Reasonable Spec Computer Cannot Handle Half Life2!?

[matrixmainframe]

I am a late comer to gaming and therefore a newbie gamer but I have purchased and can play the following games on my computer without any problem: Crysis / F.E.A.R / F1 2010 / Singularity /Dead Space 2 / Halo and Far Cry.

But my computer just cannot handle Half Life2. The nVidia website states that my video card compatability with Half Life2 is "Good" but the computer continually freezes after various minutes of play and when it does I cannot use keyboard or mouse and the only option is to switch off the computer.

I have installed, re-installed, totally uninstalled and clean installed my video card drivers but the problem still exists.

I have even reduced the options within the game to 'low' from 'high', even though the game chooses the high settings as appropriate for my machine!?

I am frustrated that I can play Crysis, which is supposed to be one of the most resource intensive games available, yet I cannot play Half Life2!

My computer specs are as follows:

Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 (64bit)
3.10 gigahertz AMD Phenom II X2 550
8Gb RAM
2 x 500Gb Hard Disks
nVidia Ge-Force GT220 Video Card

Can anyone offer any comments/advice please?

Thanks

 

[hool10]

That is quite the computer you got there, congrats! HL2 was updated a year ago with features that appeared on the console version. Unfortunately Valve botched the game up pretty bad. It's sad because HL2 is one of their better games and people still play it. They future proof with the Source engine but their older Source games suffer when they are updated when it comes to newer technology. A great example is the random crash I get with Source games on HL2 and TF2 with slow-downs when you activate multi-core CPU's on games before Portal 2. Games are not optimized for that technology yet they put in buggy code. Anyways try to do this:

1. Right click Half-Life 2 in the Steam games list.

2. Click on 'properties.'

3. Click on 'Set launch options.'

4. Type in '-32bit'

5. Try again.

Just beware because last time I saw whacky stuff that ruined the experience. Stuff like missing textures (which appear as polka dotted stuff) pink tiles, giant ERROR signs, and whacky stuff appearing literally in the sky, and other things stick out. It isn't because your missing any files neither it's just that they wrecked the game. I don't know if they fixed the game but I doubt it. Check the console too when you see that happening as well. I guarantee it will have red text saying files are missing or random tech code.

 

[Hectic Glenn]

Do you have any problems with other games on Steam? Do you have any of these programs installed which may interfere with Steam - https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9828-SFLZ-9289

 

[ríomhaire]

From Glenn's link:

Software to Look For
# VirtuaGirl 2

Hahaha. I don't know why I find that so funny.

 

[Sam Raven]

I noticed the above problem when Valve replaced the white dude with a valve sticking out of his left eye with an Afro dude with a valve sticking out of his bald head from the intro part of the newer games.
Then it became impossible to skip that brief valve advertising scene for Half Life 2 and Ep 1. Trying to do that led to the error message 'HL2.exe has experienced a problem and needs to close'. I use Windows 7.

After that when I left this portion alone I noticed how the game would briefly freeze as the 'waiting pointer' (its the blue circle that flashes round and round in Windows 7, replacing the hour glass of older Windows OS), then the screen would go black for a while, and then the game main menu comes out and everything returns to normal.

My PC has:

Operating System Windows 7
Core i5 2.67 GHz (4 core)
ATI 5770 GPU
4GB RAM
450 GB HDD

 

[Vegeta897]

Afro dude with a valve sticking out of his bald head

What.

 

[Rizzo]

Obviously.

 

[kineaesth]

You're right Vegeta, that is a sweet afro.

 

[Vegeta897]

Obviously.

Oh, thanks, I had no idea what he was referring to!

You're right Vegeta, that is a sweet afro.

Yeah I love bald afros.