Audio Problems with HL2

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Okay, I got the same problem as most of you guys. Horrible, stuttering audio at almost every scene in the game. Now I got rid of the problem, although the solution is a bit drastical.
I did the following:

1. I made a backup of my Steam games, of coure including HL2

2. Formatted my c: drive

3. Installed Windows XP (no service packs)

4. Installed Directx 9.0c

5. Installed Omega drivers release (4.10 beta)

6. Installed Audio drivers (SoundMAX onboard soundchip)

7. Installed Steam and restored my games

8. Enjoyed a stutter-free intro and wonderful, clean sound during the first 10 game minutes. I didn´t play any further because I wanted to post this as fast as possible.

Soooo, I just installed the most basic setup possible to play HL2. I think something that was installed on my system caused this problem, although I can´t say exactly what did. My system was pretty bloated up before to be honest.

This might be one possible solution for all of you who just want to play HL2, no matter what. No guarantees of course. But if you try don´t forget to make a backup of everything you might need in the future :bounce:

My system, just for the record:

P4 2,4 GHz
Asus P4P800 deluxe
Radeon 9800se (Omega 4.10 beta)
Emu 1212m (disabled atm)
Windows XP (no sp)
Directx 9.0c
no software except for Steam and HL2 :)

Have fun, I´m gonna go now and visit City 17 :E


2 things I forgot:
- My system was not lame before, I played Doom 3, Farcry, Call of Duty etc. without any problems.
- I didn´t try out my onboard soundcard before because so many people already had tried switching their soundcard without any effect. The reason I use my onboard soundchip now is because I left the driver cd for my Emu card at a friends house. Aiiight.
 
beppino said:
Okay, I got the same problem as most of you guys. Horrible, stuttering audio at almost every scene in the game. Now I got rid of the problem, although the solution is a bit drastical.
I did the following:

1. I made a backup of my Steam games, of coure including HL2

2. Formatted my c: drive

3. Installed Windows XP (no service packs)

4. Installed Directx 9.0c

5. Installed Omega drivers release (4.10 beta)

6. Installed Audio drivers (SoundMAX onboard soundchip)

7. Installed Steam and restored my games

8. Enjoyed a stutter-free intro and wonderful, clean sound during the first 10 game minutes. I didn´t play any further because I wanted to post this as fast as possible.

Soooo, I just installed the most basic setup possible to play HL2. I think something that was installed on my system caused this problem, although I can´t say exactly what did. My system was pretty bloated up before to be honest.

This might be one possible solution for all of you who just want to play HL2, no matter what. No guarantees of course. But if you try don´t forget to make a backup of everything you might need in the future :bounce:

My system, just for the record:

P4 2,4 GHz
Asus P4P800 deluxe
Radeon 9800se (Omega 4.10 beta)
Emu 1212m (disabled atm)
Windows XP (no sp)
Directx 9.0c
no software except for Steam and HL2 :)

Have fun, I´m gonna go now and visit City 17 :E
Click to expand...

Thanks for contributing, but, that is insane to do. My system isn't bloated. It's fully optimized. It run's silky smooth. I would never do that for any game. Period.
Valve is working on it guys, don't worry about it. Just sit back and wait a few days. We've waited 5 years for the game; is 2 more days or so going to kill you?
 
Formatting my c: drive???? That's not gonna happen for a game with a major bug. If every game had this problem.... But's only hl2 that has this bug.
 
i have a 100% working solution too:

1 throw away your comp
2 buy a new comp
3 install hl2
4 play hl2
5 if stuttering is still there go to 1
 
btw: after playing for a while,, the game always crashes at the EXACT same place..

examples I can think of off the top of my head are:
-when are with alex and the scientist at the start of the game and barney walks in, as soon as he starts talking...
-In the CSS level piranesi (or something like that) when ever I look at one of the astrolabes (the bigger one) it stutters like hell,, also as a side note, when I turn around while looking at the astrolabe, there appears to be some level geometry that looks it has a normal map rendered as a color map
 
As I said before, I tried a fresh install of 2000 on a spare HDD with only needed drivers and a firewall. Then HL2 only, that means no codec no service packs nothing except HL2 and it stuttered the same as before.

I'm close to tears right now guys, group hug.. sniff.
 
emm23.jpg
 
Yeah, im getting so bored playing over the same section, trying fix after fix.
Dont get me wrong the GFX are sweet and the physics are really good, and i just cant wait to play it, but i cant its so frustrating.
 
wasted said:
i have a 100% working solution too:

1 throw away your comp
2 buy a new comp
3 install hl2
4 play hl2
5 if stuttering is still there go to 1
Click to expand...

Excellent idea!

Has anyone tried this and found it to work?
 
