Background Information:
Edicts are slots for entities. If too many entities are spawned and the limit has been reached, the server will crash with the Error message "No free edicts". There have been various discussions on how to fix this, for example by setting maxplayers to 32 because every new player-slot gives 15 additional edict-slots, while setting sv_visiblemaxslots to whatever you want to have as maximum.
Somewhen in 2004 the Valve Developer Alfred Reynold added a command line to HL 1 which
allows to increase the default amount of edicts from 900 to anything you want! The problem is,
that noone got ever informed about it. The command line is "-num_edicts 4095" without the quotes
and that will change it to the max number of entities that any mod could use!!
You set it up like this:
-> Steam Games List
-> Right click on any goldsource modification
-> Properties
-> Set launch options
-> Write "-num_edicts 4095" there, without the quotes. The number may vary.
-> Close both windows with the Ok button
-> Start your game and spam entities
The final edict-count is maxplayers * 15 + the number you specified, if it is 900 or larger.
I found out about it here!
It works like a charm!
IT NOW IS IMPORTANT THAT EVERY SERVER HOSTER GETS INFORMED ABOUT THIS!!
ONLY THAT WAY FUTURE HIGH FIDELITY MAPS WILL RUN PROPERLY!!
Also if you want to fix it in Steam and WON versions of Half-life try this:
You should put this in liblist.gam (just edit it with notepad and add this, and done):
commandargs "-num_edicts 4095"
liblist.gam:
edicts "4095"
But usually "2048" is optimal and widely used in mods with detailed maps.
"x" is not infinite number in the engine, 4096 is kind of maximum quantity of entities that can be handled. And most of existing maps (even very large ones) do not have more than 2048 entities.
Also -num_edicts support was added only in Steam versions of the game and most likely will do nothing in WON, if I remember correctly.