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mattc
Participant
August 27, 2014

HL2 Black Screen Issue Resolved

I was having the following issue in HL2, the menus would show up but only the menus everything else rendered black. I think I saw the solution posted in another thread earlier and tried it out tonight and it worked for me as well so figured I'd record it here for anyone else having issues.

You need to set the rift to be the primary display, this is a bit of a pain and makes it somewhat fiddly to get the game running as you'll need to Alt-tab to Steam and run the game once you've set your rift display to primary.

I also needed to re-select the Enable VR dropdown (thankfully you can grab the top of the dialog and drag it over to see it better) then quit and restart, now when you select Activate Virtual Reality it should work correctly.

Everything seemed to be working fine head tracking kicks in once your on the train. It looks promising though I didn't play for very long due to:

Black smearing is very noticeable in HL2
Not sure what my framerate was but I was getting noticeable blur
I can't stand using the mouse to turn your body can quickly make you nauseous

Anyhow hope this helps someone else, making the rift your primary display may be something worth trying for other similar situations.

    2 replies

    mta
    Up and Coming
    August 30, 2014
    Is your extended oculus screen set to 1920 x 1080?

    Black smearing is very noticeable in HL2


    So noticable that you couldn't play it? It's not THAT bad.

    Not sure what my framerate was but I was getting noticeable blur


    Try the fix here

    http://www.roadtovr.com/how-to-enable-oculus-rift-dk2-half-life-2-steamvr-steam-big-picture-virtual-reality-mode/

    I can't stand using the mouse to turn your body can quickly make you nauseous


    Yes the movement is incredibly unrealistic and is the main reason why I can only play for about half hour. I couldn't find any fixes for this.
    IllegalJedi
    Participant
    August 30, 2014
    I had black screen too - what i did

    put the rift into extended mode open steam windowed - then I made the rift the main display on the pc * - steam will be on your monitor and the rift will looked jacked but never mind this - on steam launch steamVR (from view) then big picture will show up on the rift - go to library and launch halflife2 in vr - sometimes the game will be in black screen right in the beginning but will change - you will see a flat blurr plane for a few seconds and the text i still have not figured out how to fix it on the pause menu but it works it's just a little blurry** - now start the game -***




    * Before I start anything sometimes I have to put the pc monitor to extend to rift, then switch It to rift main display only sometimes and I dont know why

    ** If you want to read the menu better to tinker - once you make It into vr mode In game (you have to do this for It to work), right click on your screen and switch pc monitor back to main to see the menu on screen clear and the rift is still tracking so when your done just switch screen back to rift and play on

    *** - In the options you need to enable the gamepad for the controller to work also I had speed up vertical on the mouse and slow down the horizontal - you need to play with these to get the best "normal" walkaround to fast and you will get sick


    I have all the settings maxed and its running nice,I don't have Fame Rate for you yet - some noticeable blur and blacking but really not bad at all
    I hope the next update adds direct to rift from clicking Steamvr no messing with displays

    I"m running - Win 7-64 - intel2 Quad Cpu:Q8400@2.66 - 8gbram - GTX480

    not a developer just a gamer that tinkers
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