Alot of HL2 Problems

[ApocOne]

The game menu starts up fine, but the game itself starts up very very slowly because the video is laggy/stutters as well as the audio. Sometimes when I alt-tab it seems to fix the problem, but 90% it just fixes audio and i can only see a black screen. Another weird thing is i get the "blue screen of death" when i save (quicksave) once in a while. The game WAS legally bought and IS a retail DVD-Rom copy.

My System:

Dell Latitude C840 (Laptop!)
Pentium 4 1.80 Ghz
1 GB Ram
NVidia GeForce 4 440 Go

Most games work fine, even recent one like Rome Total War were working on medium to high detail without a glitch.

Whats up?

 

[^Ben]

Im sorry, I just think it's a system issue.

You probably have 32MB integrated graphics card which is just a bit pants.

All I can recommend is lowering everything, scan system for spyware, turn off all uneeded proccess.

Perhaps your dell is throttiling the power somehow?

 

[ApocOne]

All settings (besides audio) were lowered to the lowest setting. All unecessary processes are off. Ill try searching for spyware, but i doubt itll help much.

 

[doomed - uk]

How full is your harddrive?

 

[ApocOne]

its funny you ask that. Because when i installed the game there was only a couple hundred mb left. I uninstalled 3 other games and now have 5 GB out of 55 GB free. Unless 5 GB free isnt enough to run the game -_-

 

[doomed - uk]

Ah, that could be it. You see, the free 5 GB is possibly in little bits spread all over your harddrive and so is HL2...

I'd try freeing up a lot more space if you can and then deleting and reinstalling HL2.

 

[^Ben]

Try defragging the hardrive aswelll.

 

[StainlessJ-FPGA]

Yes defrag. Most people are surprised to find out how much of a performance boost you get after defragging. A fragmented install will kill your performance greatly.

Also, your video card isn't supported as far as I know. Developers don't usually have laptops in mind when it comes to gaming, and that's an old video card anyway.

 

[^Ben]

I know that the dell dimension 5150 runs it great(with the geforce go 5200)

 

[ApocOne]

Well i uninstalled enough programs to have 29% of my hard drive free, then reinstalled. Same problems... BUT there was something i found out.

The Video/Sound stuttering only happened in the opening cut-scene of the game (when the GMan says "Wake up") After that, so far ive gotten no stuttering/lag.

But i still have a problem... sometimes when i save i get the damn blue screen oof the death. It doesn't happen all the time, but its maybe 50-50. Damnit! This crap is hella annoying, especially for a save button trigger-happy guy like me lol, in most games i press the save button every halway or something HELP ME!!!!

 

[ApocOne]

specifically the BSOD i get is something like: (the numbers probably arent accurate)

STOP 0x0000008E (0x00000005, 0x239D695A, 0xF11EAAF8, 0x00000000)"
STOP 0x0000008e (0xc0000005, 0x00000307,0xf509b008, 0x00000000)

 

[ApocOne]

please, i really want to play this game...

 

[doomed - uk]

Someone here had crashes on saving which they fixed by updating their soundcard drivers.

 

[ApocOne]

i doubt its that, but its worth a shot. Errrr, how do you know what sound card you have? lol

 

[Ennui]

you check i think, generally you have onboard sound unless you custom bought another.

 

[ApocOne]

damnit screw this. I can't even return the god damn game...

 

[doomed - uk]

i doubt its that, but its worth a shot. Errrr, how do you know what sound card you have? lol

I think that would be:

Start-->Control Panel-->Performance and Maintenance-->System-->Hardware-->Device Manager-->Sound, video and game controllers

Probably then be several items in there, one of them having the sound card details and its driver.

 

[ApocOne]

I upgraded the sound card drivers, and nothing is fixed! I swear, im going crazy! My computer can play every other game besides this one! Please, please patch the game so it works :'(

 

[ApocOne]

Alright. Heres the story, ive tried everything and i still have one problem:

BSOD when saving/auto-saving (STOP 0x########## error occurs)

 

[Malairt]

A wee suggestion

I had the same problem with my Dell Dimension 8300 with a Radeon 9800 Pro.

Open up Control Panel and then Add/Delete Programmes. Look for Sonic and delete the one that says DLA (the one with no programme size) - NOT the one that says Sonic DVD.

The problem is coming from the way Sonic tries to identify the DVD through Drive Letter Access. Apparently. Info found on Dell's forums - eventually.

Worked for me - I wish you every success.

 

[ApocOne]

i have no program called DLA ...

 

[countuebles]

For an easy, throughout and free way to learn more about your system, its components and performance then you ever wished to know, try out SiSoftwares Sandra proggie, available HERE .
It beats all the windows utilities that M$ has built in and you find everything in the same place.

 

[ApocOne]

errr thanks, but i already have it and don't really see how that will help lol

 

[malice_]

i the worst case scenario you could format your hard drive
if nothing else works then after installing every necessary drivers
install half life and test it and test it again everytime you install
something new and see how it affects your system
thats all the advice i can give you now

hope you find the problem man

 

[ApocOne]

thanks, but thats just too much trouble for one game, i think im going to get a new pc, i needed one anyway, this was just a wake-up call showing how my computer is falling apart.