Porting Goldsrc maps to Source

Before you start #

Porting maps from Goldsrc to Source is not easy. Depending on the complexity of the map, be prepared to invest anywhere from 3 to 50+ hours into a single port. Prior experience with Valve’s Hammer Editor is helpful, however porting maps is entirely doable without ever having used Hammer before.

This guide was primarily written in July of 2025. There is a small number of people who occasionally work on tools for the GoldSrc porting process, so depending on when you are reading this there may be some new ways to make the process easier. Search the web or ask in the Momentum Mod discord and you might find something useful.

Porting Quake 3 maps to Source

Before you start, you should know that maps with simple geometry work best for porting. Complex geometry can cause invalid solids as vertices tend to shift around if they are off grid, and you will be forced to recreate a lot of the brushes manually. Patches and props cannot be ported across either, so choose maps without those or you will have to spend a lot of time manually replacing them in Hammer.