August 18, 2004 - Gabe Newell posted to the HL2 Fallout boards an update on today's Counter-Strike: Source beta release and word of when the Half-Life 2 pre-load begins for those who pre-order the game from Valve or hold the ATI coupon voucher. Here's the juice:

Quick update:
- ATI/CZ users will get turned on later tonight for the CS: Source test
- An update will be out today as well. This is largish (~60 MB).
- The size of the update is due to the Video Stress Test it includes. You'll be able to do some initial performance analysis using this test and report the data back to a central server. The results of the VST will be posted on Steampowered.com.
- HL/2 pre-load will begin tomorrow. It was ready yesterday, but we decided to use the bandwidth to get out the VST first since I get pelted with zillions of questions from people asking how their PC will run Half-Life 2