Total piss off - HL2:EP1 (Orange Box)

[CLASSIFIED]

I bought two days ago the Orange Box. Yeah I know it's not out yet but that's not where I'm going here.. I bought it a specially because it offers Episode 1 and 2 (soon to be released).

My specs are:

Intel P4 2.4
RAM: 1 GB
Video card: x1650pro 256mb ddr3 (agp)

I played DOD:S, CS:S with FULL HDR and top settings. My avg fps is 30 (that's in bad cases. most of the time 98% it works smooth. the 2% doesn't lag hard) and I play on 1024*768 resolution.

So I started HL2:EP1. Started a new game, everything worked smooth. The loading was pretty fast, the game worked nice and smooth. Then I got to the point where DOG is jumping around looking for something.. THEN it happens! A hurrible lag strikes! The screen freezes for awhile and the sound loops. Then for one sec it gets back to normal and then AGAIN. It get's stuck. The longer I wait and do nothing, the worse it gets. It can get easly worse enough so my only way is to Reset the computer. If I was fast enough, I could just Alt+TAB then ALT+CTRL+DEL and end the process hl2.exe.

It's a total piss off. I was so excited for a moment there..
So I searched everywhere in the web and I saw many others reported the same bugs (Yeah later the loading got stuck too). Worst part is that EP1 isn't a new released game and thus I expected the bugs to be fixed. I'm pretty convinced the problem is with the game. I have the latest x1650 series driver (10/9/2007) I have the latest audio driver. My direct X is up to date. I tried running the game without sound and it didn't work.
The only solution out there I saw that was reported to be working is runnin the game on DX7, but this is absort. I won't be playing HL2:EP1 on DX7! no way.. it's a totaly waste. I don't see why EP1 wouldn't work smoothly for me. My computer bears things much heavier than EP1. Why is it that so many people report these problems? why is it I need to be wasting hours finding a modified answer? This game is more than 1 year out and I feel worried if VALVe ever gonna fix this.

VALVe has never dispointed me before so this is a great suprise for me. I believe they were busy with other things but still.. How come they release EP2 when I don't even get the chance to play EP1 because it's buggy and I don't want it just for the storyline, Otherwise I could simply read spoilers on the web.

But just in case I'm wrong: is there any other answer?
I tried:
* -nosound
* Run-> DXDIAG -> Sound ->Standart/Basic Accleration
* Updating Drivers
* Verifing Cache (Deleting the game foler and then run the game)
* Re-installing (helped to fix the loading back but then when I started game, it worked on 1 fps. I had to wait 5 mins just to see the entire "Half-Life 2 ----Episode 1----" begining title.
*Other things I don't remember..

I'm pissed off and disappointed. I also wrote to the steam support about this and still waiting for an answer but I wanted to see if anyone had this and could possibly help me get my game work, it worth 10 hours me working hard at work (not mentioning the money I earned for the Video-card to begin with).

Thanks in Advance guys, I really hope you guys can help me out here.. please

 

[G-Dub]

EP1 played fine for me. Didn't know it was buggy?

 

[CLASSIFIED]

EP1 played fine for me. Didn't know it was buggy?

What's your spec? Drivers etc.

Yeah, appearently it's buggy. At first I though it was only me but after googling I releazied it's a common problem..

 

[Laivasse]

Happens a lot with Source engine games. Try defragging, turning off autosaves - all the stuff that's suggested by the support item on Steampowered.com. Also make sure you graphics card is nice and cool, in case it's related to a heat issue. Turning off HDR would be one way of reducing the load on your rig - I know it's far from ideal, but it's better than playing in Dx7.

Also - what version of the catalyst drivers are you using? This is important, since the last few releases have been less than ideal for some AGP users.

Edit: to clarify, give the Cat 7.6's or the Omega Drivers (7.4) a try if you are using a higher version currently.

 

[CLASSIFIED]

Happens a lot with Source engine games. Try defragging, turning off autosaves - all the stuff that's suggested by the support item on Steampowered.com. Also make sure you graphics card is nice and cool, in case it's related to a heat issue. Turning off HDR would be one way of reducing the load on your rig - I know it's far from ideal, but it's better than playing in Dx7.

