Error when opening HL2

[alltracturbo]

I just recently bought HL2 game of the year edition. I have 2 computers that I want to put it on using the same steam account. Both computers are home built.

I put it on my new computer with no problem
Windows XP Pro
Pentium 3.06Ghz
2GB DDR2 PC5300 dual channel ram
250GB hard drive
Radeon X300 SE 256MB 16X video card

The second computer is older
Windows ME
AMD 1.2Ghz
512MB PC133 ram
120GB hard drive
XFX NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 256MB 8X video card

With the older computer, evrything installed fine. I opened steam with current username and password from the new computer and installed the updates for all of the games(hl2, counter strike, deathmatch, hl1 source)

When I open any of the games, a box opens that says "preparing to launch HL2, then an error message opens saying "HL2 has caused an error in <unknown> HL2 will now close". I tried disconnecting the internet and playing offline, but I get the same message.

Also, when I close steam I get an error that says "Steam has caused an error in STEAM.dll, Steam will now close"

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

[alltracturbo]

Any help? Please!!! Has anyone ever had this problem?

I also did some searching and found that it may be the nvidia card and there is an update, but it requires windows 2000 or XP. I don't want to update windows.

Has anyone had any problems with there nvidia card working with HL2?

 

[Beerdude26]

I have 2 computers that I want to put it on using the same steam account.

I do hope you're not going to try and run it on both computers at the same time

And this problem has been occuring with lots of users lately, hopefully a Steam update will resolve this problem.

 

[alltracturbo]

I dont want to play it on both computers at the same time. I just want it to work on both, so I can choose wich computer. The computer that it works on is my brothers and he is moving soon. I just want to be able to play in offline mode.

 

[Beerdude26]

Well I'm a bit at a loss here, so you could try reposting your question at the official Steam forums : http://steampowered.com/index.php?area=forums

 

[eriknba]

sounds like a steam problem more than a game problem....beerdude is right, try steam forums

 

[funkyFlash]

I'm afraid I have little to no respect for ME. Do you get the same errors on your XP machine?

 

[alltracturbo]

No, i dont get any errors with XP, works fine.

I also noticed that when I open dxdiag from run, on the bottom it says DirectX version: Not Found

I tried installing directx 9c from the HL2 disk and directly from microsoft and it says the same thing. DirectX version: Not Found

 

[funkyFlash]

Har har har! I just had that issue with an XP machine! (Actually, it was because I uninstalled DX, and it didn't wanna go back on. I had to soft-install XP to fix it!) I don't know if you can do a soft-install / repair in ME, but long story short, you need to get the original DirectX back on your ME machine before you can upgrade to DirectX 9 again. But it seems your DirectX is corrupt on that machine, and I'd reckon that's what's giving you issues (well, besides the fact that you have windows ME...)

 

[alltracturbo]

Is there anyway I can get the original verision of directx that I need?

I also dont have a windows ME disk

 

[funkyFlash]

Don't have the original ME disk, way to make my job tough... Try this. This is a link to an older version of directX (8.1), designed for ME. If that bad boy runs, then you may be able to then install DX9.

 

[alltracturbo]

No, didn't work.

I installed 8.1 and it did the same thing as 9c. Installed evrything and it said "installed succesfully, ready to be used". Game wouldn't open. Checked dxdiag, still says "not found". Also tried putting -dxlevel 81 and a few other commands to change it to 8.1 in the launch options and none of those worked either.

Also, when I open dxdiag 2 messages come up. They say:

"dxdiag has detected that there may have been a problem accessing direct3d
the last time this program was used. Would you like to bypass direct3d this time?"

and then the same message with directplay instead of direct3d.

If I tell it to try and use either one of those (direct3d or directplay), dxdiag does't open.