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Crowbar Collective have a fresh Beta available for Black Mesa, their fan-made reimagining of Valve Software's Half-Life. This brings with it some nice improvements all across the game, especially for Linux platforms like Steam Deck.

In the announcement they mentioned "Welcome to Fall, and a Black Mesa beta patch post! We have pushed a build to public-beta that includes a bunch of fixes to some lingering issues, and WAY better Linux/Steam Deck support" with these highlights:

  • Improved game start up for a smother first time launch and improved stability.
  • Fixed an issue that caused the game to crash to the menu when changing video settings during gameplay.
  • Fixed performance issue with moving wires (Thanks to npc_pigeon, narkvic, and the community).
  • Re-added DXVK for Windows as a launch option.
  • Significantly better native Linux implementation and Steam Deck support.

They go into quite a lot more detail on all the changes too, which is nice to see. We often see developers note improvements, but not many go deep into the individual details. Specifically for Linux here's everything they listed:

ToGL/Linux:

  • Updated ToGL/Linux shaders with the latest GBuffer changes to ensure the application of up-to-date rendering techniques.
  • Cleaned up the shadow filter state in ToGL/Linux, resulting in more accurate and stable shadow rendering.
  • Migrated ToGL/Linux to use the OpenGL 3.3 Compatibility Profile, enhancing compatibility with a broader range of hardware and driver configurations while maintaining access to modern OpenGL features.
  • Introduced an optional experimental Binary Shader Cache for ToGL/Linux, accessible via the -glusebinarycache command line option on Linux and native Steam Deck builds, which improves shader load times on supported platforms.
  • Resolved a half-pixel halo issue in the ToGL/Linux rendering pipeline, improving visual accuracy in rendered scenes.
  • Added per-triangle and optional per-vertex validation for studio models to resolve issues in ToGL/Linux related to static and dynamically lit models. A second pass for per-vertex validation can be enabled via the +r_studio_validate_vertices 1 command line argument.
  • Improved lighting buffer quality on ToGL/Linux to resolve a red hue in specular highlights, ensuring consistent visual output across platforms.
  • Added a missing window icon on ToGL/Linux to address a minor visual issue.
  • Configured default arguments for the Linux launcher to optimize display settings on Steam Deck, ensuring a better out-of-the-box experience for AMD/Intel GPU users.
  • Fixed debug assertions in Havok that leaked into the release build on Linux, preventing potential crashes during runtime.

Proton/Linux:

  • Forced the shipped DXVK configuration on Proton if no overrides are provided, enhancing compatibility with Proton 9.x and newer versions.

For some background: ToGL is the original translation layer Valve used in their earlier Linux ports, that translated Direct3D to OpenGL. Later Valve games have native Vulkan support, and they also nowadays of course have Proton with DXVK and VKD3D-Proton for translating Direct3D to Vulkan.

That's a rather surprising amount of effort that's been put into the Native Linux version of the game.

Black Mesa | Release Date: 6th March 2020

Official links and where to buy from:

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly.
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9 comments

Obscure about 17 hours ago
Not something i expected but it's cool!
damarrin about 16 hours ago
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Oh, that is nice. I was trying and failing to play it.
WYW about 16 hours ago
So is the best option Proton or native now? I'd like to replay this one at some point.
Linux_Rocks about 16 hours ago
TimeFreeze about 16 hours ago
Good to see that they dont cut of Native support like they hinted at, at one point. I dont care if it runs better with Proton. If i hit 60FPS and with Proton 120FPS as an example i'll stick to the native version. Simply because i prefer my games native, yes even if i have to do trouble-shooting with missing dependencies or whatnot.
rea987 about 16 hours ago
Quoting: WYWSo is the best option Proton or native now? I'd like to replay this one at some point.

Given that they specifically targeted Steam Deck with heavily update native version, native should be the way to go.
buckysrevenge about 13 hours ago
I'm glad you hear, last time I tried to play it native or via proton on my laptop it was really unstable
ElectricPrism about 6 hours ago
Awesome! Time for another play-through. I really hope they fixed the black texture artifacting in the second half of the game on AMD + MESA. The last bit was previously unplayable.
GamingTFM about 2 hours ago
Great to hear, thanks for sharing!
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