Audio Problems with HL2

[jinjur]

people on this board

I would imagine there are a few different kinds of people on these boards:

1.) People who have been physically attached to valve, sierra websites for the past few months/years tailoring their systems exactly as recommended, waiting and anticipating the release of this game. These folks absolutely rock!

2.) People who bought A pcmag over the past few months....noticed a wee bit of hype about this game, thought...that looks pretty.........and bought a gfx card (any) to replace the onboard gfx in their machines. Honourable.

3.) As above.......without the upgrade......you know who you are......."it runs on my 266 ok with my 20k gfx card at 10*20pixels............." one word.......reflections....now go away.

4.) The people who talk b/s.........."it runs perfect on my 10ghz machine.....fnar fnar"..........likewise....go away........if you have no fixes or help......dont post...........this board is HUUUUGE enuf.

5.) The "ooooh valve are dickheads"..........ARSE.....you go write a game. If you think about the absolute scale of this thing....wow........i mean........mistakes happen....its only a game, is anyone lying on the floor bleeding?...didntthink so....they will fix it.....a wee bit of patience........does anyone know exactly how much work is involved in finding a fault and making, testing and rolling out a patch.... i do....lots.........IT HAS BEEN 2 DAYS.

Rant over..............i am going to sit and refresh this board every 3 seconds now to wait for the answer (joke)

andy

 

[CastleBravo]

Um... almost every poster on this thread has posted decent specs. Don't think I've seen ANY below the minimum spec on the box, but I might have missed one now that we have 30 pages of bug reporting. Alot of them are absolutely killer.

 

[jinjur]

would you post the specs if your machine was turd?

 

[PulpDood]

Has anyone tried running it in DX 8 mode? I've heard it's possible to change the DX mode in CS:S

Maybe that'll do the trick

If you want to try that, the console command is "mat_dxlevel 80". But whats the point of playing the game without everything turned on high?

 

[grant666uk]

Morning everyone...... Awww Still no fix. Back to bed then.

 

[noby_95]

My Machine:
P4 2.8, 9800 Pro, 1 Gig Ram -> Now 2 Gig Ram.

Stuttering annyoys me very much. I think HL2 is unplayable because of that.

I ve been waiting for HL2 desperately since the day i first heard it is in the make. Here's what i did since i got HL2:
I played it now about 10 minutes and tried about 30 Hours to fix the problem - Without any success.

Here's what i tried (in no particular order):

-Browsed every HL2 Forum every hour to find a fix

-Increased Heap Size to 512 MB. -> No improvement.

-Tried the parameters snd_mixahead, cl_forcepreload, sv_forcepreload, cl_smooth. -> No improvement.

-Defragged every part of my hd with windows defrag and with PerfectDisk. -> No improvement.

-Decreased sonud quality and video quality to a minimum -> Very little improvement. Still not playable.

-Used the onboard sound instead of my Soudblaster Live! -> No improvement.

-Completely reinstalled Win XP and only installed HL2 + Steam, nothing else -> No improvement.

-Bought additional 1 GB of Ram -> No improvement.

-Tried the Nvidia 5900 of a friend -> No improvement.

I that shit game!
I hate valve!
F U C K O F F!

 

[Aidenn]

why others are having problems and I'm not

Dunno, but it's certainly not because of the amount of RAM. I've 512MB and everything is mostly smooth, with single exceptions at the beginning of each level and once in every like five minutes (it's the autosave, I pressume). Now I'm defragmenting my drive (because it wasn't defragged for about three months) and I expect even the stuttering at the beginning to go away. And I repeat - I have 512 megabytes of RAM and i do not experience any audio-related stutter, and all the cutscenes are smooth and crispy.
My rig:
PIV 2,4GHz
512MB RAM (333MHz DDR)
Radeon 9500Pro
Latest OmegaDrivers
Kx Drivers for my SB Live

I play the game in 1024x768, everything maxed out, 4xAA and 4xAF. 50-80fps all the time.

 

[CastleBravo]

would you post the specs if your machine was turd?

If you were too stupid to know they were below spec, sure. I saw people do it on the Doom 3 forums all the time. "I have a P3 and a Voodo 5, why can't I play at Ultra?" :rolling:

 

[Dai-San]

Will people ever actually get it into their heads that this is NOT a lack of memory issue, 512 is and should be perfectly adequate. (More is better but NOT the cause).

ATI 9800 pro's WILL run this game fine (my 9800 pro is running it fine in 1024 x 768 4xaa everything ingame set to the recommended HIGH settings) I'm not saying your system doesn't have driver issues just stating the CARD is perfectly adequate.

