Half-Life 2 Troubleshooting & Spec discussion

[Link]

Ahoy, I'm getting Half Life 2 for christmas (don't worry I am sane, I would have bought it long before now, but I'm getting my new PC at christmas too) and should I bother to download any of these patches when I get it? I think I get the impression it's best to just leave the game as it is and live with the bugs? ... Will steam try to update Half Life 2 automaticly when I install it for the first time, or will it ask me first? Annnnnnnnnd also, what kind of performance can expect to get on a P4 3ghz, 512 mb ram and ATI X800se ?

I really don't want to have the 30 fps drop I read about after downloading a patch, has there been nothing to fix those drop in frames yet? Anyway, I'd apreciate if someone could tell me what to do what to do when I install it regarding the patches. I have a bad feeling this going to be one of those christmas' when I go insane because my present doesn't work, and have an angry face at the christmas dinner table (hah christmas 2001 when I got my ntsc cube, my first import console I remember being so pissed off all christmas because my tv wasn't ntsc compatible, ayyy I was only a little kid then heh).

[nips]

Nips: Looks like you don't have enough VRAM. Turn down the settings man!

FFS, I know my pc can't handle it, but in order to turn the settings down, like I want to, I have to load up the game, and I can't do tha becuase I don't have enough VRAM (whatever that is). Basically, I'm in limbo, and still haven't completed this game.

How can I lower my settings, without loading up the game?

[Blu3Flame]

Ahoy, I'm getting Half Life 2 for christmas (don't worry I am sane, I would have bought it long before now, but I'm getting my new PC at christmas too) and should I bother to download any of these patches when I get it? I think I get the impression it's best to just leave the game as it is and live with the bugs? ... Will steam try to update Half Life 2 automaticly when I install it for the first time, or will it ask me first? Annnnnnnnnd also, what kind of performance can expect to get on a P4 3ghz, 512 mb ram and ATI X800se ?

I really don't want to have the 30 fps drop I read about after downloading a patch, has there been nothing to fix those drop in frames yet? Anyway, I'd apreciate if someone could tell me what to do what to do when I install it regarding the patches. I have a bad feeling this going to be one of those christmas' when I go insane because my present doesn't work, and have an angry face at the christmas dinner table (hah christmas 2001 when I got my ntsc cube, my first import console I remember being so pissed off all christmas because my tv wasn't ntsc compatible, ayyy I was only a little kid then heh).

Its all fully automatic, when you connect to steam it will register the game as incomplete and start downloading the patches. I have completed the game and not come across the slightest stuttering or any drop in frame rate, I have a P3.4[Northwood] 1gb of RAM and a 9800XT.

[nips]

Oh, and Link, you'll install HL2 and click on the HL2 shortcut to play the game. Assuming you have BB and a STEAM account you'll connect to that and automatically download the patches, other wise you'll have to connect to the internet, and/or make an account then register and update.

You have no choice but to download patches and register the item at the same time. Whether these will affect you performance, I can only speculate, although, I would imagine, that with the specifications that you have, it would be negligible.

Get ready for a rocking Christmas

[Link]

Thanks alot for that, hah I sure hope it'l be a rocking christmas. The patch doesn't sound so bad anymore, so thanks for clearing that up for me! I can't wait to play this, finnaly getting rid of this PC will be amazing, the 64mb ram, 8 gig hard drive monster that it is!

[nips]

Have a good one man Lucky bast.

My time will come... I want to finish this game. I'd almost forgotten about uit until this thread was bumped...

If I uninstall, will my saved games be lost... will I have to patch again, and will my settings be defaulted?

[Moodmon]

New update out. Despite having world rendering optimizations for Source, it still stutters. Maybe next month. Or year. Or decade ?_?

[Concept]

I know the feeling. Just did a fresh reinstall from the Collector's Edition. Say hello to a wildly inconsistent frame rate (which differs every time I boot it up) and stuttering aplenty.

[Moodmon]

It wouldn't be so bad, but from what I've played it is an excellent game. Yet I simply won't force myself to play it until it is fixed. There are other good games I can give my attention too.

[Valken]

I've got a quick Steam query and I guess this is the best place to put it.

Basically I installed Steam on a mate's PC and installed HL2 from the retail CD and logged in with my account to show him the game... I didn't give him the pass and he can't log in as me.

On the merit of seeing the game he now wants to buy it which is great... except since he's already got the files on his he wants to know if it's enough to make his own Steam account, purchase it online and let it realise the files are present and not go to the trouble of downloading them again.

The reason I ask is becuase I don't want his trying to use "my" game files with his account and make Valve thing something yarr is going on and ban my account.

Any ideas?

[Moodmon]

http://www.blep.net/hl2stutter/

Hang on a sec. Looking at that blep site, it mentions someone going to with his PC to Valve, as he lives nearby. I remember reading that bloke posting on the Steam forums, with the same offer to take his PC round. Around a month ago.

This stinks.

[Valken]

http://www.steampowered.com/?area=news

Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike: Source Update Released
December 22, 2004, 3:37 pm ? Alfred Reynolds

Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike: Source updates are available and will be applied automatically when Steam is restarted. The changes include:


Half-Life 2

Fixed sound stuttering problems caused by thread contention in sound system

Counter-Strike: Source

Fixed missing models when running the Video Stress Test

The update's downloaded on my system but I haven't tried it out. Currently running it on an older PC while I finish my new build though so I'm getting 30fps max at 1024 on medium settings at the best of times.

[Concept]

I am not downloading anything until I read widespread user feedback. The last 'patch' played havoc with my system, but having said that, I'm very glad to see Valve are at least sorting the problem out via a number of different routes. I pray to god this works, because I've been deliberately staying away from playing Half-Life 2 again until I can play it stutter free. The time away is killing me.

[Valken]

What I did when I first got it downloaded was to make a backup using Steam's built in backup thing...

That way if it goes nuts I can delete the cached files, disable autoupdate and restore something that works.

Better safe than sorry...

[Concept]

Well I just tried it. I allowed Steam to update (although the platform updated automatically without my consent).

Absolutely no change whatsoever. Loading up a few save files where the stuttering hits a peak (City 17) it's still bang on cue, stuttering in all the exact same places.

P-p-p-p-pii-cc-k up thaaaaat tr-aaaasss---hhh cccc-aaa-n. Etc. etc.