Also - what version of the catalyst drivers are you using? This is important, since the last few releases have been less than ideal for some AGP users.

Edit: to clarify, give the Cat 7.6's or the Omega Drivers (7.4) a try if you are using a higher version currently.

I didn't try turning off the autosaves but I'm sure it is unrelated to the problem(s) because an Autosave will freeze the screen for a sec just because it takes a snapshot of your screen and it happens only when you are getting to a new area.. which I wasn't fortuned enough to get to at all. Turning off HDR would still ruin the idea of playing HL2 with HDR for me.. I know I know, but HDR is essential, I don't want to mess around with my graphics, I'm more than positive it has nothing to do with my graphics, even if it does, it must be something wrong with the code of the game and its approach because all other games work just fine for me and better than fine (with HDR and top settings). Do you feel me? it's just missing the "ideal" I was expecting when I bought the game, but I don't want my money back. I want the game to work.

Anyway, I listened to your advice. I looked up for the Omega drivers but it seems the Omega drivers don't support my video card yet (x1650 a pretty new model turns out to be) and then I checked the driver ver of the CD I got in addition to the video card, and there I have a Cat 7.7, which already hints me that 7.6 could properly not support my video card or could possibly be too old to use the potentials of my video card, that it just isn't worth installing.. Currently I have 7.9 which offers more vivid capabilities for my video card. I really don't know what to do about the EP1.. I bought the Orange box just for the episodes. I wouldn't mind the Extra Portal and Team Fortress 2, nor the HL2 which I will be able to gift and the other game, Peggle. I guess it's all up to VALVe, I really hope they gonna hear my S.O.S call and check this out (if they haven't already). I can't bear the though of having this game and actually feeling as if it's a beta version =/

 

[diluted]

Yeah, on my new computer, I get crashing problems in some Source games, but not others. In EP1 and HL2, it crashes maybe every 15-30 minutes. In HL2DM, it never crashes during gameplay, however whenever I close the game it gives me the "hl2.exe has stopped responding" error. CS:S has no problems at all. I thought maybe it's a Vista issue, my old computer had XP on it. Regardless, there seems to be some serious issues in the Source engine with some PC configurations, and it's kind of ridiculous that it's still going on nearly 3 years after HL2's release.

 

[PimpinPenguin]

Well looking at the Steam forums it seems they are finally looking in to the problem. But right now there is nothing you can do until they fix it which could take a long time.

 

[CyberPitz]

Hmmm, strange enough, I haven't seen a single crash related to this problem. I wonder if this is related to the TF2 problem.

 

[Laivasse]

I didn't try turning off the autosaves but I'm sure it is unrelated to the problem(s) because an Autosave will freeze the screen for a sec just because it takes a snapshot of your screen and it happens only when you are getting to a new area.. which I wasn't fortuned enough to get to at all. Turning off HDR would still ruin the idea of playing HL2 with HDR for me.. I know I know, but HDR is essential, I don't want to mess around with my graphics, I'm more than positive it has nothing to do with my graphics, even if it does, it must be something wrong with the code of the game and its approach because all other games work just fine for me and better than fine (with HDR and top settings). Do you feel me? it's just missing the "ideal" I was expecting when I bought the game, but I don't want my money back. I want the game to work.

It has been my experience that autosaves can provide yet another opportunity for the game to freeze. I haven't seen a concrete explanation of why the stutter-crash occurs, but among the ones I have read is the suggestion that it's related to how HL2 accesses files on your HD - defragging and turning off autosaves is one way of stopping HL2 having problems doing that. Way back, I heard a couple of people say that one surefire way to fix the stutter bug is to extract all the files from the relevant GCFs and put them in the same directory structure in your HL2 directory - but I never tried this, nor do I remember exactly what was being done or how to do it.