It doesn't matter what soundcard or mobo you have as long as it isn't below min requirements it's FINE (I think we can assume by page 30 of people posting their specs that this is widespread across all mobo and soundcard combo's)

The so called 'FIXES' that keep getting posted may or may not work for an individual and by all means try them, if they improve the situation even marginally then great but they are not a FIX. The FIX needs to come from Valve itself in the form of a patch as it is a BUG in the game, not something that is being caused by YOUR system or hardware. (Again, i'm not saying your system is perfect, you may have driver conflicts everywhere, a nightmare of a registry etc etc but this is happening on freshly built machines with fresh installs and a variety of driver versions).

All i'm trying to say is PLEASE, PLEASE don't go out and buy new Mobo's, Soundcards, Gfx cards etc etc or bugger up a system that was working perfectly fine before by installing this driver or that driver just in the hope that you will fix this one game because it aint YOU or YOUR system thats the problem.

Sorry for the rant it just winds me up when i see people spending their hard earned or causing themselves other probs because some idiot says "Hey try formatting this and then installing this set of beta drivers and scrap that perfectly adequate piece of hardware and spend £300 on this, It worked for me"

 

[jinjur]

Well said Dai-San

:cheers:

 

[jinjur]

If you were too stupid to know they were below spec, sure. I saw people do it on the Doom 3 forums all the time. "I have a P3 and a Voodo 5, why can't I play at Ultra?"

LOL Bravo.............kudos to the laptop guys who dont have a choice in gfx card..............god help you.

 

[weeman]

gotta agree with dai-san.....

most of us are lucky enough to have the knowlege to tweak an off the shelf game, i feel for all the gamers out there who are not geeks like us, just enjoy gaming on there PC, they also have this problem and won't even know where to start to slove it.

That it not there fault, Valve are providing a service like any company in industry...not bein funny but i be pissed if i went into a Mcdonalds bought a cheeseburger and everything was there except the burger.....

Come on valve...

PLEASE ANY NEW PEEPS WHO ARE WATCHING THIS FORUM BUT NOT POSTING THAT THEY HAVE A PROB......POST!

We need to show valve the scale of this prob...

Ta

 

[Ruben]

GUYS!!! This is the best thread ever!!! This is a great community and i have been reading through all these posts.. damn this is a HUGE thread folks!

Compass: I have done what you did, i also have the nforce2 onboard audio card, although its not a "mercedes" audiocard its good enough, and guess what? The stuttering lessened even more (it lessened with the tweaks i did... i have done a bunch of stuff from this thread, now i cant keep track of them all) I just want to play the game now But it works a little better, i have some stuttering in some areas where it has to load new sounds into the game, and i works the hard drive like mad sometimes.

GOOD Thread!! I LOVE YOU ALL!!!

 

[Mark-P]

I'm getting that sinking feeling that this isn't going to be fixed anytime soon. Aside from the fact that it usually seems to take plenty of time for companies to fix and test bugs, Valve's silence strikes me as another 'don't tell them the bad news' situation that even the best companies seem to pull. (Hi Blizzard, Diablo2 1.10 ) ;(

And great post Dai-San. I'm leaving my machine well alone, though I almost made the mistake of trying to upgrade.

It's getting harder and harder to avoid spoilers when browsing gaming forums. Must find self restraint...

 

[AmishPornStar]

Hey folks...

I defragged and then last night Steam did an 89 minute update to HL2 and suddenly the game improved a great deal...Now I only get the hang after level load, and some occasional hic-hic-hic-hic-cups during the game...Not sure if this is the level of stuttering everyone was talking about, but if it is I was experiencing something much worse...

Oh, removing my Creative soundcard and using the AC97 from my NForce Board seemed to help...

Athlon 64 3000
MSI K8t Neo Mobo
1 Gig Kingston
5700 Ultra 128

 

[Hybris]

Hi!

" I have the same problem " gotta love that line by now...

But nonetheless I have it to...

I've read through various forums and tried all the solutions, with no effect.

What I liked to know more about is there talk about Miles sound system and how it can be the bad guy in all of this, but then why does only some of us have the problem? And with different soundcards, is it a mobo problem with pci latency? Is it a harddrive problem?

I still haven't seen anyone with Win2k or Win98 having this problem, but I could have missed it. Is it a WinXP related problem? I tried running with no page file but with 512 mb it crashed.

Funny how changing to different speaker settings seems to cure it for some? How come?

