Hey, we're planning to push the next Garry's Mod update next week on 2017-07-10. There's quite a lot of changes, so if you're running a server you'll probably want to at least try it out. The update may not look like much, but I'm hoping that these internal changes are going to help us bring some more interesting updates in the future.

Pre-release Steam Branch

The Pre-Release Steam branch for Garry's Mod has been updated and contains all the changes that will be included in the next update. It is backwards compatible with the current version of the game, so if you are using it you'll still be able to connect to servers that haven't updated. There will be instructions at the bottom of this post on how to join the Pre-Release branch.

Changelog

[quote] Windows builds of the game now use the Visual Studio 2017 C++ Runtime. This should hopefully not affect anybody, but could perhaps break some third-party binary modules. Linux builds of the game now depend on GLIBCXX 3.4.19. You may run in to some issues if your server's C++ runtime is a decade out of date. Steam should handle this for you if you're just playing the game.

Game Changes

NEW - Preset support for Utilities menus NEW - 'Quick Preset' button - allows for easier access to the preset system UPDATED - Weapons no longer turn upside-down when zooming in too far UPDATED - Improved support for CS:GO/Portal 2/TF2 maps UPDATED - Game returns to DirectX 9 mode if '-dxlevel' is not specified in the command-line UPDATED - Improved relationships between Half-Life and Half-Life 2 NPCs UPDATED - Demos, saves, and duplications menus can now list items that the user is subscribed to UPDATED - Addons menu can now manage multiple addons at once (e.g. bulk unsubscribing) UPDATED - Improved behaviour of collisions between players and 'no collided' entities created by tools FIXED - Odessa no longer has female voices FIXED - Fixed errors caused by the spawn menu's search feature not having access to certain directories FIXED - Fixed many crashes related to NPCs trying to use non-existent entities FIXED - Checkboxes and ratio buttons in HTML panels are now displayed properly on Linux/macOS FIXED - Half-Life Icthyosaur can now cause damage FIXED - Half-Life Tentacle NPC no longer continues playing sounds after being removed

Lua API Changes

NEW - Entity:PhysicsInitStatic( ... ) NEW - Entity:RemoveCallback( ... ) NEW - Entity:GetCallbacks( ... ) NEW - CLuaEmitter::IsValid( ... ) UPDATED - Entity:PhysicsInit* methods now return either true or false based on success UPDATED - Entity:Remove() can no longer remove the world UPDATED - Weapon:IsScripted() will now return false instead of no value when ran on non-scripted weapons UPDATED - Player:Give( ... ) no longer fills a player's gun with ammo when asked to not give ammo to players UPDATED - Entity:GetBoneCount() and Entity:GetBoneParent( ... ) will now return -1 on failure UPDATED - Entity:TranslateBoneToPhysBone( ... ) will now return -1 on failure UPDATED - Entity:SetSaveValue( ... ) now returns false on failure UPDATED - Entity:DispatchTraceAttack( ... ) will now trigger an error when passed invalid parameters UPDATED - Entity:HasBoneManipulations() and Entity:HasFlexManipulatior() return false on failure UPDATED - Entity:GetBrushPlaneCount() will now return false on failure UPDATED - Entity:GetFlexScale( ... ) now always returns 1 on failure, rather than just sometimes FIXED - Entity:GetBrushPlaneCount() and Entity:GetBrushPlane( ... ) now work on brush entities FIXED - PathFollower:Compute() no longer leaks Lua references

Hammer Changes

UPDATED - Improved performance of 2D/3D views UPDATED - 2D views are now rendered during scroll operations, rather than after UPDATED - Increased max render distance from 10,000 to 32,000 UPDATED - Vertices no longer need to be in the exact same location to be merged FIXED - Blended textures are now rendered correctly - it should be identical to in-game FIXED - Model browser no longer freezes after being opened multiple times FIXED - Overlays no longer flicker when rendered in 3D shaded mode FIXED - Scrollbars on 2D views are now correctly sized when zoomed in

Other Stuff

NEW - The '-notty' startup parameter on Linux servers will send console output directly to stdout UPDATED - Added more information to crash dumps (.mdmp files) UPDATED - r_eyes_* console variables are no longer saved UPDATED - Explosion effect no longer creates sounds - this doesn't mean that explosions are silent UPDATED - Bots can no longer be created before the InitPostEntity hook has ran UPDATED - Improved how serverside ragdolls are handled on the client - hull traces can hit them now FIXED - Fixed crash that occurs when console variables created by Lua are removed too early on level change FIXED - Fixed late loading of memory allocator on Linux causing the game to crash for some people FIXED - Impulse 200 command no longer crashes when the player has no active weapon FIXED - Fixed prediction errors when firing weapon_357 FIXED - weapon_357 now has the 'revolver' holdtype [/quote]

How to Switch Between Branches

[quote] [olist]

Exit the game

Right click on Garry's Mod in Steam and select Properties

Go to the Betas tab and select your desired branch [/olist] None - This is the normal version of the game Pre-Release - This is the next update Dev - This is a bleeding edge version of the game, expect it to contain more bugs than usual [/quote] If you want to set up an SRCDS instance using the Pre-Release branch, see this article: https://wiki.garrysmod.com/page/Hosting_A_Dedicated_Server.