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Steam Deck39 Reports
Starts with write disk error Forced to retry, installs the game but doesn't launch. Works with native Linux build, but this build works terribly.
Lighting failures causing Black rooms. Sometimes fixed by swiching weapon or turning on/off flashlight.
Bound sprint on R joystick press Bound crouch on L joystick press
The game sometimes crashes when left in sleep mode with wi-fi on. Disabling wi-fi fixes this.
I have experienced minor graphical glitches when playing without experimental. The default control scheme can be a bit awkward at times.
often stutters but acceptable
Can always crash after 30 minutes or so
On Steam Deck, when the game crashes, it just quit itself. However, on Linux Mint (LMDE6 Faye), whenever it crashes, it follows by the message "Out of memory".
Extreme graphical glitches and performance issues native.
Linux build is flawed, dated, and very buggy. Play the Windows build through Proton instead.
The most prominent flaw of the Linux version.
My theory is that the Source build Linux uses hasn't been updated in a long time. Thus the performance/graphical issues not evident while running the Windows/Proton build.
The Linux version is full of performance issues, and graphical glitches not present in the Windows build. The classic "Verify the File Integrity" trick doesn't help all that much. Other than getting rid of the purple checkerboards. If you're going to play it on SteamOS, or any Linux for that matter, run it through Proton.
There is an issue on Wayland where the game loads forever. On various Proton builds it works fine, but there's a glitch where you need to get into the Steam UI during loading otherwise it'll stay like that forever and then crash. At the end of a chapter with the Garguantuan the game crashed for me, was fixed by using Proton GE.
Game runs very well outside of that.
Loading bug on Proton, and a memory heap issue on a certain chapter which is fixed by switching to Proton.
Start menu was a bit small, used touch screen to change tabs as it is easier to do so
don't use native, change to proton to avoid lighting issues and better performance
Have bad FPS Rate on Proton Experimental and Proton GE. Change to Steam Linux Runtime 1.0(scout).
Basic bindings jump, reload, flashlight, crouch etc
can't play multiplayer on any GE-Proton Core
Ok. I'm had tried play this game on this cores : Proton Experimental, Proton-GE(version doesn't matter). But if you play on this cores, even used 1152x864 or lower 960x600 with FSR, you cannot play comfortably (micro-frizes,framerate-drops sometimes, enjoying ;)) of course low settings and ray's off...
But you can have a good experience using (sic!) recommended core. He's name: "Steam Linux Runtime 1.0(scout)" And this settings: VIDEO OPTIONS Resolution 1280x800 (native!), Vertical Sync off, Lens Flare on, Chromatic Abberation on, Radioactive noise shader on, Hud Post Process on, Motion Blur on, OVERALL QUALITY -----> Potato!( Yeah!.. joke)
ADVANCED SETTINGS Antialiasing on, Model Detail HIGH, Texture Detail ULTRA (YEAH BABY!) (If you have a lag, change High), Filtering Anisotropic 16x
So.. further settings like Potato or called "Calculator"(i don't know which better, but ok potato sounds good, Portal-One Love ^__^) and it's not joke(seriously)
Water Reflections Low(prefer) or Middle,
Sunshadow Quality Potato can a trying.. or off,
Sunshadow Memory Usage LOW,
Dynamic Shadow Quality Potato can a trying.. or off,
Dynamic Shadow Memory POTATO! ofcourse!
Dynamic Shadow Softness LOW,
Dynamic Lights Quality Potato,
God Rays OFF
ENABLE UNSUPPORTED PERFOMANCE-HEAVY VIDEO OPTIONS?-------->OH COMMON DO YOU REALLY NEED THIS STUFF?! OFF....???!!!! .....PROFIT!01
Enjoy this beautiful game on beatiful gadget Steam Deck & Remember!
THE CAKE IS A LIE
I played it thinking it would be the optimal way to play half life 1 on the steam deck. It wasn't. You're better off playing the original.
I experienced random drops into the low 20s. I even dropped the resolution and used the decks internal fsr but experienced the same issues.
Once I entered Xen, I crashed approx 10 times in the few hours I was in the area.
The lights (especially from the flashlight) do not work well by default, making the game unplayable. It turns out that by default the freshly installed game tries to run Linux version of the game, which isn't very good. Force ANY proton version makes the deck to download and run the Windows version which doesn't have any issues
FPS dropped from 60 to unstable 10-30 in Lambda Core chapter + some degradation in Xen
Crashes closer to the end of the game + "not enough memory" after waking up from suspending
Force the game to run through Proton
native is buggy - heavy artifacts and broken flashlight. disabling solar shadows did not fix this
Public Beta participation
Slight graphical bugs
Runs native 60 FPS, sun shadows off
turn off the sun shadows and you can exceed 4 hours of gameplay
solar shadows are buggy
the native linux version works fine by selecting the public beta. solar shadows are still buggy but it doesn't make sense to activate them since they make performance much worse. this way the game will run at a constant 60fps with much better input lag than the windows version with proton and the battery can go up to 4+ hours of gameplay. enjoy this game on steamdeck
Can drop to the mid 30s in later chapters such as Surface Tension. Applying a 30fps cap seems to introduce ridiculous input lag, so you either have constant stuttering or near unplayable input lag. Would not recommend.