I tried everything except reinstalling.

So I went over to a friend and he had Vampire TM so I borrowed it and installed it, and I have stutters in that game to. Now this is interesting since I read that other people have some problems with this title as well. The stutters aren't as bad but they are pretty big some times in new areas etc. are they using Miles audio in this title to? Can it be the same problem?

I'm going on a hunt for answers....

Will get back to you if I find anything. Love the community!
:afro:

My specs are once again:

AMD Athlon 'Barton' XP 2500+@3200+,2X256MB OCZ DDR-400 EL Platinum Ltd. Ed. @ 2-2-2-10, DFI LanParty nforce2 ultra rev. B (w/Soundstorm), 2x 80 GB S-ATA Seagate @ RAID 0, GigaByte Radeon 9700 Pro, WinXP Pro w/SP2, ATI Beta 4.12, nforce beta 6.14, DirectX 9.0c.
 
Hi! I'm from Germany and I've also registered to confirm this sound stuttering too. My specs:

ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe
Athlon XP 3200+
1GB Ram (Dual-Channel, 400MHz)
Point of View GeForce 6800 GT
Sondblaster live 5.1
Maxtor UDMA 133 HDs ( 120GB and 250GB)
400Watt bequiet Power Sup

I purchased HL² yesterday and it really looks great, but this stuttering is annoying. Also tried it using the nforce onboard sound but with no success.
Please Valve fix this bug soo. I'm really keen on playing this wonderfull game.

cu
Gargi
 
Maybe we can find someone who doesn't have the stuttering and see if they have the same files as someone who does stutter. For example, just right-clicking the properties of the steam folders and see if anything is missing...who knows..maybe a few files are missing somewhere..I would do it but again, I'm at work :(
 
wasted said:
i have a 100% working solution too:

1 throw away your comp
2 buy a new comp
3 install hl2
4 play hl2
5 if stuttering is still there go to 1
Click to expand...

Yeah, yeah, funny stuff. A bit of sarcasm usually helps me deal with this shit too. I didn´t mind formatting my c: drive because I wanted to do that anyway during the next few weeks and I´ve got everything backed up nicely so it just takes an hour for me.

Hang in there people, I´m sure a patch is on its way. Best to all of you,

beppino
 
Someone in the Steam forum thread (I've given up on the Steam forums) mentioned that the leaked source code version had stutters as well, and that it was traced to a "node graph rebuilding" issue every time scenery loaded.

Just something to look at to pass the time since we're stuck here without a paddle...can anyone confirm and does anyone have more info?
 
It definitely seems to be something in the code, something that will require a patch. The sound even stutters and loops when you make menu choices, exit the game, or adjust video properties up or down. Many people have even thought their pcs were locked up when changing resolution because the sound just stutters endlessly while the changes are put into effect.

Man, I LOVE LOVE LOVE what I've played of this game, but I want it to play as smoothly as Doom 3 or FarCry already do on my rig.

And, for whatever it's worth, I'm having similar problems with Vampire: Bloodlines...
 
another improvement?

Hi!
Guess what, I also just registered for this thread^^

What I tried is to delete the content of the files modelsounds.cache and scene.cache

Then I ran the game in conditions in which I wouldn't have dared to start it before: the pc had been running for 5 hours, hl2 already started 2 times; messenger on, norton AV and IS on, had been using the internet for a while etc.
And to my great surprise it was playable, almost only stuttering after autosaves.
So maybe this could be another way to improve performance, although I wouldn't delete the scene.cache and load the game in the middle of a dialogue for example.

I got those heapsize & config things too and they also improved sound performance.

greetings from Austria

btw:I changed the language from german to english before I did the .cache changes, but I dont think it could have had any effect.

AthlonXP 2600+
Radeon 9500pro
512mb DDR
Audigy 2 ZS
Win ME
 
Another Stutter registerer sucker -

Abit IS7
1gb pc3200
9800 pro
audigy 2
250gb IDE Seagate 7200rpm

I'M HERE TOO, GABE!

I love this game. I hate the stutters. Mine is mitigated by some of the tweaks.

I've tried all the tweaks here and they have helped a lot. 1st time in teleporter, it was awful. I redid it after the tweaks ,and I only get one major stutter.

I just hate that it for the loss of immersion and can't belive that it was't known about prerelease, and I don't know why press isn't picking up on this.

I doubt Valve will come out with a major bug report before the weekend is over. They do not want to dissuade anyone from buying it.

I debate on whether to play it or not, because it is just so damn cool. I can see why press is saying best fps ever. But the stutter is just so annoying too. Pleasure and pain!!!!!!


Thurm

Just one of the unwashed mass.
 
