Hey everyone,
I got a annoying bug with the flashlight. It does not light correctly, it lights the props/door, but not the wall.
Here’s some screenshot (with flashlight on):
https://www.noelshack.com/2012-37-1347788105-bm-c1a2a0000.jpg
https://www.noelshack.com/2012-37-1347788105-bm-c1a2a0001.jpg
https://www.noelshack.com/2012-37-1347788104-bm-c1a2a0002.jpg
Anyone knows how to fix it?
Cia
I don’t have that issue and looking at your screenshots, you have the graphics set to the bare minimum. That tells me your machine can’t run it better than that, you may be SOL depending on your system specs.
Honestly, looking at those screenshots, you would be better off running HL1. If you remove the HUD from the screens, that’s what everyone would assume.
I can run BMS in high detail, it is still playable but loading screen is so loong…
I’d say just turn whatever setting fixes the light up and leave the rest down. easiest fix imo.
What are your system specs? (CPU, GPU, OS)
Also take a screenshot of any errors in the console, that might let you know what’s going on.
I’m getting the same problem. the flash light is on but all it illuminates are certain props and surfaces, and hardly any of the actual game world. makes navigating dark areas or ventilation shafts nigh-impossible. I’m running BM at full high settings. my pc specs are as follows: Intel dual core 6700 @ 2.66GHz, 2 GB RAM, Nvidea GeForce 7950 GT, all drivers installed and up to date. ive played all the half life, portal series and TF2 all on the same high settings, this is honestly the first problem ive had with a source game.
++ also running Windows Vista 32-bit
I had the same problem and I just donwloaded the last drivers of Nvidia. I have installed it, rebooted the system and the problem have disappeared! 
I have same problem.
Downloaded Source from steam, BMS from torrent. All installation is succesfull. (Dual core ~1.8GHz, Dual Channel DDR2 533Mhz 2 GB, GeForce 7300GT 256MB; XP-sp3 32bit ). Latest drivers installed already. Try reinstall nVidia Driver and not work.
This picture show the bug : https://keptarolo.com/image.php?id=A260_50561CE6&jpg
The light appear on door, but not on wall. The metal door locker does not reflect the light from flashlight.
2OP: what settings had you changed so the game looks THAT awful on your screenshots?
2All people struggling with this problem: what dxlevel do you use? And what shadow detail level have you configured in the advanced gfx settings? It had been reported here and there that this problem could be caused by the outdated drivers version (update your drivers then), by configuration changes in GPU driver CP (at least for ATI/AMD users - reset CCC setting to defaults for BMS) and by using “maximum FPS configs” for other Source-based games like CS: S or TF2. Try running the game once with “-dxlevel 90” or “-dxlevel 98” switch to make it reset renderer settings to defaults then make sure you have nothing except for “exec config.cfg” in autoexec.cfg for BMS. And, if you still experience this problem, open up the in-game console, type in “differences” and post the entire output here enclosed within the “CODE” bbtag.
Try setting r_newflashlight 0 (will possibly require sv_cheats 1, but i’m not sure).
Hi!
nVidia Driver - as i said - is the latest.
The command “r_newflashlight” set to 0 and same problem. Some surface is illuminating others are not. Not require “sv_cheat 1”.
Tested “mat_dxlevel”:
80 - flashlight light is look good, but texture bugs
90, 91, 95 - same problem (95 is default).
I’ll keep it short:
fire up BM
flashlight only works on select props, making it p. much useless.
mess with settings (in-game and nvidia CP), no dice
update to 306.23 nvidia drivers
flashlight works. Yay. All shadows are completely fucked
mess with settings (in-game and nvidia CP). No dice.
downgrade to 301.42. Shadows fine, flashlight doesn’t work.
downgrade to 296.10. Same difference.
I’ve tried different source games and mods and these bugs are consistent across all.
I hadn’t played a source game for quite some time until BM, so I can’t tell when the flashlight bug first occurred or what could have possibly caused it.
I haven’t changed any hardware.
System:
Pentium 4 631 @ 15x241
GA-8I945PLGE-RH
2x1Gb DDR2
7800GT
XP 32bit SP3
Be more specific, you’re not a spy to hide facts. What is “the latest” version in your definition? Is it a beta driver from 306.x branch or it’s a latest driver from 304.x branch? Had you changed anything in nVIDIA driver control panel? Had you used any of the “maximize FPS in Source games” configs available on the net? Also, looking at the screenshot you posted it seems that you had specularity and bump/parallax mapping turned off in the game. Could you add the followind settings to yours BMS autoexec.cfg and check if it helps:
[code]
cl_showfps 2
fps_max 120
mat_alphacoverage 1
mat_compressedtextures 1
mat_specular 1
mat_bumpmap 1
mat_parallaxmap 1
mat_queue_mode 0
r_threaded_particles 1
r_threaded_renderables 1
dsp_slow_cpu 1
snd_mix_async 1
snd_async_fullyasync “1”
cl_predict 1
cl_smooth 1
cl_forcepreload 1
sv_forcepreload 1
fog_enable_water_fog 1
r_dynamic 1
r_dynamiclighting 1
r_maxdlights 16
r_flashlightdepthtexture 0
texture_budget_panel_x 550
texture_budget_panel_y 112
texture_budget_panel_height 450
texture_budget_panel_width 512
budget_panel_x 0
budget_panel_y 50
budget_panel_height 900
budget_panel_width 512
alias BudgetShow “sv_cheats 1; +showbudget; showbudget_texture 1; alias BudgetToggle BudgetHide;”
alias BudgetHide “-showbudget; sv_cheats 0; showbudget_texture 0; alias BudgetToggle BudgetShow;”
alias BudgetToggle “BudgetShow;”
bind b BudgetToggle
bind n “incrementvar texture_budget_panel_global 0 1 1”
alias +walk “sv_maxspeed 120;”
alias -walk “sv_maxspeed 320;”[/code]
Also, you could try lowering “Shadows details” in gfx settings down to “Low” and lowering textures details (as your GPU has only 256Mb - which might be not enough) to a middle quiality setting (or simply set mat_picmip 1 in the in-game console).
