Black Mesa News

What's the half-life of Half-Life? By my reckoning, it seems we'll stop receiving updates to (one version or another of) Valve's classic roughly around the time Chernobyl becomes habitable again. Not only did the original game get a big ol' update last November, but now Black Mesa—its Valve-endorsed remake—has just put out a meaty list of fixes. It's calling it the "Necro patch" for reasons I'm not entirely clear on but am very enthusiastic about...
Read more.

Hello, fellow zombie scientist!

We’ve just released an update to Black Mesa. Our goal was to improve performance, improve controller support, and fix a number of issues, without breaking your save files.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/362890/Black_Mesa/

Here are the patch notes!

• Improved performance of the game (Vulkan, UI optimization, New Renderer/New Post Post Process Optimization)
  
• Fixed cases where game would crash on startup
  
• Fixed UI flickering and artifacting
  
• Fixed crash in the first map of Interloper that players were experiencing
  
• Improved controller support using Steam Input
• -Click here for detailed notes on adjusting controller support
  
• Fixed hitch when weapon decals are first applied to gun
  
• Re-enabled weapon decals by default

• Ported the game to DXVK 2.3.1 (first launch option)
  
• Performance enhancements have been implemented for the New Renderer and New Post-Process systems, particularly noticeable in scenes featuring water
  
• Fixed moss shaders and direction control for both vertex lit shader and skin shader (for props with/without phong)
  
• Fixed halflambert/warp/specwarp related problems across all the shaders
  
• Unlocked the even higher graphics setting in options menu
  
• The lighting quality settings in the New UI have been updated to reflect recent changes.
  
• Monitors and refract views can now leverage the New Renderer features
  
• God Rays support has been added for the sun and local lights
  
• -Note: God Rays are intentionally turned off for monitors and reflection views
  
• Improved the blending quality of normal maps within 4-way blending
  
• SpotLight cookies should now work on any orientation. Cookie sprite sheet no longer needs to be square.
  
• Black Mesa now requests high-performance power management on Windows, which should reduce power throttling impacting performance
  
• Implemented the ability to dump environment variables (-dumpenvironment launch option), assisting in resolving potential issues
  
• Lots of misc graphics fixes
  
• Disabled CPU-based backface culling for Func_Brush models
  
• Disabled CSM for viewmodels for secondary cameras
  
• Fixed flicker near Light Volume edges
  
• Fixed Xog artifacts with cheaper water

Controller support for Black Mesa has now been given the love and attention it has been seeking. Black Mesa now fully supports and integrates with Steam Input, allowing both us as developers and you as the community to create your own custom controller bindings and share them!

With Steam Input now implemented, we now have partial support the following devices:

• Xbox Controllers
  
• Playstation Controllers
  
• Nintendo Switch Pro Controllers
  
• We have also implemented proper Gyro support for Steam Deck!

To get started, simply navigate to the Steam Controller Layout configurator and select one of our official layouts and hit 'Apply Layout'.

Details on how to use it here.

• Modified the Game/UI rendering synchronization, aiming for stable UI presentation across all three available modes
  
• Updated the UI frame limiter logic to enhance the smoothness of frame pacing, which was particularly noticeable when vertical synchronization was active
  
• Improved performance by optimizing the texture lock implementation within the UI
  
• Resolved the issue where the UI occasionally failed to render at full size after resolution adjustments
  
• Fixed alpha blending of UI with background map
  
• Added a number of missing translators, including the 2012 mod translators (need to track down a list of who did what language)

• Interloper A crash fix
  
• Resolved the issue where the Tau Canon would crash upon the owner's demise
  
• Addressed a potential hang issue upon exiting the game
  
• A reflection bug involving Xen fog at extreme angles has been fixed
  
• Transparency issues in fake water have been resolved, and it now supports New Renderer, New Post-Process, and CSM
  
• Resolved outline artifacts present in alpha-tested materials
  
• Resolved an issue where view models were improperly identified within one shader, leading to lighting and shadow inconsistencies
  
• Fixed a bug related to the Diffuse Warp when using more than eight slots in the atlas
  
• Fixed a Workshop Client issue related to double initialization, which had the potential to cause crashes

• Alt-Tabbing while using Vulkan can sometimes crash the game
  
• Anti-virus can sometimes flag the game as malicious even though it is not (we’ll see what we can do about this)
  
• Minor UI overlap errors on some ultra wide monitors
  
• Some UI elements need localization

Next, we may look into more robust fixes that might break saves and switching over Linux support to Proton, but we don’t have a timeline for that.

Also, here is a sneak peak at what the HECU Collective has been up to with Black Mesa: Blue Shift. Check out their ModDB page and Discord for the latest news on their amazing work!





More to come. Thanks to our community for all the help testing and bug reporting! This went very smoothly thanks to your work.

Hope everyone is having a great spring!

Discord

We’ve pushed a patch to public beta. In this beta we are looking to confirm that:

1. Nothing that was working before has broken
   
2. Save files are intact for all players
   
3. The Interloper A controller crash is fixed
   
4. Graphics options are set, and stay set in the options menu
   

[h2]We’ve also:[/h2]

• Fixed Moss shaders and direction control for both vertex lit shader and skin shader (for props with/without phong)
  
• Fixed halflambert/warp/specwarp related problems across all the shaders
  
• Unlocked the even higher graphics setting in options menu
  
• Fixed video settings not staying set
  
• SpotLight cookies should now work on any orientation. Cookie sprite sheet no longer needs to be square.
  
• Local lights shadow sampling optimized. They now look better & should be faster on the highest settings.
  
• Deferred lighting and NewPostProcess stability and support improved
  
• Lots of misc graphics fixes
  
• Updated translation files with community fixes
  
• Added missing Italian translators Riccardo Rapuano and Andrea Franceschi
  

[h2]You can access the beta by right-clicking the game on Steam, going to Properties > Betas > select “public-beta” in the dropdown menu.
[/h2]

Sorry for the time away, but we have been focused on other things, and it was a massive effort to overhaul our deployment system. This centralized the source control and build systems for the game, and allows us to better maintain and release builds of the game.

Our goal is to get a “safe” mini patch up on beta and thoroughly test it. We will push it to the mainline once we know it won’t break anything.

After that we may do a more involved patch that might break saves due to level edits. We’ll make sure to let everyone know if we release a more dangerous patch (remember you can always restart the chapter if something breaks).


[h2]So with that, some questions:[/h2]

• What are some high priority issues with the game you would like to see fixed?
  
  
• What should we call the mini patch and its follow-ups? Internally, we are calling it the [h3]Necro Patch…[/h3]
  

[h2]Thanks for all your support! Be good to one another![/h2]
[h3]-Crowbar Collective Team[/h3]

Crowbar Collective, the team responsible for the really good remake of Half-Life called Black Mesa, appears to be teasing something new in the making. The studio dropped a very brief teaser on YouTube (via GamesRadar) over the weekend called "Incoming Signal" and invited fans to sign up for "future updates and beta tests."..
Read more.

Even headcrabs can be sentimental 💖. We're trying to spread the love, by getting you some Black Mesa action, at a deep discount! Be sure to grab your copy of Black Mesa, NOW 80% OFF!