Same Here. I also have Vampire The Masquerade, and the stuttering occurs when new sounds are loaded.

How many systems was HL2 tested on before it went gold? Steam forums have been down all day. The game is amazing, but Valve - please at least acknowledge the Source engine has a bug.

Gigabyte NForce 3
AMD Athlon 64 2800+
512 MB 3200 Ram
Onboard Audio
Sapphire Atlantis 9600 Pro
XP Pro SP 2
4.11 Beta Cats
 
audio and video stuttering at the same time.
doesn't happen is CS:S though. wierd.
2.66GHZ P4
768mb PC2700
Nvidia Ti 4200
Windows XP SP2
 
Hi,

The same here. Tried several fixes, no luck.

I must add some majoooor loading pauses, hope it's related.

Here are my specs :

Athlon 2800+
Asus A7n8x-e
512Mo pc2700
GeForce 6800 with 6.14.10.6177 drivers
SBLive
Windows XP SP2
HL2 DVD french edition.

Doom3 & Farcry working flawlessy.
 
i think we can stop posting our hardware configuration. we must have had ANY possible combination of hardware so far. Or if we hadn't, could someone plz find the combination that hasn't been reported bringing up the glitch?
 
<raises hand> yup, ive got it to :(

"Dear valve can't you stop my game from stutering?"

"no but i don't see why this can't be done in a mod"

"..."
 
Yeah just became a headcrab to let ya all know i have the stuttering too. This is torture, such a cool game such a irritating bug.
Im not even going to try all these tweaks, its obvious that there's something wrong with the game. Lets hope Valve works overtime on this.
 
Ok ... this is really starting to piss me off to an extreme degree! I have been eagerly anticipating this game for over a year now, and now that i have it its close to unplayable! And there is no word from Valve on a possible solution to the problem, i am dead in the water here, and quite frankly i am seriously thinking about asking the guys at the gameshop if i cant return this piece of crap game. Wait for a fix, and then buy it then instead. I know i aint going to do it but im looking at my options.

So if you have not bought the game yet, DONT! Wait untill you know that this serious issue is resolved. I have tried some of the tweaks and they work, a little bit, not a fix. The stuttering is still here, although little less than in the beginning. The game is unplayable as it is now for me, because everytime i turn around a corner or something, opening a door even, the game stutters 3-4 times. The game even stutters when i switch weapons!!! Christ! ARGH!!!

It is definately an issue with the game constantly grabbing new sounds from the hard drive. All my drives are set to UDMA mode 5 ... what the hell more does it ask? A disk set up with frikken lasers?

I am really wondering what the hell kind of computers the tested it on... NASA supercomputers?

My friend is equally dissapointed, h eruns a machine with higher specifications than mine and he is experiencing the same exact thing!

Here is his rig:

AMD Athlon 64 3700+ / 2.4 GHz
ABIT KV8-MAX3
1.5 GB DDR RAM

ATI X800XT PE GFX card.
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS PE.

Now... this rig is a dream rig, and he is suffering the same agonizing stutter like the rest of us. Chew on that Valve!!!

Oh and By the way what hard drive is he running the game on?

Hitachi DeskStar 7K400 400 GB - SATA-150.
 
I just dont see how this bug can be affecting soooo many people on random hardware configurations, but also not affect alot of other people. It must be some kind of conflict with some other piece of software... or a problem with steam... or some sick sadistic lottery valve is playing with.

or

maybe....

yes

Its

G-MAN!!!!!
 
i know what you mean Ruben... it's so annoying Mr. Brain tells me we're 5 mins to a warpcore breach, and as much as i'd like to stay cool about this and just wait 1-2 more days, I know that I will explode very ****ing soon...

damn, i should just go out and get wasted
 
but didnt a bunch of people start off with a fresh xp install? if theres a conflict with software surely it would have to be something inside of xp?

this is worse than those puzzle cube thingys, what are they called..***bix cube?
 
I have a solution!!!

Install 20 GB of RAM ... make a virtual hard drive on 15 of those. Install steam and HL 2 on this virtual disk (that is really loaded into RAM) So now you have everything loaded into the fastest memorybank on any consumer computer. Et Voila! You now have everything loaded into ram and hence it does not need to read the disks! Everything is now smooth :)

OH... and thanx to wasted under here... add this just to be safe:

cl_dontstutter 1
cl_dontannoyusertodeath 1

You never know!

wasted:

I already tried, it does not work :(

:afro:
 
did anyone try the

cl_dontstutter 1
cl_dontannoyusertodeath 1

settings?
 
