The Steam News Page offers word on the release of Half-Life 2, Source Engine and Source Dedicated Server updates (thanks Frans). The update includes some performance improvements, including tweaks for writing out save games and thumbnail images that will reduce autosave and quicksave pauses in Half-Life 2, as well as increased cache memory usage for machines that have greater than 512MB of physical memory and an optimized sound cache manager, each of which will reduce sound cache thrashing hitches.