Don’t forget that after doing any change to the game gfx settings you’d better quit and restart the game: it is known to misbehave crashing and doing all other nasty things if you change something like mat_picmip or enable or disable HDR in the middle of the playsession.
P.S. Also, could you try disabling HDR and check if it works? Or enabling it in case you have it disabled.
P.P.S. Do not use dxlevel 80 or 81 with BMS - it would lead to visual glitches. If you had changed dxlevel using mat_dxlevel - quit the game and all “-dxlevel 90” (or 95) to the command line parameters of the BMS. Start up the game once and then quit it. Remove “-dxlevel 90” from the start up parameters and you’re good to go with the game switched into using dxlevel 90 renderpath.
For the people running GeForce 7xxx-9xxx series. Just buy a damn xbox or upgrade your card. I can’t believe people still have those and I thought my GTX285 was getting old!
You can get a card for less than $100 that would perform much better and at least support DX10 or even DX11.
Not that simple. GTS 250 which is almost the same as GTX 9800 which is mostly the same as GTX 8800 actually perform at the same speed in HL2 and most older games as GTX 550 Ti. The only difference that GTX 550 could handle tesselation and some other nice OpenGL4.x/DX10/11 stuff while GTS 250 couldn’t. Check Toms Hardware or any other hw review site for detailed benchmarks.
But still, even keeping in mind that GTS 250 is a damn old GPU while GTX 550 Ti half a year ago costed at around 200 USD - why one would want to pay extra 200 bucks to get exactly (if not worse) the same performance in DX9-age games (most console ports are)?
Some people have laptops with no option to upgrade except to buy another 800$ laptop. Also I hope you realize that a geforce 8800-9800 series can run all of the latest games on medium-high no problem, even with an old Core 2 Duo. A geforce 8600 can play them on Low-Med but older than that it’s much slower. The Geforce 7950, even the dual card will struggle to play GTA IV or even WoW on anything other than very low, but still plays any valve game on highest setting and the fps depending on CPU mostly.
Unless you are running a single core Celeron with Intel GMA graphics or something older than Geforce 6600 or Radeon x1300, your problems are software related.
Strange. I have a GeForce 7950 GT and the mod is running very smooth with all graphic settings set to High (the recommended) or Very High. Only exception is the missing light from the flashlight (only lights up movable objects - not the environment).
Anywho, I tried switching around many combinations of settings, but no changes on that part.
I’m having exactly the same problem.
In HL2, HLep1, HL2ep2 the flashlight works perfectly, whether I’m running it on high details or in low details. So it’s not about how one set the light settings or the shadows one.
I have the drivers of my nvidia up to date.
Getting into a duct is impossible to me :S
EDIT: I checked playing HL2 and it has the same bug, so it has to be a driver problem. I formated my PC yesterday and installed the latest driver of my card, maybe that latest version is failing.
EDIT2: It’s obvious but before formating and with the old drivers version, I didn’t have that issue on HL2.
By reading all similar topics on these forums I assume that it is a GPU driver related problem which occurs only on 7xxx nVidia cards. All people complaining about black square shadows or non-working flashlights have 7xxx cards (including me, I have 7900 GTX).
Reverting to previous drivers gives me exact effects (working shadows, no flashlight). Having to choose between working shadows OR working flashlight is not exactly a solution so it seems we have to wait for new drivers from nVidia to release or get a new GPU 
You know, when the same piece of the code works OK for someone and do not work for another person usually there should be some reason - some difference in hardware or software environment - which causes the misbehavior. As far as it goes it seems that people having 7XXX GT nVIDIA cards suffer from this problem. You hadn’t specified your system specs so I urge you to do so - it would help us to pinpoint the cause of the problem and - possibly - find a solution. And could you please start up the game, open up the console, execute “find flash” and copy/paste the entire output to this thread?
Edit. Argh, so it might be driver-related issue for 7xxx series of nVIDIA cards then. Nice finding. Could you please try downloading/installing some older version of the nVIDIA drivers for your card and report your findings here so people on forum could benefit from your work? Thanks in advance.
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