edits
#1 As if we didn’t see this coming. Today there was an update to the Half Life 1 engine (which includes Counter-Strike 1.6) which is described in Valve News here. The update simply says: “Fixed loading outdated client dlls”. If you downloaded the patch, you will see it contained a patched client.dll. I just launched my CS client and what do you know? The stupid fucking ads are back. The ad is no longer on the top of the scoreboard although the game has loaded a new client.dll so the spacing of the text in the scoreboard is configured for the new ‘crap’ scoreboard which is wider, so you can no longer see your deaths or ping, only your kills. Looks like this ones going to be an uphill battle with Valve, so until someone comes up with a new method you’re going to need to bear with the ads. I’ll keep you posted if I find an update.
#2 For now you can removed the ingame ads using the cvar gl_polyoffset -999. It will remove all the advertising decals from the affected maps, but you will have to deal with the ads on the scoreboard and the crap scoreboard width. For now thats the best option available.
#3 If you’re too lazy to scroll a few lines, all updates by fragtion to his patch will be posted at this link: cs.rin.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?t=44349 when they become available.
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