Shortly after drastically improving the performance in the Linux version, Crowbar Collective actually released the Xen chapter of Black Mesa out to everyone.
You no longer need to opt into any Beta, plus it comes with updates to the gameplay gathered from feedback during the beta period to "refine the difficulty, increase player guidance, fix bugs, as well as increase performance throughout the Interloper chapter". Black Mesa is still in Early Access, but at least now you can complete it and you should have a pretty good experience but they will still be taking on feedback and adding in some more polish to it.
With the release of Xen, they've also shared a roadmap of what's coming up. With one of the next releases, they're going to be adding in a new set of Steam Achievements for the Xen levels which they have ready to go. With the big "1.0" release they're looking at doing a pass over the multiplayer to ensure it's all working, they're going to take a look at the AI and see if they can bring the improvements from Xen over to the Earth levels, ensure Steam Workshop is working correctly and overall bug fixing.
Once Black Mesa leaves Early Access, they're planning to go over the Earth levels again to ensure they're using all their fancy new graphical features (likely made for Xen), more gameplay improvements and ensuring it all just fits together properly. They're joking calling the post-EA update "Black Mesa: Definitive Edition".
You can pick up Black Mesa now on Steam where it's 20% off until January 2nd.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Mr. Pinsky Dec 27, 2019
It looks and feels like a whole new game, not just a remake, they expanded it so much, especially in the Xen chapters.
Comandante Ñoñardo Dec 27, 2019
I don't have a problem to pay an extra for to play it in Spanish.
Quoting: jarhead_hIs there something that you have to do special to get the Linux performance boost? Because I just fired it up and it's choking just as badly as the last time I ran it last year. At 1080p. With some settings turned down to medium.
No idea what your hardware is, but it works fine at 2560x1440 with all the settings turned up as high as they go on my nvidia 970.
Mountain Man Dec 29, 2019
Quoting: WorMzyQuoting: jarhead_hIs there something that you have to do special to get the Linux performance boost? Because I just fired it up and it's choking just as badly as the last time I ran it last year. At 1080p. With some settings turned down to medium.
No idea what your hardware is, but it works fine at 2560x1440 with all the settings turned up as high as they go on my nvidia 970.
I'm running a Phenom II 960T @ 3.7ghz constant, 16gb DDR3, a Samsung 860EVO, and a 6gb GTX1060. And turning half the settings to medium still leads to it choking. 4x anistropic with NO AA. I get that the CPU is going to be a bottleneck, but this is a Source game. I just played through HL2, EP1 with maxed out settings without any slowdown. So what gives?
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