Audio Problems with HL2

[ÜberJumper]

There's a ton of people that DON'T have this problem, and I'd love to know what driver combos they're running for their hardware. Problem is, it seems to be completely cross platform right now.

Anyone here with AGP 8X *not* having this problem? Anyone with AGP 4X not having it?

I'm going to sleep, defrag the drive HL2's installed on tonight, but I'm not expecting that to fix it.

 

[Squeetard]

I had the same problem, fixed it. Edit the config.cfg file if the hl2\cfg folder and set the following.

cl_forcepreload "1"
sv_forcepreload "1"
cl_smooth "0"

The first 2 were there but set to "0", I had to add the last line.
I still get the odd tick but few and far between and it only lasts an instant.

I hope this helps a lot of people.

 

[Rirath]

btw, is anyone here with this problem and does NOT have the sp2 installed?

Indeed, me and probably many others.

I had the same problem, fixed it. Edit the config.cfg file if the hl2\cfg folder and set the following.

cl_forcepreload "1"
sv_forcepreload "1"
cl_smooth "0"

Still skips for me... but it is indeed better than it was. Some pops, clicks, and skips beats the heck out of constant broken records, until Valve puts out a fix. (Assuming they do.)

 

[ÜberJumper]

I tried the first two lines already, no luck, will try the third tomorrow (defragging now).

 

[Sparta]

This is ridiculous the Airboat levels are completely unplayable. This just makes me want to pick up my computer and smash the living day lights out of it.

 

[ÜberJumper]

No go on squeetab's options. Might have even been a bit worse.

 

[Kabal]

-heapsize 512000 in the launch options helped a little for me (I have 1gb of ram)

Still stutters in sections where people are talking a lot, but the actaul game play is a lot smoother.

 

[LDones]

Another fix - For Sound popping or stuttering

If you're still getting sound stuttering, or popping, or static after the above (which should help with HD pauses, but not the sound pauses), then change the following setting in config.cfg - eliminated sound stuttering completely for me.

snd_mixahead is originally set to "0.1"

Change it to a higher number - the number will vary by PC, but for me it was:

snd_mixahead "0.4"

That'll fix it - if it doesn't, set the number higher. If you set it lower than the default setting, the popping/stuttering gets much worse,

With the above, that should fix it.

 

[Mark-P]

Signing up to share my pain. Audio stutters for me in new areas and takes the game with it.

Athlon 3000
nforce2 mobo with onboard sound
512MB ram
9800Pro

I was going to go out and get some more ram to try and fix things, glad I checked out the forums first.

It's not too bad for me, but it's certainly spoiling the game. The Airboat levels have been pretty tortuous, not helped by the fact that it feels like I'm spending as much time staring at the load screen as playing the game (nothing breaks immersion like a good old 'Loading...' !)

I think I'll wait a few more days till this gets fixed. ;_;

 

[Shanky Totobonky]

More of the same...

Tried everything in this thread, still audio stutter. Most notable at the opening seq among other places.

p4 2.6
asus P4C800
on board sound
gig of ram
two raptors in raid
9600 pro

a new audigy2 is in the mail as i bought one right after my first session of playing as i thought it was the onboard sound before i read this forum. doom3, unreal, farcry all work fine...

 

[m0nkeyy]

stuttering here too on an Audigy 2



------------
Athlon XP 1.7ghz
512mb
128mb Radeon 9800 PRO
Audigy 2

 

[wasted]

cl_forcepreload "1"
sv_forcepreload "1"
cl_smooth "0"

i tried those and well, the game crashed before the menu was loaded.

 

[like2smile]

Hey all.

I had this exact same problem with the ORIGINAL half-life. It appears to be an issue only when new sound files are loaded and decoded.

Unfortunately I only just tried the second game (on a totally different system of course) and have experienced the same problems. However, I noticed people posting the solution which cured my problem with the original game. And this was to configure the game with:

snd_mixahead "X"

The important thing here is that I had to try several values to actually get rid of the problems for me completely. For me, 0.45 did the trick. Hopefully this in conjunction with other suggestions above will resolve your issues.

