So far Half-Life Alyx has come off as a well-tested and adequately coded game with very few errors. However, with any software, the possibility of errors can never be disregarded. The Half-Life Alyx Black Screen and No Audio are among the few errors users encounter with the game.
The game is near perfect and the errors and bugs users have been encountering are due to their hardware and software misconfiguration and not due to Valve’s fault. If you have been facing the black screen, there are certain fixes you can try to resolve the issue.
Fix Black Screen Error with Half-Life Alyx
Besides the game crashing and stuttering, the black screen error is the most common problem with Alyx. As you would rightly assume, the problem is connected to your GPU. Ensure that you have the latest Nvidia Game Ready Driver released on 23rd March to Support Half-Life Alyx. The version code for the driver is 445.75. For AMD users, update the drivers to the version released on 19th March. Ensure that the graphics card adheres to the minimum system recommendation to play the game, which is Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB or an AMD RX 580 8GB. Ideally, you should meet all the requirements to play the game without errors.
If the error still occurs after updating the game, try minimizing the Window and opening it again or press Alt + Tab and choose another Window and again press Alt + Tab and return to the game.
You can also try playing the game in Windowed mode, you can do this by pressing Alt + Enter. Press the same keys will revert the action.
This should fix the black screen in the game.
Fix Half-Life Alyx No Audio Problem
This is not a widespread error that users face but for players who have an encounter with the no audio error, the gaming experience could be totally spoilt. We have noticed that users who had the Windows Sonic for Headphones turned on on their PC faced this problem. Turning it off resolved the error. Here is how you can check and replicate the fix.
- Press Windows Key + I to open Settings
- Click on Systems and go to Sound
- From the right side of the screen, click on the link Sound Control Panel
- Right-click on the available speakers and select Properties
- Go to the Spatial Sound tab and select Off from the drop-down menu
- Save the changes.
Once you are done with the steps, open the game and check if there is still no audio.
If this does not resolve the error, try updating the audio drivers from the Device Manager. To accomplish it press Windows Key + X and select Device Manager > expand Sound, video and game controllers > right-click on each one of the devices available and select Update device.
This should fix the issue with the game.