Due to the crashes and the lighning problems, I wouldn't recomment the experience to anyone I know.
Huge, unignorable problems with the shadows/lightning Sometimes the flashlight doesn't work at all using certain weapons (everytime different weapons in different regions are problematic)
Some maps may cause crashes unexplainably. Rebooting the game after each crash and slowly progressing to the next map load "fixes" the issue.
When the game crashes, the last autosave just doesn't load. Best to make frequent manual saves.
FPS drops in the Xen levels
Game will complain it runs out of video memory and crash sometimes
The latest version of Proton GE does fix the menu flickering with the new UI. Native version has a lot of graphical glitches, and using Proton Experimental causes menu flickering.
Game is generally smooth with Proton GE, but the fps drops in Xen and especially the low VRAM crashing is somewhat of a dealbreaker.
Default Proton leads to some kind of shader issue - flashlight & shadows not being visible etc. Switched to Proton Experimental to fix this.
Switch to Proton Experimental to fix issues with shadows / flashlight not displaying.
-oldgameui
Default main menu flickers. Changing to old main menu fixed this
60hz refresh rate targeting 60fps led to slowdowns in some places of the game, specifically Surface Tension. Changed to 40hz targeting 40fps fixed this.
Do not play on native, instead use ProtonGE (I used 7-31). Set launch command -oldgameui to get rid of default game menu flickering. Even with Proton the game drops in framerate on the steam deck in some parts of the game, specifically in big open areas like Surface Tension. Set the refresh rate to 40hz and cap the frame rate at 40fps (which happens by default). Doing all this, the game is an absolute joy to play on the steam deck.
Native build is very broken (major lighting and shadow errors) and should not be the default. Playable with Proton despite menu flickering.
The menu flickers periodically
The default control scheme is poorly laid out if you're used to console FPS games. Sensitivity is way too high and the left stick should be set to analogue emulation for more precise movement.
safe
The game will not run well at all on the native version, with major slowdowns and terrible framerates. Switch to the proton version and enable safe mode to set the graphics settings so your deck doesn't die trying to load the high quality main menu.
-oldgameui
Changed in-game sensetivity to 6.5
Limit TDP to 9w
Native Linux Distro has heavy lighting and shadow artifacts, launching through ProtonGE instead fixed the issue
Ran the game on high settings (ultra textures) at a stable 50fps. The game runs with the native linux distro, but has severe lighting artifacts (especially the flashlight), making some areas borderline unplayable due to low brightness. Running through ProtonGE instead fixed this issue, but the UI would flicker; using -oldgameui to use an older, non-custom UI fixed the issue. After these tweaks, the game was very nice to play on deck.
The game played great, so good I didn't even realize it wasn't built with native controller support. The default profile was perfect.
9watts
Disabled Gyro
Mouse speed was stupidly high in the default configuration
Sudden lag spikes scattered around
Half of the first level was innacessible, getting to a certain point would kick you to the main menu. This can be circumvented by skipping the first level.
Main menu flickers, it doesn't affect gameplay. -oldgameui will use the classic source menu without flickering, but menu text renders small.
-oldgameui
Adjusted gyro sensitivity.
Set watts to 11
Playing on High preset settings, the game runs very well on experimental with occasional stuttering. No graphical artifacts during gameplay, and i'm not using -oldgameui.
Artefacts disappears when switched to Windows version using proton.
Fps drops badly of you go to outside location. Its almost impossible to progress.
Major lighting artifacting effecting gameplay progression.
The game out of the box suffers from heavy lighting artifacts that will effect game progression to new players (players who don't know where to go or what to do).
There is a easy fix!
In the game settings go to "Options > Video > Overall Quality" and change from the default "Potato" to at least "Low". I changed it to "Medium" This will fix lighting artifacts.
Otherwise, no further issues.
right trackpad senstivity increase
the native version works kind of, but has artifacting, the proton version does not have this but the menu flickers. wait till it's fixed
unpleasant artifacts
does not run that well 30 fps
Some major glitches with shadows using standard proton
Sometimes the menu flickers
Default proton has issues on this game
Steam Deck's FPS limiter is broken, it will run anywhere from 45-189 FPS unlocked, this can be solved with a console command
Shadows bug out often, some textures disappear, and water is bugged. Otherwise there's not many artifacts and is playable.
Slight hitching in certain areas drop to 45-50FPS
The main menu controller mapping is broken, use the touchpads to select and triggers to click instead.
Black Mesa is it NOT a good experience on the Steam Deck most of the time because of stability problems and graphical glitches.
Button controls
Very low FPS on some large open areas. Graphicals glitches on Xen
Even with the lowest settings the game still suffers from very poor performance
On deck, the load times are significant. Not sure if the same on PC. Also tweaked look sensitivity, but that could just be me.
Played great, albeit with significant load times.