 

[Dai-San]

I think Valve need to release a patch that allows users to select their own audio settings.

What i mean is EVERY game I have played that uses the MILES fast audio has some sort of problem involved, wether it be sound too low, audio reversed, popping/crackling or this stuttering problem etc. Those games which allow you to select alternate audio ie directsound etc work fine.

It seems crazy that a game of this calibre doesn't auto detect from DX which card you have and let you use an alternative from MILES.

Must say though the game is awsome and I only get minor pausing, not enough to spoil the game.

Intel P4 3.2
1gb ddr400
Abit AI7
ATI 9800pro running as XT
Fortissimo 7 soundcard

btw First post here, seem a nice bunch

 

[Ruben]

SEE THIS???

Just wanted to add:

Athlon 64 3800+
Audigy 2 ZS
1024MB Corsair Ram
Radeon x800XT PE

(that is a hot system and it have the same problem. do you think he have a performance bottleneck?)

It is NOT THE AUTOSAVE FEATURE dammit! Cant you guys get that trough your heads? Sorry but it had to be said. The game is not autosaving every 2 seconds now is it? No, didnt think so. And besides you can turn off the autosave feature if you dont want it "autosave 0" in the console.

Its a problem more and more pepole are having and its high end systems too. Its on systems where you have superdefragmented the system... its on system with 2GB RAM even and super uber gfx cards. Its on systems that has enough pagefile. Its on systems that are tweaked for the best performance and yet they have this. So please dont EVER mention autosave and defragment again!!! Read the thread instead of thinking your a wise ass with a solution that is the first thing we all tried. Damn.

So... got that off my chest. Yes it seems to be an engine problem. Where it tries to cache everything at the same time instead of loading it into cache before the level starts. This ending up with the game frantically working the disk drives to load the audio needed. And at the same time keeping it in syncronisation wich leads to the framestudder. frame glitch and sound studder.

 

[sameproblem]

same problem here:

Windows xp sp1
audigy 1 gamer
asus p4b533
P4 2.26
1 gig of low grade cheap ass ram
9800 pro

stuttering when quicksaving and when there is a monster in the room. But that's just me. Also when there is a monster in the room in the game, there is stuttering.

 

[Handle]

Just registered to also confirm that I have the stuttering sound problem and to post my specs.

I ran the game before and after a lengthy defrag and though the defrag made some improvement annoyingly the stuttering still remains.

I'm running the game on an Acer Aspire 1500:

AMD 64 3000+
512MB RAM
ATI Mobility 9600 64MB
AC97 Onboard Sound

 

[poor goat]

same sound stutter

I really don't think it's a harware problem,
I have Serial ATA RAID 0 (2 drives at 10,0000 RPM)
X800XT, 64 BIT FX51 CPU, & sound blaster

yet the stutter persists, I've kind of got used to it, they may wanna look into that when their designing their new patch.

 

[quinnd6]

I have the audio problem aswell.
Its a right ain.
After buying the dvd in the shop It took 3 hours to get to play it.
Then WHEN i FINALLY get to play it theres this annoying audio problem that causes the in game action to stutter aswell.
Im definitely not going to play the game anymore till this problems resolved.

Heres what hardware I got anyway

1.8ghz pentium 4
64mb geforce 2mx 400
256mb ram
don't know what sound card I think its integrated audio and uses
legacy audio drivers which I can't find to update anywhere but I don't think it would make a difference anyway its the game thats at fault.
I wonder are they just faulty dvds could that be the problem

 

[Liquid_Entity]

I'll just say hello and say yeah I am experiencing it too.

XP3200+
512mb CVS DDR400 Ram
Abit NF7S v2
Win 2k SP4
NForce2 Sound On board

 

[Jarman]

I think Valve need to release a patch that allows users to select their own audio settings.