Anyway, I listened to your advice. I looked up for the Omega drivers but it seems the Omega drivers don't support my video card yet (x1650 a pretty new model turns out to be) and then I checked the driver ver of the CD I got in addition to the video card, and there I have a Cat 7.7, which already hints me that 7.6 could properly not support my video card or could possibly be too old to use the potentials of my video card, that it just isn't worth installing.. Currently I have 7.9 which offers more vivid capabilities for my video card.

I think you are operating under a misconception about video drivers. Fair enough, if they're working well enough for you in other games then changing might be a needless gamble, but it is not the case that recent driver releases automatically get better, especially for ATi AGP users.

I use an x1950 AGP and the Cat 7.8 and Cat 7.9 releases are completely unusable on my card - there is a warning in the release notes that they can make windows fail to start, and I've experienced it myself. The x1650 is not that new a card, certainly not newer than the x1950 AGP which ATi can't be bothered to support. If the 7.9's work fine for you then good, but really with these newer drivers ATI appear to be focussing mainly on improving performance in their HD2xxx series of cards. To my knowledge, the 7.6's are the last guaranteed 100% stable drivers for someone with an AGP ATi card.

Also - are you sure about the Omega drivers not supporting the x1650? It doesn't sound correct to me. They are simply modded Cat 7.4's, which support all ATi cards. Make no mistake, ATI drivers are NOT improving over time for someone with a card of your generation.

 

[CLASSIFIED]

It has been my experience that autosaves can provide yet another opportunity for the game to freeze. I haven't seen a concrete explanation of why the stutter-crash occurs, but among the ones I have read is the suggestion that it's related to how HL2 accesses files on your HD - defragging and turning off autosaves is one way of stopping HL2 having problems doing that. Way back, I heard a couple of people say that one surefire way to fix the stutter bug is to extract all the files from the relevant GCFs and put them in the same directory structure in your HL2 directory - but I never tried this, nor do I remember exactly what was being done or how to do it.I think you are operating under a misconception about video drivers. Fair enough, if they're working well enough for you in other games then changing might be a needless gamble, but it is not the case that recent driver releases automatically get better, especially for ATi AGP users.

I use an x1950 AGP and the Cat 7.8 and Cat 7.9 releases are completely unusable on my card - there is a warning in the release notes that they can make windows fail to start, and I've experienced it myself. The x1650 is not that new a card, certainly not newer than the x1950 AGP which ATi can't be bothered to support. If the 7.9's work fine for you then good, but really with these newer drivers ATI appear to be focussing mainly on improving performance in their HD2xxx series of cards. To my knowledge, the 7.6's are the last guaranteed 100% stable drivers for someone with an AGP ATi card.

Also - are you sure about the Omega drivers not supporting the x1650? It doesn't sound correct to me. They are simply modded Cat 7.4's, which support all ATi cards. Make no mistake, ATI drivers are NOT improving over time for someone with a card of your generation.

If so then I'll try the 7.6 anyway.
Well I installed the latest driver they (Omega) provided for ATi (after removing my last driver: as the instructions suggest) but I couldn't change my Monitor Screen Refresh and everything looked as if it didn't "get" the driver. The screen refresh is very important and without it everything looks.. well how to say this in nice words.. bad enough to re-install the cat's one.

By the way, right now I played DOD:S for a few hours. All of a sudden I got the same problem. I suspect that actually updating my Audio Card made things worst, yet I don't know which version would be the best to install. I have an on board Realtek AC'97

 

[Laivasse]

I'm actually having occasional crashes myself at the moment, and I also suspect it might be down to my fully updated AC97 onboard audio. I'm not sure though, and since drivers for onboard sound are released far less frequently (and even the most recent drivers for Realtak AC97 are quite old) I find it hard to believe that they would put out a set that were unstable, especially since it is such a common sound device.

I know what you mean now with the Omega drivers. Often you get drivers which technically 'support' your card, yet which give you godawful results when you install, either because the support is poor, or because of particular hardware settings, etc. After all, ATI claim that the Cat 7.8's and 7.9's 'support' the x1950 - there's no warning about AGP cards until you delve into the release notes.

