(I've never played the original Half-Life)

Black Mesa has very good graphics, although HL2 and HL:A do have better.
I can run it very well on a 1050 TI, with max settings at 60FPS.
Loading screens can be jarring, but not too bad in my experience.

The final chapter "Xen" is quite long, and many will call this a bad thing, but I personally think that Xen has the best graphical and sound design compared to the other chapters.

When I first entered Xen, I was amazed, the skybox, graphics, and textures look beautiful and the sound design is amazing, it really feels like an alien world.

Near the end of the game, there is a bug that can cause your game to crash, but it only occurs during loading screens, and in my experience, the area where i encountered this bug was rather easy, so dying (and triggering a loading screen) was very uncommon. This bug also seems to be less of an issue with better system specs. (I AM UNSURE IF THIS BUG HAS BEEN FIXED IN THE DEFINITIVE EDITION, I ENCOUNTERED THIS BUG IN THE UPDATE BEFORE DEFINITIVE)

One or two areas can be laggy, but it never lasted for long. (AGAIN, THIS MAY HAVE BEEN FIXED IN DEFINITVE)

Overall Black Mesa is a great way to play Half-Life for the first time, especially if you want more modern graphics.

I ran this game on maximum settings at 60FPS (v-sync)
My specs:
GTX 1050 Ti
I5 8300H
12GB RAM
Windows 10
Installed on an HDD

(I've never played the original Half-Life) Black Mesa has very good graphics, although HL2 and HL:A do have better. I can run it very well on a 1050 TI, with max settings at 60FPS. Loading screens can be jarring, but not too bad in my experience. The final chapter "Xen" is quite long, and many will call this a bad thing, but I personally think that Xen has the best graphical and sound design compared to the other chapters. When I first entered Xen, I was amazed, the skybox, graphics, and textures look beautiful and the sound design is amazing, it really feels like an alien world. Near the end of the game, there is a bug that can cause your game to crash, but it only occurs during loading screens, and in my experience, the area where i encountered this bug was rather easy, so dying (and triggering a loading screen) was very uncommon. This bug also seems to be less of an issue with better system specs. (I AM UNSURE IF THIS BUG HAS BEEN FIXED IN THE DEFINITIVE EDITION, I ENCOUNTERED THIS BUG IN THE UPDATE BEFORE DEFINITIVE) One or two areas can be laggy, but it never lasted for long. (AGAIN, THIS MAY HAVE BEEN FIXED IN DEFINITVE) Overall Black Mesa is a great way to play Half-Life for the first time, especially if you want more modern graphics. I ran this game on maximum settings at 60FPS (v-sync) My specs: GTX 1050 Ti I5 8300H 12GB RAM Windows 10 Installed on an HDD