What i mean is EVERY game I have played that uses the MILES fast audio has some sort of problem involved, wether it be sound too low, audio reversed, popping/crackling or this stuttering problem etc. Those games which allow you to select alternate audio ie directsound etc work fine.

It seems crazy that a game of this calibre doesn't auto detect from DX which card you have and let you use an alternative from MILES.

Must say though the game is awsome and I only get minor pausing, not enough to spoil the game.

Intel P4 3.2
1gb ddr400
Abit AI7
ATI 9800pro running as XT
Fortissimo 7 soundcard

I don't know if choosing a different audio system would solve this problem (maybe it would solve my problem: I have a 5.1 system and 5 channels out of 6 remain completely silent... Damn Realtek AC97!).

btw First post here, seem a nice bunch

Welcome, dude! :thumbs:

 

[wasted]

Just registered to also confirm that I have the stuttering sound problem and to post my specs.

I ran the game before and after a lengthy defrag and though the defrag made some improvement annoyingly the stuttering still remains.

I'm running the game on an Acer Aspire 1500:

AMD 64 3000+
512MB RAM
ATI Mobility 9600 64MB
AC97 Onboard Sound

:cheers:

i have the same machine. unfortunately we also share this bug

well, after all this posts and ideas how to solve the problem, i think we're officially f*cked until valve patches, right?
or do YOU post a WORKING SOLUTION which you TRIED BEFORE in the next posting and prove me wrong and being a pessimistic non-believer? :bounce:

 

[Liquid_Entity]

I'll just say hello and say yeah I am experiencing it too.

XP3200+
512mb CVS DDR400 Ram
Abit NF7S v2
Win 2k SP4
NForce2 Sound On board

I forgot to mention I have a Rad 9800 Pro too

 

[TheRook]

Same problems but it doesnt happen alot just when characters start speaking (main characters)

Could it be the fact that the audio is compressed in cache files? and has to be taken out on the fly?

(Just an idea)

My Specs are
2500Barton
9800pro @XT speeds
ABIT NF7-S
using Soundstorm Audio

I forgot to mention I have a Rad 9800 Pro too

where abouts in sussex are you? im over near brighton! WOO for sussex!

TheRook

 

[mausse]

valve Where Are You?????????

 

[Phr3nzy]

Reversed Sound

I'm yet another player with the same audio problems mentioned in this thread.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned that also plagues me. My in-game sound seems to be reversed. When someone is talking to me I can hardly hear them until I turn my back to them. Their voices then come through loud and clear. If I rotate and face them, their voices go faint again. Anyone else experiencing this one?

I am experiencing the reversed sound problem as well. Haven't been able to try any of the solutions as of yet as I'm at work. Will have a go at cracking it when I get home and let u know of any advances I make!

As for the slow down I am experiencing some but not enough to ruin the game for me.

P4 2Ghz
512Mb RDRAM
GeForce Ti4600
Soundblaster Audigy
XP Home SP2
HL2 Retail DVD Version

 

[prineass]

same here
soundglitches with little freezes damn that is annoying

asus a7n8x deluxe rev. 2
onboard nvidia soundstorm
1 gig ram
9800 pro

 

[Rolling Wreck]

Hi !

I don´t know how many Headcraps came here because of this bug but here´s another newbie.

My specs are similar to lots of others here.

I´m wondering how this Release Candidate could go GOLD ???

I doubt Valve has better Machines than lots of systems posted here. The difference is, they don´t need STEAM.
And if there would have been Stuttering while the guys from the PC Magazines tested the game at their (Valve´s) machines they would have mentioned it (I hope).

I´m sad that this potentially Fantastic Game provided so much frustration to me. And to anyone who thinks of bying the CE just because of HL:S - save your money - it isn´t worth it as mentioned earlier in this thread.