Anyway, like I say, if the 7.9's are generally working okay then changing them is a bit of a gamble, but I haven't heard the same level of complaints about Cat 7.6 as I have about Cat 7.7-7.9. One warning about Cat 7.6 - you no longer get a proper configuration window for your card when you go to Display Properties > Settings > Advanced, so you're forced to use either the Catalyst Control Center or something like ATItool to change your card settings (hint: go with ATItool and forget that piece of shit CCC).

 

[CLASSIFIED]

Great.. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling older versions of AC 97. My favorite performance were of the 3.97 ver. But nothing helped it. Worst! Now my DOD:S is also crashing :`(

I reinstalled the latest 4.1 ver of my sound crad, reinstalled my video card.. nothing helped it. The only thing that seemed to help me out was this page: http://support.steampowered.com/cgi...hp/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=242#autoconfig

I just clicked on Day Of Defeat: Source. It launched the game with Default Settings, I changed them again to the highest settings (By the way, Full HDR is chosen by default) and the game worked fine, only that when there is a map change it tent to stuck in the loading and again... I gonna have to fight demons from hell to shut down the hl2.exe process. Dammit.. first EP1 but now this?! NO no no no...

 

[Laivasse]

Sorry to hear you're still having problems... I really don't know anything more that would help though.

Maybe check out this thread.

 

[Hectic Glenn]

If the game works ok for a long period of time then randomly grinds to a halt I would be inclined to suggest your computer may be experiencing some over heating effects, have you checked your temperatures?

 

[CLASSIFIED]

Edit: Attention! Fix Is Provided Inside This Post !
Source link for the best solution: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=598493&page=84

If the game works ok for a long period of time then randomly grinds to a halt I would be inclined to suggest your computer may be experiencing some over heating effects, have you checked your temperatures?

I checked heating before game then heating after game, there is no drastic change sometimes no change at all. By default my temperature is about 60 to 66/67 rarely if I do play a lot then it gets to 70. But it's still okay.

It's not it. I'm convinced. I played other games with top settings, had a smooth game play 'till the end. But I think I'm up to something. I don't know what's going on with the source engine, it's sure is a freak show because before I got EP1 the other games: CS:S, HL:S, HL2, DOD:S all worked fine (especially DOD:S because it is most HDR supported) but since the installation of EP1 the evil bug made appearance outside the game EP1 and got also my DOD:S to stuck as well.

I found a solution that could possibly help VALVe solving this problem.
After reinstalling many Audio drivers and finding out it didn't fix any things right and then Re-Installing back the latest Audio/ Video Drivers (The latest drivers at the official sites) which still haven't fixed any things right (yet at least all drivers are up to date now).

I've tried out a method with DOD:S which just a few mins ago proved to be working with EP1. It has one downside.. after a map change (new loading)
it stops working and the bug comes back.

(This is what worked for me before Laivasse got me the Magic bullet)
All I did is reset the settings of my video card with this (I know.. but I had to try ANYTHING to make this work):
http://support.steampowered.com/cgi...hp/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=242#autoconfig

*There are links there and I launched my games through them.
*After the video settings were reset, I got them up to the top high.
*Game worked PERFECT. 'till the next loading.

Those are the links to launch the game with settings reset(For Source):

Half-Life 2

Counter-Strike: Source

Half-Life: Source

Day Of Defeat: Source

Half-Life 2: Deathmatch

Half-Life Deathmatch: Source

Half-Life Episode 1

Sin Episodes: Emergence



I think that could help VALVe find the problem, assuming they may visit this forum. I'll also try to contact them anyway.

In Addition

Sorry to hear you're still having problems... I really don't know anything more that would help though.

Maybe check out this thread.

-Laivasse

Is the MAGIC BULLET solution! Hell it works! this tiny textual change made all the difference in the world.

But it's not a perfect solution because of the Extra RAM use. It's still not solving the technical problem of Source BUT it makes the game work again and work smooth too. I haven't checked but it's told that this fix, fixes ALL source games. So far since I tried this, EVERYTHING WORKED PERFECT! Thank god! No need to lower your settings :bounce: :cheers: :thumbs:

I joined the forum to let you all know about this! A new fix has been discovered that worked like a charm for me and many others when it comes to the looping sound crash.