My system is the following:

AMD Athlon 'Barton' XP 2500+@3200+, OCZ DDR-400 EL Platinum Ltd. Ed. @ 2-2-2-10, DFI LanParty nforce2 ultra rev. B (Soundstorm), 2x 80 GB S-ATA Seagate @ RAID 0, GigaByte Radeon 9700 Pro, WinXP Pro w/SP2

And I have the latest bios and the latest drivers for everything, and I've tried numerous drivers for both the nforce chipset and the graphics card.

I've defraged everything incl page file with different programs. (The computer feels really fast now) but to no availe.

I wanna thank you all for posting in here, it made one not feel alone and a little less frustrated.

Valve have always had a policy of not informing much on problems that are not solved, it always amazes me that companies can't learn that an open dialog will earn them respect and cred and will bring people to them and generate more sales. But large companies tend to have many people working on damage control and thinks that the silent treatment is the way to go. It's frustrating but we can make a difference if we complain a lot, I like how many big reviewsites like anandtech etc. have very large impact on both hardware and software companies, and perhaps it's through them we can make ourselves heard.

I believe this will get fixed, how soon is the question, I too stoped playing to not ruin the experience.

Keep the faith people!


P.S if you can't get into the steam forum, just clear your cookies, works everytime. :thumbs:

 

[silentphoenix]

I have a very recent new PC, and I am having the stuttering problem. Started happening right from the gman at the beginning. Worst area so far was the teleportation scene, which was really really bad ( Stuttering/Looping dialogue, random pauses e.t.c, load -- pause --- run ok --- load --- pause --- run ok --- rinse and repeat )

Spec of PC.
AMD Athlon FX-53
1 Gig RAM
Nvidia 6800GT
200 GB SATA HDD
SB Audigy2ZS

New PC. New Installation of XP. Latest drivers e.t.c.
When it's not stut-stuttering it's running silky smooth, then as soon as you do or hear something new, it's stut-stutter time for 1-2 seconds and the Hard Disk goes craaaaaazy.

Running Far Cry with SM3 with no problems at 1280X1024, with full screen AA on. AOK runs like a dream. And Far Cry can be a tempremental engine at the best of times.

It's not my hardware because a mate of mine has a similar spec PC (different make), and he's got the same problems.

Funny thing was I thought the Gman stutter at the begining was part of the intro

Great forum everyone

SilentPhoenix

 

[Dai-San]

Me again

Just wanted to clarify something, I'm not saying don't try some of these 'Fixes', for some people they do improve the situation but just be careful.

If you have a system that was running all your other games fine I would advise waiting for a patch, so far I have had to redo several friends PC's who could run Far-Cry, Doom3, Tribes: Vengeance etc etc perfectly well on high setting but after trying some of the 'Fixes' posted here, swapping drivers like crazy, changing hardware settings, editing registry etc they then have problems with the other games and no improvement on HL2.

All i'm saying is Beware

 

[Sharpfish]

ok - signed up just to add to the body count. Got HL2 yesterday, installed pretty easily and activated ok (and can play offline). I have two machines but I am using it on my laptop. My laptop is an amilo 1630 - AMD643400+, mr9700 (oc to 540/250).. it runs Far Cry and Doom3 perfectly (better than my desktop) and had no problems with other games, it was a recent fresh XP Pro Sp2 install, all services tweaked and streamlined, defrag at least once a week (and after big installs)... yes I have the same problem (of course) and have tried various tweaks but nothing really "fixes it" - have played upto halfway through the canal part and got fed up of the stutters and loading times (the loading times are worsened by my Laptops 4200rmp drive - but they are still long by comparison to other graphically rich games).

I was ready to LOVE this game more than any and so far it has been a big dissapointment, not just the stuttering but it really was overhyped in nearly all reviews - it is a bog standard shooter at heart and everything looks so squared off and late 90's (flame away if you care) obviously the dx9 tricks and cool physics are very nice but overall I am never impressed by big square meshes with detailed textures on (I prefer "real" geometric detail such as doom 3). Also the weapon bob (or lack of) makes it feel like I am skating around - or just guiding a camera with an arm attached to it (which in essence is exactley what we are doing) but it doesn't "feel" as good as a lot of other supposedly lesser shooters). I do know it is a great game underneath all of this and am dying to play it as it was intended and I hope for a patch soon.

 

[NoTimeII]

Identical PC Builds - One works fine the other has the stutter

I recently built two identical PC's and got two ATI HL2 Vouchers with Asus 9600xt. Get this - on one PC it works perfectly the other IDENTICAL PC (component & driver wise) has the stutter discussed in all the above posts! The only difference that I can speculate on is that they both went through the decryption process at different times.

