BSP Viewer

[MS:C community]

I just reinstalled Hammer and all the tools I use, including BSP Viewer, only to find that this tool is now a lot less useful all of a sudden...
BSP Viewer always required one to load game packages (GCF, or the much older PAK) but Steam no longer uses those since an update from a long while ago.

Some other update must've messed something up too, because:
1) I can't select entities by clicking on them in the 3D view
2) Skyboxes don't load

In Options --> Setup I've tried, under "User Path:" the following:
...\Steam\SteamApps\common
...\Steam\SteamApps\common\Half-Life
...\Steam\SteamApps\common\Half-Life\msc

And "MOD:" is set to "msc"

...but the two above problems persist.

Is there a fix or has Valve broken BSP Viewer because of Steam updates?

Edit: On an unrelated note, is it still possible to enable wireframe in MS:C?

 

[MS:C community]

So I created a text file in ...\Steam\SteamApps and renamed it to half-life.gcf
I then loaded it in BSP Viewer and although the program states "Failed to open C:\Games\Steam\SteamApps\half-life.gcf.", skyboxes now render fine... How very odd.

I still can't point-click-select entities though.

 

[Thothie]

Mine's pointing at \Steam\steamapps\common (mod: MSC), and at a non-existent \Steam\steamapps\half-life.gcf. Gives me the same "Failed to open" error.

*kinda* shows sky, via an overlay outside the map, the actual skybrushes come up blue though... But it let's me click on the brush entities defined. And, as before, crashes nicely when I close it.

Might try unchecking Volatile Access in options.

 

[MS:C community]

Sadly, I still haven't gotten it to work.
I am encountering a similar problem though... In Hammer
Sometimes when I try to select a brush in the 3D view, a totally different brush is selected; sometimes even one that is almost completely on the other side of the screen.
The same happens when using the texture application tool. Instead of seeing the face highlighted that I tried to select, a different face might randomly get selected... Sometimes of the same brush, but sometimes even of a different brush.

Moving the camera around and changing the view angle can always solve the problem, but it is very annoying. I've never had this before and I reformatted my PC a few months ago. Might this be a video card driver issue or something? I'm stumped.

 

[Thothie]

I've had that happen on some Intel and ATI GPU systems, among other odd stuff. :\ Hammer, like Half-Life, uses a lotta "depreciated" OpenGL, and those company's GPU departments don't have the manpower to care anything for legacy.

 

[MS:C community]

I reverted to a driver from over a year ago (GeForce 332.21 Driver from January 7, 2014) yet the problem persists... I have a GeForce GT 755M in my laptop - no ATi card here, fortunately.

I also just installed BSP Viewer on a slightly older computer (with a GeForce GT 640) and it works just fine; I can click on entities in the 3D window and they are instantly selected.

The problem must be something else. Do you have any other ideas perhaps? Or someone else, maybe?

At this point I'm contemplating a full reinstall >.>

 

[Thothie]

Only thing with the mobile series is sometimes the computer uses the wrong graphics card for some applications. Not dealt with that myself (I have an M on one of my laptops, but it's so old it doesn't have the problem). Maybe related to Dridje's Optimus problems.

 

[MS:C community]

I reformatted my laptop (was in such a rush to get back to mapping that I sadly didn't even notice your reply about Optimus before I had already begun) and both the click-and-select-related problems in BSP Viewer and Hammer have been fixed. How peculiar

I did set hl.exe to use my videocard (instead of onboard) though, with Nvidia Inspector, and I did that before installing and setting up Hammer and BSP Viewer, so it might still be related.