Half-Life 2 (PC)

[Tom Salter]

Having some difficulty playing the game ? my set up is a AMD Athlon 64 3200 with a gig of RAM and a nvidia 6800 256mb card. I have checked the settings in the game and they are all set to high, but when I play the game it freezes out every few seconds and then sometimes loses the sound? All the drivers are updated ? any ideas?

Mine freezes every time I go into a new area for about 1/2 a second, nowt major. Like Halo 2's loading really.

OMFG this game is amazing. I'm drunk, and I gotta resist playing in case I spoil the gaming experience. Had a quick go earlier, and all I can say is:....

OMAHA BEACH

I want to put my willy up Valves botty. Where do I apply?

[Rushy]

I have the retail DVD version of the game.

I have installed the game correctly.

I CANNOT connect to steam!!!!!! I knew this would happen, I knew steam would never be able to cope with the capacity. So I'm left here with a game I bought that I can't play due to steam, great.

(don't get me wrong I actually like the idea of having to authenticate your game, as I'm against piracy, but this takes the piss).

[SuperBeatBoy]

authentication failure right?

i had the same problem, the servers were understress. leave that window open and give it 20mins and you will be up in no time.

[JibberX]

been playing for 5 hours, pretty darn tooting... makes other FPSs seem like a sad joke, although I could do with less of the driving sections.

[Rushy]

authentication failure right?

Nope, I can't log into steam at all. Looks like its hit capacity (I've never had a problem logging in before except in the early days when steam was a buggy mess)

[H-Man]

Wow - I can't get over how good HL2 looks ..... streets ahead of Far Cry and Doom 3 imo.

Enjoying the physics, and the fighting is pretty good (if a little simple).

Seems to be a top game so far \o/

[Moodmon]

Having some difficulty playing the game ? my set up is a AMD Athlon 64 3200 with a gig of RAM and a nvidia 6800 256mb card. I have checked the settings in the game and they are all set to high, but when I play the game it freezes out every few seconds and then sometimes loses the sound? All the drivers are updated ? any ideas?

I think I'm having the same problems as you. Runs nice and smooth, but every now and then it will judder (even when there is no action) and the sound will loop for a second. It's not just when loading a new area either. Maybe it's my on board sound card.

Anyway, it's alright so far. Not a fan of slow starts (but that's me) but it seems to be picking up.

Ran out of ammo at one point. Crowbar Vs lots of stuff isn't fun. The driving bits may have been alright had I not just finished Halo 2. Shows why they put them in as 1st person, I kept getting snagged. In fact, I'm having that trouble on foot, a little piece of debris will prevent me from getting somewhere.

Still, things are looking up. Got the gravity gun, so I'm looking forward to messing around with that.

[Kotatsu Neko]

Still playing. Cranked up the graphics again, now with added 4x FSAA! Still running smoothly at 1600x1200. Fast engine.

The engine is kind of weird though. Like an old engine (static light maps, boxy geometry) with new bits (shiny surfaces, the odd normal map here and there) bolted on. It's also, perhaps deliberately, rather mundane in it's design. Could use a few more epic bits. Little of the wow factor from the tech I got from Far Cry and Doom 3.

Enjoying it, but not as much as Halo 2. Half Life's wonders are mainly in the physics for me, but with Halo 2 it was a more complete package of the vehicles, the arbiter, the epic scenery/design, and the really tense battles. The driving sections in H2 are nowhere near as fun as Halo, and the difficulty is so tame I'm sailing through it, even on hard mode. It's a total walkover. Half Life 'hard' is like Halo 'Normal'. So nowhere to go from here, no Heroic, and certainly no legendary.

Not to put it down too much. It's really good, I just hope it gets better the further I go to become really great instead.

[Inertia_]

Right then - about the sound issues.

Personally, I've stopped playing HL2 until a solution appears. I want this to be the experience it's supposed to be and I won't play it until it is.

Here's what I know so far:

- Valve are aware of the problem and, at present, don't know how to fix it
- it affects a wide variety of users will all manner of high end systems
- it has nothing whatsoever to do with sound hardware (Audigy2's can be as badly affected as onboard sound)
- while end users have claimed to have lessened the stutters/repetitions, no one has yet claimed they've fixed it

Ho hum...

[HANGMAN]

All those great pysics,yet I shoot at lights - and nothing - light stays lit!!

[FelixofMars]

Its quite cool when you do get annoyed by a bit of wood you can pick it up and chuck it out of your way. I also have the sound problem, but it acctually appears that the game will freeze, the sound will loop then there will be action again, so far its only happened twice that it has been really noticable, TBH then are doing pretty well on minor faults.

There acctually does seem to be a problem with sound (especially Audigy) on all the new games recently, maybe its a Direct X issue?

[Inertia_]

I lowered the sound quality to low and it partially alleviated the problem (I think). Altering the hardware acceleration settings in dxdiag (the most common solution for this kind of thing) did nothing.

Perhaps it's a memory consumption issue - I'll try disabling all my non-essential services.

[Tom Salter]

Right then - about the sound issues.

Personally, I've stopped playing HL2 until a solution appears. I want this to be the experience it's supposed to be and I won't play it until it is.

Here's what I know so far:

- Valve are aware of the problem and, at present, don't know how to fix it
- it affects a wide variety of users will all manner of high end systems
- it has nothing whatsoever to do with sound hardware (Audigy2's can be as badly affected as onboard sound)
- while end users have claimed to have lessened the stutters/repetitions, no one has yet claimed they've fixed it

Ho hum...

It's simply a memory issue. Just disable non-essential services and do latest drivers. It dpes the same for me too, but only in new areas.

[Lactose Intollerant]

Oh buggy why do I hate you.

Hmm. I quite like how each section seems to have a different mood. Although the sheer claustrophobic 'got to get out of this lab from the very bottom' from the first game is better than whatever plot this is supposed to have so far.

[Inertia_]

It's simply a memory issue. Just disable non-essential services and do latest drivers. It dpes the same for me too, but only in new areas.

Spot on. Been playing for a few hours this evening/morning and in awe, frankly. Hmm, let's see now, so far we have:

- best grenades in a game ever
- some of the best enemies in a game ever (the 'manhacks')
- possibly best sound in a game ever

And we all know that the gravity-gun is just round the corner...