Black Mesa

Black Mesa

Developers
	Crowbar Collective
Engines
	Source
Release dates
Windows	March 6, 2020
Linux	March 6, 2020
Reception
Metacritic	84
OpenCritic	85
Taxonomy
Microtransactions	None
Modes	Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	First-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Shooter
Art styles	Realistic
Themes	North America, Sci-fi
Series	Half-Life

Key points

An unofficial remake of Half-Life.

General information

Official Discord server

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Steam		DRM-free on Linux when run directly from executable.

All versions require Steam DRM.

The original standalone release from September 2012 is no longer available for download at the official website, but previously provided download links still work (1 2).

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.

Essential improvements

Enabling the console

Set through options menu
Go to Options and click on Game. Set Developer Console to Yes.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Steam	<path-to-game>\bms\cfg\

This game does not follow the XDG Base Directory Specification on Linux.

The location of your saves also has settings.

Save game data location

System	Location
Steam	<path-to-game>\bms\save\

Saved games cannot transfer between the mod release and Steam release. Use sv_unlockedchapters 15 in the console to unlock all chapters.

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
Steam Cloud

Video

In-game general video settings.

Graphics feature	State	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution			Use -w XX -h YY parameters to force a custom resolution.
Multi-monitor			HUD is not centered.
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)		75-90° (horizontal based on Hor+ from 4:3); use fov_desired XX in the console for higher values (up to 120). To change viewmodel/weapon FOV subscribe to this addon.
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		Up to 16 samples.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		FXAA toggle. Nvidia users can force MSAA or SGSSAA in Nvidia Profile Inspector using the 0x000000C0 with the Antialiasing Fix set to "On".
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS and 120+ FPS		Frame rate is capped at 300 FPS; use the +fps_max 0 parameter to remove the cap.
High dynamic range display (HDR)		Rendered image uses SDR color space. In-game HDR option refers only to HDR Rendering.

Refresh rate (Hz)

Use the -refresh ## command line argument to run at custom refresh rate

Ambient Occlusion

Use Nvidia Inspector: Ambient Occlusion compatibility - 'Left 4 Dead 2'[citation needed]

Input

In-game general settings.

Input settings.

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration		Default is off. Can be toggled in mouse options.
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support		Controller Support was fixed on April 26, 2021
Full controller support		Some menus do not work well to gamepad.
Controller remapping
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion

Controller types

XInput-compatible controllers
Xbox button prompts
Impulse Trigger vibration

PlayStation controllers		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.

Generic/other controllers

Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

• 

  Movement Rebinding

• 

  Combat Rebinding

• 

  Miscellaneous Rebinding

• 

  Weapons Rebinding

• 

  Multiplayer Keys Rebinding

Toggle crouch

Add script to autoexec.cfg
Go to <path-to-game>/bms/cfg/. Open autoexec.cfg and add this: 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 and enter exec autoexec.

Audio

In-game audio settings.

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound		4.0, 5.1 and 7.1 surround sound. 7.1 output may require DirectSound3D restoration software.
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost		Can be toggled in audio options.
EAX support		Set snd_legacy_surround 1 in console, 4 speakers in options, and use DSOAL for binaural HRTF mixing.

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 but 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
Arabic
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
Croatian
Czech
Danish
Dutch
Finnish
French
German
Greek
Hungarian
Indonesian
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Lithuanian
Norwegian
Polish
Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese
Romanian
Russian				Official translation.
Russian				Fan translation by «ZoG Forum Team». For Steam-version and mod-version – audio or text + audio
Spanish
Latin American Spanish
Swedish
Turkish
Ukrainian
Vietnamese

Network

Multiplayer types

Type	Native	Players	Notes
LAN play		32	Versus
Online play		32	Versus

Connection types

Type	Native	Notes
Matchmaking
Peer-to-peer
Dedicated
Self-hosting
Direct IP

VR support

3D modes	State	GG3D	Notes
Nvidia 3D Vision			See Helix Mod: Black Mesa.
iZ3D
vorpX		G3D, DirectVR Officially supported game, see official vorpx game list.

Devices
Novint Falcon

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.

Main menu flickering

This problem occurs since the new menu was added.It also seems to happen with some versions of nvidia drivers and not in others.The only known solution is to use the old menu with the command -oldgameui

Issues fixed

Black screen while in fullscreen mode (Windows 10)

Enable borderless fullscreen windowed mode
If an adaptive sync monitor is used, set it to run in windowed mode if possible. This is an option for G-Sync at least.

Flashlight not work on Intel GPU

Black mesa does not support intel GPU but following these steps may fix the problem

To fix the flashlight not working do the following: add these commands to the games launch options ; -force_vendor_id 0x10DE -force_device_id 0x1180 -dxlevel 95 Remove "-dxlevel 95" after you close the game or your settings will reset every time you run the game. Here's how to add commands to the launch options. https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=1040-JWMT-2947

Very poor performance on AMDGPU kernel driver (Linux)

It is possible to run the game without starting Steam by running bms.sh

Remove the included libstdc++.so.6
Go to [SteamLibraryDir]/steamapps/common/Black Mesa/bin Remove libstdc++.so.6

Run the game in Steam Native environment[citation needed]

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	9
OpenGL	2.1	Linux only.
Shader Model support	2, 3

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows
Linux

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Physics	Havok	Heavily modified variant.
Audio	Miles Sound System
Cutscenes	Bink Video
Multiplayer	Steamworks

System requirements

Windows

Linux

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

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