I do NOT take credit for this, I didn't find it, i'm just relaying the info for your purposes!

Here's how you open Registry Editor:

Start Menu > Run > regedit

Surf down to this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management

Double click on "PagedPoolSize". Hexadecimal is listed first. Change the "Value Data" to one of these below:
(Note: You only need to enter EITHER Hexadecimal or Decimal. They both are the same.)

Megabytes Hexadecimal Decimal
192Mb 0c000000 201326592
256Mb 10000000 268435456
384Mb 18000000 402653184

I went with the 384Mb option and it worked perfectly.

Once you are done, make sure you reboot your computer.

Enjoy!

I am now running in fullscreen mode, DX9 again, with most settings on high. Played for a total of 5 hours with this and NO crashes yet!!!

(Link source: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=598493&page=84 )




ALSO, Valve has found that a few AntiVirus programs have been interfering with steam (giving it 100% process priority and causing freezes). Specifically mentioned are AVG 7.5 and NOD32.
(Link source: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=603853 )

After uninstalling (do not just disabling/closing processes as it will NOT work!) AVG7.5 and running the registry fix, my system is working great with TF2. Might fix Ep1 too, but I haven't tried yet.




I really hope others find this to fix their problems. At least until they can patch/fix it inherently in steam/hl2 code.

Good Luck, and Good Hunting!

This thread should Stick. This is the ultimate fix for this problem 'till VALVe will find a better solution.

A lots of thanks to everybody here, especially to Laivasse who saved the day here :cheers:

I will edit the first Post and try to Link VALVe here.

Thanks again!

Edit: Apparently I am not allowed to edit the first threat. Oh well..

Edit: I would recommend using the Registry solution because it doesn't sound like a good idea getting rid of your AntiVirus.

 

[Laivasse]

Glad that everything's working okay now, but I can't take credit for linking to a second hand link :cheers:
It does sound like lots of people are having success with this though.

I'm using it myself but my comp is still unstable as shit ;( Non-Source-related crashes though... I might make a thread in Hardware and Tech...

 

[CLASSIFIED]

Hmmm.. what's your spec?
Not sure I can help much but who knows. Your video card Kick A** big time, I know that because it's much newer than my own and mine works awesome.

By the way the 7.6 is a little old, are you completely positive you don't want to risk getting the cat 7.9? Since your hardware is more advanced than mine and I am using 7.9

 

[Laivasse]

Tried the Cat 7.8's and they eventually made Windows completely fail to start D: I ended up doing a big reformat/reinstall... Whatever was wrong with those drivers for the x1950 appears to still be a problem with the 7.9's, since ATI acknowledge the problem and give another warning in the release notes for 7.9. I'm pretty happy with 7.6 for the time being (at least until ATI can get their act together), since they're running TF2 fine atm.

I also may have found the source of the crashing (without wishing to tempt fate). I analysed the dumps from some of my blue screens, and it seems that 'klif.sys' may have been causing a problem. This is a Kaspersky Antivirus file and Kaspersky related bluescreens are apparently not rare, so i just uninstalled it. No BSOD's since, but I'm not holding my breath.

Thanks anyhoo :thumbs:

 

[space_h0b0]

This may seem simplistic to everyone who's focusing on driver and/or hardware problems:

Is it possible that you have anti-virus software that is suddenly hogging more system resources and/or playing with system files as it downloads and installs an update? The reason I say this is that I had a similar thing happen as the OP, but when it happened, I caught a brief flicker of my anti-virus update window through the HL2 image on my monitor. After a brief period of time (long enough to download an install an update, hmmmm...), gaming was back to normal.

Just a little something to consider.

 

[DIEB4ME]

Changing your os page pool memory definitely fixes the problem,inface it fixed all of my steam isues and was a very simple solution. If any one else has a steam problem i sugest you give it a try.

 

[dscxrh]

Tried the registry fix shown above. It made no difference but I did get a blue screen of death during a stuttering game of TF2 so uninstalled it. Steam suck not fixing this problem. Have tried everything possible (drivers, defrag, etc) and wasted hours on it with no success.