This was fixed by the update last night, restart Steam to make sure you have the latest version and report back with more explicit repro steps if it still happens.
I also get the black loading screens. I just installed Half-Life last night, didn't play until an hour ago, and restarted Steam just now to be sure. Either I'm not getting the update, or it doesn't fix the problem for me. (Don't know about repro steps, they've been black from the start.)
Processor Information:
Vendor: GenuineIntel
Speed: 2794 Mhz
4 logical processors
4 physical processors
HyperThreading: Unsupported
FCMOV: Supported
SSE2: Supported
SSE3: Supported
SSSE3: Supported
SSE4a: Unsupported
SSE41: Supported
SSE42: Supported
Network Information:
Network Speed:
Operating System Version:
Ubuntu 12.10 (64 bit)
Kernel Name: Linux
Kernel Version: 3.5.0-22-generic
X Server vendor: The X.Org Foundation
X Server release: 11300000
Video Card:
Driver: NVIDIA Corporation GeForce GTX 460/PCIe/SSE2
Driver Version: 4.3.0 NVIDIA 310.14
Desktop Color Depth: 24 bits per pixel
Monitor Refresh Rate: 60 Hz
VendorID: 0x10de
DeviceID: 0xe22
Number of Monitors: 1
Number of Logical Video Cards: 1
Primary Display Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Desktop Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Primary Display Size: 20,04" x 11,26" (22,95" diag)
50,9cm x 28,6cm (58,3cm diag)
Primary Bus: PCI Express 16x
Primary VRAM: 767 MB
Supported MSAA Modes: 2x 4x 8x 16x
Sound card:
Audio device: Realtek ALC889
Memory:
RAM: 7981 Mb
Miscellaneous:
UI Language: English
LANG: nb_NO.UTF-8
Microphone: Not set
Total Hard Disk Space Available: 2816683 Mb
Largest Free Hard Disk Block: 1364659 Mb
Installed software:
Recent Failure Reports:
I have the latest version and it still turns black.
I've updated to the latest version of both Steam and Half-Life, and the problem is still there, yet seems mitigated slightly.
Now, the screen freezes, "Loading..." pops up, and then a split second later the screen behind goes black, before the whole thing goes away and you start playing the loaded level.
System specs are:
Processor Information:
Vendor: GenuineIntel
Speed: 2666 Mhz
4 logical processors
4 physical processors
HyperThreading: Unsupported
FCMOV: Supported
SSE2: Supported
SSE3: Supported
SSSE3: Supported
SSE4a: Unsupported
SSE41: Unsupported
SSE42: Unsupported
Network Information:
Network Speed:
Operating System Version:
Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS (32 bit)
Kernel Name: Linux
Kernel Version: 3.2.0-36-generic-pae
X Server vendor: The X.Org Foundation
X Server release: 11103000
Video Card:
Driver: NVIDIA Corporation GeForce GT 640/PCIe/SSE2
Driver Version: 4.3.0 NVIDIA 310.14
Desktop Color Depth: 24 bits per pixel
Monitor Refresh Rate: 59 Hz
VendorID: 0x10de
DeviceID: 0xfc1
Number of Monitors: 1
Number of Logical Video Cards: 1
Primary Display Resolution: 1680 x 1050
Desktop Resolution: 1680 x 1050
Primary Display Size: 17.09" x 10.63" (20.12" diag)
43.4cm x 27.0cm (51.1cm diag)
Primary Bus: PCI Express 16x
Primary VRAM: 2048 MB
Supported MSAA Modes: 2x 4x 8x 16x
Sound card:
Audio device: CA0106
Memory:
RAM: 4026 Mb
Miscellaneous:
UI Language: English
LANG: en_IE.UTF-8
Microphone: Not set
Total Hard Disk Space Available: 750966 Mb
Largest Free Hard Disk Block: 617957 Mb
Installed software:
Recent Failure Reports:
Nothing extracted yet.
When I first played Half-Life on PC, whenever there was a loading screen, the screen would freeze with whatever gameplay was last on it, the "Loading..." text would come up, and when the loading finished the text would disappear and the game would resume.
When playing the game under Linux, the Loading screen is now just plain black with the "Loading..." text upon it.
I know this sounds like a minor quibble, but the flicker of back every time there's a loading screen (I've got to say, the loading in this game is FAST, love fast loading times), is just a bit distracting, and I prefered it with the last frame of gameplay just freezing like that until the next level loaded.