Black Mesa is a singleplayer and multiplayer first-person shooter game created in the Source engine, and an unofficial reimagining of the original Half-Life from 1998.
An incomplete version of the game was released as a free standalone mod on September 14, 2012, and consisted of only the earth-bound chapters of the campaign, and no multiplayer mode. The game was released commercially in Early Access on Steam on May 5, 2015 and included a multiplayer mode as well as made use of a newer version of the Source engine. On March 6, 2020 the finished version of the game was released.
General information
- Official Discord server
- Steam Community Discussions
Availability
| Source |
DRM |
Notes |
Keys |
OS |
| Steam |
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The Linux version is DRM-free when run directly from executable. |
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- The original standalone release from September 2012 is no longer available for download at the official website, but previously provided download link still works ([1]).
- MP3s of the official soundtrack are available for free with the option to donate at the official website, as well as at Joel Nielsen's Website. Lossless formats are available for purchase from Bandcamp.
Game data
Configuration file(s) location
- This game does not follow the XDG Base Directory Specification on Linux.
Save game data location
- Saved games cannot transfer between the mod release and Steam release. Use
sv_unlockedchapters 15 in the console to unlock all chapters.[1]
Video
In-game general video settings.
Use "fps_max XX" console command[2]
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- Allows for values up to
1000.
- Use value
0 for uncapped framerate.
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Custom resolutions
Ambient Occlusion
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Use Nvidia Inspector: Ambient Occlusion compatibility set to '0x00000014 (Left 4 Dead 2)'[citation needed]
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Use fov_desired XX command in the console[citation needed]
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- Command allows values up to 120.
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Input
In-game general settings.
Multiplayer Keys Rebinding
Toggle crouch
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Add script to autoexec.cfg[4]
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- Go to
<path-to-game>/bms/cfg/.
- Open
autoexec.cfg and add the following lines:
alias t_duck "duck1"
alias duck1 "+duck; alias t_duck duck2"
alias duck2 "-duck; alias t_duck duck1"
bind "ctrl" "t_duck"
- Replace
ctrl with desired crouch key.
- Launch the game and bring up the console.
- Type in
exec autoexec.
- Press ↵ Enter.
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Audio
| Audio feature |
State |
Notes |
| Separate volume controls |
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| Surround sound |
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4.0, 5.1 and 7.1 surround sound. 7.1 output may require DirectSound3D restoration software. |
| Subtitles |
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| Closed captions |
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| Mute on focus lost |
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Can be toggled in audio options. |
| EAX support |
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Set snd_legacy_surround 1 in console, 4 speakers in options, and use DSOAL for binaural HRTF mixing.[5] |
| Royalty free audio |
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Localizations
- The language of the Subtitles is configured from the Audio Options of the game. The interface language is linked to the language of Steam.
Note: It can happen in some languages that the interface cannot be set to the desired language because steam does not support the language but if the subtitles because the game does allow you to configure them
| Language |
UI |
Audio |
Sub |
Notes |
| English |
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| Arabic |
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| Simplified Chinese |
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| Traditional Chinese |
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| Croatian |
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| Czech |
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| Danish |
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| Dutch |
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| Finnish |
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| French |
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| German |
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| Greek |
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| Hungarian |
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| Indonesian |
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| Italian |
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| Japanese |
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| Korean |
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| Lithuanian |
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| Norwegian |
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| Polish |
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| Portuguese |
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| Brazilian Portuguese |
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| Romanian |
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| Russian |
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Official translation. |
| Russian |
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Fan translation by «ZoG Forum Team». For Steam-version and mod-version – audio or text + audio |
| Spanish |
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| Latin American Spanish |
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| Swedish |
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| Turkish |
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| Ukrainian |
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| Vietnamese |
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Network
Multiplayer types
Connection types
VR support
Issues unresolved
Chromatic aberration always on
- Chromatic aberration stays on even after disabling it through the video options. Its associate variable mat_chromatic_damage_enable doesn't work either.[6]
Main menu, loading screen flickering
- This is a known issue with the newer D3D11-based UI that couldn't be fixed.[7] [8]It seems to happen with some versions of Nvidia drivers and not in others, and at random points won't bug out at all.[citation needed] It seems to happen when the game is CPU-bound on both Proton as well as Windows.[9]
The game closes abruptly right after you hit play
Workaround: apply the -oldgameui as a command line argument[10]
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- Using this command-line argument, will force the game to boot with the legacy Source engine menu, which has been unsupported by the developers of the game since at least May 2020 and might contain bugs and missing features.[11]
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HUD post-processing broken on AMD GPUs
- Ever since the 2019 Xen Beta was released, the bloom effect on the player HUD was broken on AMD GPUs, preventing the HUD from glowing like it does on Nvidia GPUs.
