Heres Basic Settings that you can skip that dont take fps

when the player sees light and/or sun they get lens effect. heres a comprasson of how lens flare look like

now on black mesa theres nothing wrong when you turn off, but on vulkan the lens flare will look like it was made from JPEG. some secne requires to enable lens flare such has blue shift example
fps dont drop. my recommedation is to sick with on

when the player gets damage they see chromatic abberration effect on their screen. fps dont drop so its your choice but if you're colorbilnd then maybe you should try turn it off

here is comprasson (if it hurts your eyes then turn it off)

i dont need to make comprasson because you know how it looks like. if you want to disable it then there is way without installing any mod. its simple go to developer console and type cl_mdldetailfx_enable 0 if you want to enable it then type cl_mdldetailfx_enable 1


What it does, it will bloom the HUD making it much easier to see compared to off
(this hud bloom comparsson is from pcgamingwiki)

Montior Blur - we're will skip it since we know what montior blur is and how it looks like

This is Advanced Settings (Part 1) which some of them takes long to load, take some fps and some dont


im not very good at comparing FXAA so here is image from unity and yes its recommend to enable since FXAA only take 1-2 fps



Model Detail is basicly LOD that refers to the complexity of a 3D model representation, lowing the settings means some models reduces the polygons to boost your fps. there are 3 options. low, medium and high. however some props dont decrase while of them do. seting model details to low cause issue from truss while medium and high doesnt have that issue.
(left is low and right is medium)
here is surface tension view on high, medium and low

HIGH

MEDIUM

LOW


almost no comprasson and i didnt get any fps boost so thats leaves to high but if you have weaker CPU and/or GPU then go on medium


Texture Details affect on your VRAM, not on your fps. you need to know how much VRAM do you have. if you have 2GB VRAM or less, set it to medium or low and use peformance/basic mode or ultra peformance/ultra basic mode. if you have 3GB VRAM set it to medium. if you have 4GB set it to high and if you have 6GB set it to ultea. low setting on texture quality has small issue that the dev didnt fixed
here is comprasson VRAM on mininum settings
low = 1.0GB
medium = 1.2GB
high = 2.0GB
ultra = 2.3GB

now heres with the maxinum settings
low = 2.3GB
medium = 2.5GB
high = 3.5GB
ultra = 3.8GB
here are some comprason
(left on up is low, right on up is medium, left on down is high and right on down is ultra)
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im not expert at texture filiter but here is image example of it




note! i skipped triliner and 2x because im too lazy to compared, has you can see the fps almost doesnt drop. i recommend to pick 16x for ultra peformance pick 8x
(left on up is bilinear, right on up is 4x, left on down is 8x and right on down is 16x)
has you can see the fps is same. if your 16x take extra 4 fps then switch it to 8x


Source has real time water reflection since it was created in 2004. and yes the game uses DX9, they used cubemap to make water reflection look good and in real-time. surface tension has issue where you get can peformance problem due to how water reflection you set. high sets to reflect all, medium set reflection world and low set to simple reflection, medium and high are set to expensive water effect while low set to cheap. if your fps doesnt drop at high but later they are thats because some maps doesnt have cubemaps. if you have dont have good fps then go on medium or low. but if you want realisitc reflection then make sure you have high-end gpu. here are some comparrson settings

HIGH
MEDIUM
LOW
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HIGH
MEDIUM
LOW
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HIGH
MEDIUM
LOW


you know what shadow is, but there is more into than just the shadow. sunshadow quality controls base on CSM. Ridiculous adds shadow on your gun and on your hand while ultra justs disables it
Ridiculous enables sharp shadows on some areas that affect from a light and from sunshadow. ultra only does on sunshadow and not from light
Ridiculous also adds grass shadow, while ultra dont. of course you can see that ultra has grass shadow on it but not realisitc while ridiculous makes it realistic (note any small grass wont react from light and from shadow which can be only found on earth)
high settings decrase shadow resoluation on sharp shadow only

i noticed high incrased shadow distance while ultra and Ridiculous are just using low distance.
im not going give more into about it so here is comprasson on near and on far

