Crowbar Collective have released the Necro Patch for the Half-Life remake Black Mesa, which brings with it some essential bug fixes and some nice optimizations. If you had issues with it previously, you might want to give it another go as it sounds like they put a fair amount of work into this update.
Main Update Highlights:
- 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 (more info).
- Fixed hitch when weapon decals are first applied to gun.
- Re-enabled weapon decals by default.
One thing to note is that they mentioned in the update that they may be looking into "more robust fixes that might break saves and switching over Linux support to Proton, but we don’t have a timeline for that". So eventually the Native Linux version may no longer be a thing. Presumably because it works better with Proton and they're already using a big part of Proton anyway (DXVK) for rendering on Windows (Linux still seems to use Valve's really old ToGL).
See the full update notes for more.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Thank GOD! Black Mesa has been broken forever on Linux and you had to manually change to Proton in order to fix the issues. Hopefully they fix that and the controller support, which should be a lot better now.
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legluondunet Apr 16
Wine/Proton/DXVK are such performant today's on Linux, unlike native Linux games which age poorly: library dependency problems or are not up to date because the developers do not maintain them.
At the same time I put myself in the developers' shoes, it's much more economical and less complicated to maintain a single version of the game, the one for Windows, and to make it Wine/Proton/DXVK compatible.
This is also a perverse effect of the effectiveness of WIne/Proton/DXVK, is that it does not encourage the development of native Linux games. But the main thing is that Linux gamers can simply play their games, without worrying if it's a Windows version or not and without having to tinker too much like we did only a few years ago.
Last edited by legluondunet on 16 April 2024 at 9:30 am UTC
At the same time I put myself in the developers' shoes, it's much more economical and less complicated to maintain a single version of the game, the one for Windows, and to make it Wine/Proton/DXVK compatible.
This is also a perverse effect of the effectiveness of WIne/Proton/DXVK, is that it does not encourage the development of native Linux games. But the main thing is that Linux gamers can simply play their games, without worrying if it's a Windows version or not and without having to tinker too much like we did only a few years ago.
Last edited by legluondunet on 16 April 2024 at 9:30 am UTC
9 Likes, Who?
Tried this more than a year ago on the Deck, and couldn't get comfortable with controls. So the controller support and Steam Input integration is a really welcome addition, will give it another try!
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Holzkohlen 
Apr 16
Yeah, I played it a few months ago and I got crashes in the xen world on both the native Linux version and the windows version with proton. I switched back and forth a couple of times to figure out which worked better. I'd much rather have just one that actually works.
I think the windows version worked better for me, but I might misremember.
Last edited by Holzkohlen on 16 April 2024 at 10:31 am UTC
I think the windows version worked better for me, but I might misremember.
Last edited by Holzkohlen on 16 April 2024 at 10:31 am UTC
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BloodScourge Apr 16
The power of open source: running, through an open source compatibility layer, the proprietary operating system's version of a proprietary game using an engine built partially around open source libraries (and that uses part of said compatibility layer), even though we have functional builds of said libraries on the target platform (which is THE open source flagship). Oh, the irony... but Xzibit would be proud 
. And dxvk-native is still a thing (upstreamed).
. And dxvk-native is still a thing (upstreamed).
6 Likes, Who?
Realistically speaking, what could be so bad if Proton became the de-facto Linux support method for all games, including games that would've had Native Linux support if the developers were generous enough? I'm a new Linux user and I've been thinking about this.
Asking for native ports is chasing a wild goose, to fix this issue you'd have to go to the source of it: user market share, until Linux becomes figuratively mainstream, that's when asking for native ports becomes logical and feasible, in my opinion.
Asking for native ports is chasing a wild goose, to fix this issue you'd have to go to the source of it: user market share, until Linux becomes figuratively mainstream, that's when asking for native ports becomes logical and feasible, in my opinion.
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What a disaster. They didn't even consider using dxvk-native.
Ultimately though, even if I have gotten well accustomed to Source games over the years, screw that engine. There's no winning with Linux ports of Source games, nearly all of them have unique issues, and the engine is stuck in the 2000s so hard.
Sure, Valve started fixing up some of their Source-based games on Linux a few years ago, but it doesn't seem that most community projects can leverage the upgrades.
Last edited by artixbtw on 16 April 2024 at 11:09 am UTC
Ultimately though, even if I have gotten well accustomed to Source games over the years, screw that engine. There's no winning with Linux ports of Source games, nearly all of them have unique issues, and the engine is stuck in the 2000s so hard.
Sure, Valve started fixing up some of their Source-based games on Linux a few years ago, but it doesn't seem that most community projects can leverage the upgrades.
Last edited by artixbtw on 16 April 2024 at 11:09 am UTC
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TimeFreeze Apr 16
I said it once and i say it again. Proton is one of the best and worst things that happend to Linux Gaming. Thanks to Proton all the devs just take the lazy route instead of making a Native version. And if a game had a Native version they now want to replace it with Proton.
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BloodScourge Apr 16
Quoting: artixbtwWhat a disaster. They didn't even consider using dxvk-native.
Oh, but they (kind of) did because they now use DXVK dll to translate d3d9 to vulkan in their Windows build...
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Quoting: PyrateRealistically speaking, what could be so bad if Proton became the de-facto Linux support method for all games, including games that would've had Native Linux support if the developers were generous enough?
Because in practice, proton "support" often means ignore it and let Valve deal with any issues. I think I can count the number of devs that actually fixed something to get it running better (or at all) on proton on one hand.
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