- There are no known fixes for this issue.
How the HUD looks on Nvidia GPUs.
How the HUD looks on AMD GPUs.
Issues fixed
Flashlight not working on Intel GPU
- On system using Intel GPUs, flashlight may not illuminate certain objects.
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Override the reported graphics device to the ones supported by the game.[12][13]
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Add -force_vendor_id 0x10DE -force_device_id 0x1180 command line parameters to the game's launch options. This will make the game reports the GPU as an Nvidia GeForce GTX 680.
- The game may also fall back to Direct3D 9 with Shader Model 2.x. Which may cause some graphical features such as parallax mapping or Phong shading to be disabled. Force either D3D9 w/ Shader Model 3 or D3D9Ex with either
-dxlevel 95 or -dxlevel 98 command-line parameters. Launch the game once then remove the corresponding parameters above to prevent the game from reset the settings on subsequent launches.
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Very poor performance on AMDGPU kernel driver (Linux)
- It is possible to run the game without starting Steam by running
bms.sh
Dynamic light flickering on Linux
- There are reports of lighting flicker when using dynamic lighting/shadows on some Linux systems.[14]
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Force game to use Proton instead of Native Linux version.
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Force the use of Proton in the game properties in Steam library and select Proton Experimental
- Proton will use DXVK instead of the native OpenGL renderer
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Change dynamic lighting quality to "Potato" in the video settings.
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Other information
API
| Technical specs |
Supported |
Notes |
| Direct3D |
9.0c, 9Ex |
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| OpenGL |
2.1 |
Linux only. |
| Shader Model support |
2, 3 |
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| Executable |
32-bit |
64-bit |
Notes |
| Windows |
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| Linux | |
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Middleware
|
Middleware |
Notes |
| Physics |
Havok |
Heavily modified variant. |
| Audio |
Miles Sound System |
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| Interface |
Qt |
v5.9.9 |
| Input |
SDL, XInput |
SDL v2.0.4.0, XInput v9.15.779.0 |
| Cutscenes |
Bink Video |
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| Multiplayer |
Steamworks |
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Enabling the console
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Set through options menu[15]
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- Go to Options and click on Game.
- Set Developer Console to Yes.
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DXVK translation layer
DXVK (Direct3D-to-Vulkan) can be used to improve the games performance.[16]
- The game will stutter while the cache file is being generated for the first time.
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Use DXVK on Windows[citation needed]
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- Download the latest DXVK release Assets → dxvk-version.tar.gz
- Extract the dxvk-version.tar.gz archive
- Copy
d3d9.dll from the x32 folder.
- Paste
d3d9.dll into the game's bin folder at \SteamApps\common\Black Mesa\bin.
- bms.dxvk-cache file will be created in the \SteamApps\shadercache\362890\DXVK_state_cache directory.
- Use launch options via properties in Steam
-oldgameui if you can't see menus/options in-game (may break some mods).
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Linux: force game to use Proton instead of Native Linux version[citation needed]
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- DXVK is included in Proton.
- DXVK runs faster than the native OpenGL renderer on Linux.[citation needed][dubious – discuss]
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System requirements
| Windows |
|
Minimum |
Recommended |
| Operating system (OS) |
Vista |
7 |
| Processor (CPU) |
2.6 GHz Dual Core
| 3.2 GHz Quad Core |
| System memory (RAM) |
6 GB |
8 GB |
| Hard disk drive (HDD) |
20 GB | |
| Video card (GPU) |
2 GB of VRAM
DirectX 9.0c compatible
| 4 GB of VRAM |
- Support for Windows XP has been dropped as of 2016, while the game can be played on Windows XP, limitations imposed by the OS 4 GB memory limitations will most likely cause performance issue and out-of-memory crashes.
| Linux |
|
Minimum |
Recommended |
| Operating system (OS) |
Ubuntu 14.0 | |
| Processor (CPU) |
2.6 GHz Dual Core
| 3.2 GHz Quad Core |
| System memory (RAM) |
4 GB |
6 GB |
| Hard disk drive (HDD) |
20 GB | |
| Video card (GPU) |
2 GB of VRAM
OpenGL 3.0 compatible
| 3 GB of VRAM |
References