The one that works was authenticated/decrypted bang on the release time. The one that doesn't was authenticated/decrypted later in the day (UK) not sure exactly what time.

I'm at work now but when I get home I'll try taking the working PC gfc files onto the stuttering PC and see what happens!

Asus A7N8X-E nForce2
Asus ATI Radeon 9600XT/TD 128MB DDR TV/DVI
AMD Athlon XP 2800+
OCZ 1GB PC3200 EL-DDR Platinum CAS2
Seagate Barracuda® V 7200RPM 160GB SATA
XP Pro SP2 - all latest official drivers

 

[palefire]

Same problem, absolutely unplayable. I gave up trying the suggested fixes. I've checked out most of the HL2 forums, general gaming forums, and tech forums. Its clear that this is NOT a hardware config, driver, or Windows settings problem. Given the amount of peeps with various configurations who have the same problem, its certainly a Valve/Steam thing. And given the activation problems the've had, and Valve's past history, I don't expect a fix anytime soon. But, I agreee please post here and post at the tech forums as well.

3.06 P4
1gig RDRAM
6800
Audigy 2
160 HD 60% free
XP Home SP1
Box retail

 

[Ruben]

GUYS!!! This is the best thread ever!!! This is a great community and i have been reading through all these posts.. damn this is a HUGE thread folks!

Compass: I have done what you did, i also have the nforce2 onboard audio card, although its not a "mercedes" audiocard its good enough, and guess what? The stuttering lessened even more (it lessened with the tweaks i did... i have done a bunch of stuff from this thread, now i cant keep track of them all) I just want to play the game now But it works a little better, i have some stuttering in some areas where it has to load new sounds into the game, and i works the hard drive like mad sometimes.

GOOD Thread!! I LOVE YOU ALL!!!

ERRRRR..... EDIT:

Damn .. the stuttering went away for a while... BUT NOW ITS BACK! Im about to fold, this is like a bad houseguest! I cant get rid of it, on a sidenow, with all these tweaks the stuttering lessened, but its not gone, there are instances wher ei thought it went away ... alas it came back now.

The tweaks that lessened my stutter somewhat was this:

-heapsize 256000

Creating an autoexec.cfg with these strings:

cl_forcepreload 1
sv_forcepreload 1
cl_smooth 0
snd_mixahead 0.7

So... im waiting for words from Valve, but steam forums is flooded, i havent been able to lvisit the steam forums since the game was released. But i think they are working out the problem and hopefully we will see a patch soon. As of now i have paused my playing, dont want to ruin the game experience.

Cheers!

 

[wasted]

I recently built two identical PC's and got two ATI HL2 Vouchers with Asus 9600xt. Get this - on one PC it works perfectly the other IDENTICAL PC (component & driver wise) has the stutter discussed in all the above posts! The only difference that I can speculate on is that they both went through the decryption process at different times.

The one that works was authenticated/decrypted bang on the release time. The one that doesn't was authenticated/decrypted later in the day (UK) not sure exactly what time.

I'm at work now but when I get home I'll try taking the working PC gfc files onto the stuttering PC and see what happens!

Asus A7N8X-E nForce2
Asus ATI Radeon 9600XT/TD 128MB DDR TV/DVI
AMD Athlon XP 2800+
OCZ 1GB PC3200 EL-DDR Platinum CAS2
Seagate Barracuda® V 7200RPM 160GB SATA
XP Pro SP2 - all latest official drivers

that would mean, you'd just have to install/uninstall HL2 until you get lucky and you dont get a ****ed up version?

please try the following: exchange the steam folders of the computer. if the stuttering moves from one comp to the other it's likely it's a problem with the installation, if the stuttering remains on the computer, well, it's something with the computer.

 

[jinjur]

clear your cookies ruben..........the forums go into your cache for sum reason...........clear cookies and try again.

andy

 

[Hybris]

I'll say it again, and hope this works for everybody.

I sat many hours not getting into steam forums!

When I wondered why a guy could get in when he changed browser, and so I tried it and it worked, at first, then I tried clearing cookies and wham, it works everytime.

SO IF YOU CAN'T GET IN TO THE STEAM FORUMS, JUST CLEAR YOUR COOKIES!!!

:smoking:

 

[dapluiz]

Another one registered just for the problem here

Same story, stuttering and stuff, tried all the tweaks, nothing worked.
I have :

Aopen AK77-8XN
Realtek AC'97 CODEC on-board
Ati Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB
AMD Athlon XP 2200+
1 GB DDR (misc mem )
Maxtor 120 gb
Windows XP SP2

When there are not many sounds it runs like a train, but now i am at the trainstation (in the beginning) with lots of shots being fired and music in the background and it almost becomes a slideshow

 

[Jak]

This is a very very very long shot and probably a completly retarded thing to suggest but has anyone tried contacting Valve directly by phone to find out whats going on? The numer is on their website.