RIDICULOUS
ULTRA

HIGH

LOW

POTATO

OFF

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RIDICULOUS

ULTRA

HIGH

LOW

POTATO

OFF

To test this settings, choose any setting you want. then restart the game to see how much memory does the game take. if you wanna know how much memory usage do the game takes then open task manager heres my recommmend settings for shadow memory usage. if you have 6-10GB RAM then choose low, if you have 12GB RAM choose medium for 16GB or Higher choose high


small explaination. dyamic shadow quality has one issue that even high has it, when you turn on flashlight you see some weird props lighting. this can be seen at potato, low, medium and high. off just disables it
(left half on up is off, right half on up is potato and full on down is high)


Here is Comprasson of Dyanmic Shadow Quality with FPS

HIGH
MEDIUM
LOW
POTATO
OFF


this is the same thing has for "Sunshadow Memory Usage" but with dyanmic shadow instead, so if you have 6GB RAM use very low, for 8-10GB use low, for 12GB use medium, for 16GB or higher use high. when changing you dont see change even on task manager, thats because you need to restart the game


What it does it sets softness shadow base on the dyamic light. high looks realistic, medium makes it unrealistic, low doesnt have any difference

here is comprasson that i took

HIGH

MEDIUM

LOW



small explaination. when firing the light wont show, when setting it to low to shows a light just like in real life
(left is potato and right is low. note this comparsson shows by using host_timecslae 0.1)
however low and medium has issue with dyanmic light when theres a fire, while high, ultra and riduiclous doesnt
(left is low right is medium and down is high)

potato just turns it off, high, ultra and ridiculous doesnt have any difference and they almost dont drop fps expect on ridiculous. so go on high or ultra but if you have any graphical issue with this setting then change it to potato


God ray is controls from volumetric light, its not just react from the sun but also react from your gun

choosing off just disables god ray, low enables it and yes it reacts with gun light but doesnt take alot of fps, not even single one. high doesnt have any difference and takes over 4-5 fps, im not sure if the resolution got increase. heres the comparsson

HIGH


LOW


OFF

here settings that you can use, Note, Basic Settings doesnt impact on peformance so you can change them anytime you want

C1TY Mininum Settings

This one makes the fps almost at maxinum fps but visual will look worse but you will get shadow
Model Detail: Medium
Texture Detail: (Read through Advanced Settings)
Texture Filiter: 2x
Water Reflection: Low
Sunshadow Quality: Potato
Sunshadow Memory Usage: (Read through Advanced Settings)
Dyanmic Shadow Quality: Low
Dyanmic Shadow Memory: (Read through Advanced Settings)
Dyanmic Shadow Softness: Medium
Dyanmic Light Quality: Low
God Ray: Low

C1TY Basic Settings

this one aims for peformance which tries to make look graphics look okay
Model Detail: High (Use Medium if you have weak CPU and/or GPU)
Texture Detail: (Read through Advanced Settings) (reocommend
Texture Filiter: 4x
Water Reflection: Low or Medium (for me im using medium)
Sunshadow Quality: Low
Sunshadow Memory Usage: (Read through Advanced Settings)
Dyanmic Shadow Quality: Low
Dyanmic Shadow Memory:(Read through Advanced Settings)
Dyanmic Shadow Softness: Medium
Dyanmic Light Quality: Medium
God Ray: Low

C1TY Balanced Settings

this one balances visual and peformance mode
Model Detail: High (Use Medium if you have weak CPU and/or GPU)
Texture Detail: (Read through Advanced Settings)
Texture Filiter: 8x
Water Reflection: Medium
Sunshadow Quality: High
Sunshadow Memory Usage: (Read through Advanced Settings)
Dyanmic Shadow Quality: Medium
Dyanmic Shadow Memory: (Read through Advanced Settings)
Dyanmic Shadow Softness: High
Dyanmic Light Quality: High
God Ray: Low

C1TY Ultra Settings

this one makes visual look good but the peformance will drop
Model Detail: High (Use Medium if you have weak CPU and/or GPU)
Texture Detail: (Read through Advanced Settings)
Texture Filiter: 16x
Water Reflection: Medium or High (for me im using high)
Sunshadow Quality: High or Ridiculous
Sunshadow Memory Usage: (Read through Advanced Settings)
Dyanmic Shadow Quality: High
Dyanmic Shadow Memory: (Read through Advanced Settings)
Dyanmic Shadow Softness: High
Dyanmic Light Quality: High or Ultra
God Ray: Low