Aidenn said:
Now I'm defragmenting my drive and I expect even the stuttering at the beginning to go away.
Click to expand...
Call me a Messiah. ;)
After defragging the game runs flawlessly, and I mean it. To tell you the truth, I've never seen such optimized game engine.
So, my theory sounds like this:

The stuttering is not related in any way to the amount of memory, physical hardware and software installed (we all know that already though). One person stated, that he has two identical rigs, and the game stutters only on one of them, and the only difference between them is... the time of activation. To name it - the one registered later is stuttering. Call this crazy, but mine was registered first thing at 0:00 PST, so I was one of the first people playing H-L2. And no stutter with me, even the loading and autosave ones disappeared after defragmentation (and remember, my PC has only 512MB RAM). I think this case is a bit FUBAR. :/
 
Call me a Messiah.
After defragging the game runs flawlessly, and I mean it. To tell you the truth, I've never seen such optimized game engine.
So, my theory sounds like this:

The stuttering is not related in any way to the amount of memory, physical hardware and software installed (we all know that already though). One person stated, that he has two identical rigs, and the game stutters only on one of them, and the only difference between them is... the time of activation. To name it - the one registered later is stuttering. Call this crazy, but mine was registered first thing at 0:00 PST, so I was one of the first people playing H-L2. And no stutter with me, even the loading and autosave ones disappeared after defragmentation (and remember, my PC has only 512MB RAM). I think this case is a bit FUBAR. :/
Click to expand...

Um.. lots of us have defragged, without any difference. Also, I myself registered somewhat late seeing as I had to work the day after the unlocking so didn't unlock my HL2 game files until approximately 18 hours after the unlocking was switched on.

I suppose I could try defragging AGAIN, since I just went through and did a clean-up of my system, removing old files and fixing the registry (which also had no effect), but I sincerely doubt that it's going to help.
 
There's other anecdotes about the problem occuring after the last update to CS:Source sometime in the end of October though... so I'm not convinced that's the solution.

Buddy with the two identical systems should maybe run lavalys or something on both of them, and identify the different files that they have.
 
Aidenn said:
Call me a Messiah. ;)
After defragging the game runs flawlessly, and I mean it. To tell you the truth, I've never seen such optimized game engine.
So, my theory sounds like this:

The stuttering is not related in any way to the amount of memory, physical hardware and software installed (we all know that already though). One person stated, that he has two identical rigs, and the game stutters only on one of them, and the only difference between them is... the time of activation. To name it - the one registered later is stuttering. Call this crazy, but mine was registered first thing at 0:00 PST, so I was one of the first people playing H-L2. And no stutter with me, even the loading and autosave ones disappeared after defragmentation (and remember, my PC has only 512MB RAM). I think this case is a bit FUBAR. :/
Click to expand...

That's cool but I registered at the same time as you and mine stutters. Can we try what I stated before. Is it possible to find someone who doesnt stutter and someone who does and compare their steam file sizes at all to see if all files are the same. I cant do this right now as Im at work but I can try when I get home.
 
Wthrman13 said:
Um.. lots of us have defragged, without any difference.
Click to expand...
I didn't write this as a solution because I wasn't experiencing any stuttering before, only a wee tiny bit on autosaves and at the beginning of each level, and this was on a pretty messed up desktop with firewall and antivirus software enabled. Simply defragging made it even better if not perfect.
Thus I believe, that the stuttering is not caused by imperfections and slowness of your hard disk, RAM or processor. Maybe Valve are unable to recreate the problem in their office because it only exists within certain copies distributed by Steam? (and their copies are probably offline-only ones, like those given to the press)

TuSeiSkeefoso:

My file sizes are as follows:

half-life 2 content.gcf - 879 344 156 bytes
source engine.gcf - 68 960 228 bytes
source materials.gcf - 1 083 560 476 bytes
source models.gcf - 471 097 048 bytes
source sounds.gcf - 1 022 930 344 bytes
 
Can someone with stuttering compare their file sizes with one s just posted to see if they match someones who doesnt stsutter.

We're actively investigating this and will post info when we have it.

Yahn

Reply on Steam forums by Valve.

So at least we have confirmation that they are workign on it
 
i think steam keeps track of the file's signatures (too see if outdated, or modified (hack?))
so, if anything went wrong while unprotecting and the files were corrupted, i doubt that steam wouldnt notice. and also, a corruption (=the data has been altered) would hardly result in a playable game.

btw, is there a console command like verbose or something where you can set what kind of messages shall be logged so you might be able to see if there's something wrong? did anyone check if the windows errorlog shows errors during running hl2? well, i might just check that now, and kill another 5 minutes wairing time for TEH PATCH

so long
 
I've been watching my error log, and nothing conclusive there.

I'm quite disapointed that HL2's engine doesn't automatically do any bug/crash submissions. At least that way, Valve could get automatic feedback when something goes wrong.
 
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