I know its almost definatly gonna get you nowhere but to anyone who has the "anythings worth a try" attitued you might wanna give them a ring.

 

[Sie]

Just to add, for those people contemplating redownloading the game to see if that fixes the problem, I can tell you that it does not.

I tried this out of curiosity yesterday and it did nothing to remedy the problem.

 

[JJaCKeTT]

Same probs as everyone else has.
Shame on Valve for no official statement to this major bug regarding the many ppl can't play the game !!!!!!!
Customer Care gets a new sense to me !!!!!!


AMD Athlon XP 2800+
Asus A7N8X-E nForce2
512mb ddr ram @ 400mhz
Nvidia Geforce FX 5900 XT OC
SoundBlaster Live! 512
XP Pro

 

[Sie]

This is a very very very long shot and probably a completly retarded thing to suggest but has anyone tried contacting Valve directly by phone to find out whats going on? The numer is on their website.

I know its almost definatly gonna get you nowhere but to anyone who has the "anythings worth a try" attitued you might wanna give them a ring.

I would try that but I'm in the UK so it would cost a fortune.

But certainly, anyone near Valve reading this thread, why not give them a call just to see what the picture is at their end. No harm in trying and I'm sure all of us here would appreciate the gesture.

 

[BlackMesaDude]

Or has someone mailed this thread to someone at valve ?

 

[Sie]

I mailed the thread to Valve and Gabe direct.

 

[wasted]

someone mailed the url of this thread to Valve, and there is a thread about this on the official STEAM forums. PLUS a valve employee answered this thread on page 3.

they know about us. they just dont bother to tell us what's wrong, and when we can expect it to be fixed, since they suck at keeping deadlines

 

[Jarman]

Valve's attitude to this sucks.

Nothing on the news page at steam (apart from a request to vote for the game - I don't think so!).

Nothing on the support FAQ's

Forum down (overloaded with complaints on this issue - over 40,000 views last time I looked).

What is Valve playing at?

When I saw that piece of news about the vote, I laughed. Thousands of people are constantly refreshing that page eagerly awaiting a patch and they ask to vote for them
I'm totally sure they are working hard to fix the problem. If I was one of them, I would be 100% focused on solving the problem and this forum would be the last of my thoughts. We just have to wait, although I reckon their silence is frustrating (and btw, Valve, I did voted for you ).

At the moment, I have a wonderful tech demo with a single speaker sound. I have become an eternal train passenger who throws all sorts of stuff at the combine soldiers and runs away like a child

 

[oMaYHeMo]

I've called and emailed to Valve, calling is fruitless.

I already added my voice to decent on the official forums, but might as well do so here as well.

AMD Athlon 2.4ghz
1.5gb DDR
SB PCI512
9600xt

Stutter and locked refresh rate combined make me motion sick.
HL2 is on the shelf until a corrective patch is released.

 

[Sie]

Quite the opposite Jarman, essentially, this thread and the one I created at the Steam forum serve as a giant resourse of trouble shooting and testing to help Valve get to the bottom of the problem quicker.

But yes, it is frustrating that we have yet to hear the status of their progress and I think its fair to say we all feel "We're looking into it" is a bit too vague. Infact, that quote doesn't even state that they know what it is and are fixing it...but at this point in time, I'm sure they are.

 

[Gobuchul]

Conspiracy?

Why do you have to clear your cookies to get into the forum at steam? It's deliberately blocking certain users that's why. That stinks!!

 

[Jarman]

Quite the opposite Jarman, essentially, this thread and the one I created at the Steam forum serve as a giant resourse of trouble shooting and testing to help Valve get to the bottom of the problem quicker.

Yeah, you have a point. But before releasing a patch, I think they should reproduce the problem on one of their machines and do some testing. Quite frankly, I hope they were aware of the problem before the game release; if they didn't have a clue and were just reading our posts hoping to find one, I would be a bit worried...

Moreover, today is Thursday and they never release patches on week-ends. Quick quick quick, Valve!

 

[jinjur]

its a conspiracy.........lol..............

 

[TuSeiSkeefoso]

New member here. I signed up to let you guys know that I e-mailed Gabe with the problem...(we'll see if he says anything)..oh, I also have the problem too..and my system is fully optimized so, I know it's not my system. Still kinda waiting to play, but, wow what a game!