C1TY Extreme Settings

this one makes the visual look great but the peformance will drop alot
Model Detail: High (Use Medium if you have weak CPU and/or GPU)
Texture Detail: (Read through Advanced Settings)
Texture Filiter: 16x
Water Reflection: High
Sunshadow Quality: Ridiculous
Sunshadow Memory Usage: (Read through Advanced Settings)
Dyanmic Shadow Quality: High
Dyanmic Shadow Memory: (Read through Advanced Settings)
Dyanmic Shadow Softness: High
Dyanmic Light Quality: Ultra
God Ray: Low

if you get these crashes choose these lines, im not expert source engine but if i dont know how to fix it then try to make ticket on black mesa

• Engine Error - Textures is way too high! If you dont have eoungh VRAM then lower the texture quality, if you have alot like 8GB then set texture filiter to 8x. if it doenst work try to verify gamefiles, after it verfied, restart your PC

• My game is Dark type on launch command -force_vendor_id 0x10DE -force_device_id 0x1180 -dxlevel 95

• Dynamic shadows seem to running at low frame this issue was found in 2017, this has fixed in 1.5. back then the deafult was set to 7, now its 16. to fix open console command and type nr_shadow_max_passes_per_frame and you have two things, either set it to 25 or set it to your mininum fps youre getting (do not set it to average or maxinum fps)

If you want to use vulkan on renderAPI then go to black mesa steam settings and type -vulkan on launch command

if you want to turn MSAA then good luck about it becauase you will see halo things and can drop alot of fps. to enable it go to console command and type mat_antialias and choose any number you want. for disable type 0, for 2x then use 2, for 4x use 4 and for 8x use 8. some players think turning off FXAA will fix halo things but it doesnt. this issue came in light update at 2017 before the anti-aliasing was changed to FXAA in 0.9 update

if you want to cap your fps then make sure you disconnect from the map, open console command type fps_max and choose which number you want. i recommend 150 fps

if you have viewmodel bug thats because your fps is higher, to fix it type cl_bobcycle before choosing number check how much fps you're getting and choose the maxinum fps you got. heres number command for fps maxinum that is recommend by johnny brown
60fps - 0.13
72fps - 0.11
120fps - 0.07
144fps - 0.05
240fps - 0.035

if you want to use value of how much ragdoll and gibs there will command then here (this command is found from johnny brown)

cl_npc_gib_ideal_count (choose value)
cl_npc_gib_max_limit (choose value)
cl_generic_gib_ideal_count (choose value)
cl_generic_gib_max_limit (choose value)
cl_player_gib_ideal_count (choose value)
cl_player_gib_max_limit (choose value)

sv_player_gib_ideal_count (choose value)
sv_player_gib_max_limit (choose value)
sv_npc_gib_ideal_count (choose value)
sv_npc_gib_max_limit (choose value)
sv_generic_gib_ideal_count (choose value)
sv_generic_gib_max_limit (choose value)

gib_ragdoll_blast_chance 1
gib_ragdoll_energy_chance 1
breakable_disable_gib_limit 1
cl_burninggibs 1

g_ragdoll_lvfadespeed 0
g_ragdoll_fadespeed 0

cl_ragdoll_max (choose value)
cl_ragdoll_max_generic (choose value)
cl_ragdoll_max_player (choose value)
cl_ragdoll_max_npc (choose value)

sv_ragdoll_max (choose value)
sv_ragdoll_max_generic (choose value)
sv_ragdoll_max_player (choose value)
sv_ragdoll_max_npc (choose value)

if you want to fix that npc gibs when you using double SPAS-12 then here is recommended command by me

bm_gib_on_health_below -80

There are some any visual that can cause peformance issue such has cable example, so heres some mods that i found that fixes that issue (note every time theres a update read the log to see if the dev fix something)

Cable Peformance (Fixed by: White and Birdy)
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3289357150