Cya

Wreck

 

[Tommieh]

Solutions from this forum so far:

------1-----
Try:

snd_async_fullyasync 1

See if it's any better. It might de-sync some of the dialog, but it should remove the stuttering.

Rick
Valve

------2-----

Getting the game to load as much of its self into memory as possible also helps a lot; to do this, right click on Half-Life 2 in steam and select properties, then click launch options, put in "-heapsize 256000" without the quote marks. For the number, choose half your total system memory, in the examples case, its for a system with 512megs ram, you should use 512000 for systems with a gig of ram.

------3-----

I had the same problem, fixed it. Edit the config.cfg file if the hl2\cfg folder and set the following.

cl_forcepreload "1"
sv_forcepreload "1"
cl_smooth "0"

The first 2 were there but set to "0", I had to add the last line.
I still get the odd tick but few and far between and it only lasts an instant.

I hope this helps a lot of people.

------4-----

If you're still getting sound stuttering, or popping, or static after the above (which should help with HD pauses, but not the sound pauses), then change the following setting in config.cfg - eliminated sound stuttering completely for me.

snd_mixahead is originally set to "0.1"

Change it to a higher number - the number will vary by PC, but for me it was:

snd_mixahead "0.4"

That'll fix it - if it doesn't, set the number higher. If you set it lower than the default setting, the popping/stuttering gets much worse,

With the above, that should fix it.

--------

Some people said it fix the problem, i did not test it myself yet (i am at work :hmph: )

Have Fun

 

[mausse]

Can we get our money back? Will the shop refund our money because of this unplayble game? I don't buy a 60 euro game for sitting duck untille the sound patch will be released screw that!

I was looking for this game so long..i feel robbed..;(

 

[jrob8604]

meh,, none of this shit works for me.. Need patch

 

[Shadow-warrior]

I don't believe its a hardware problem, as some people think, simply because once all the sounds have been loaded ie used all the guns or towards the end of a level it then seems to run nice and smooth.

It seems to be unpacking files from the gcf as you need them.

 

[ElAguila]

tried all solutions and none worked

I couldn't get on at the steam forum so I thought I would post here. I have the same sound problem. I have a high end machine that I use for video editing. My drive is 2 120GB sata drives in a raid 0. I have sustained transfer rate of 95Mb/s and burst of 125Mb/s. In other words it is a very fast drive. It is defragmented. I have tried the suggested solutions by making the entries in the config file. I also changed the heapsize. I set the sound and video options to the lowest setting and changed the display from 1280x1024 to 800x600. Same stuttering crap. I used dxdiag to disable the hardware acceleration for the sound. After doing that I got the memory exception error on load. I changed it to basic acceleration and it loaded but the same old stuttering crap. I believe at this point it is definitely a problem that valve has to resolve.

 

[JoeBeasley]

I dont know if it matters, or if it is even maybe normal, but my game was stuttering right from the opening scene with gman before you even start playing...

Wake up mr fre-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-eman...ti-ti-ti-ti-time to sme-e-e-e-e-el the as-sh-sh-shes...

So i doubt autosaving is taking place at a beginning scene like that.

Im so confused.

 

[appoooh]

Setting audio quality to medium mostly fixes the stuttering, but snd_mixahead "0.4" is THE fix kids. I remember this tweak back from the days of GL Quake!!!

Just goes to show how up to date the Valve engine really is. :frog:

 

[Ruben]

Youp... but they have yet to comment on this issue at steam forums. And people say the same things on a bunch of different forums all around the world. The crowd of people that have this problem is growing at a rapid rate, mor eand more post this problm and as far as i have read it is not limited to low end systems and specific hardware.

I guess Valve has takes some time off after release and are celebrating the release, and having a hangover... yet there are many of us that feel that playing the game this way is unbearable.

PLEASE HELP US!

Atleast tell us what machines you tested the game on!

 

[ElAguila]

possible cause for me but no solution

I just realized that HL2 is using the miles sound system for the sound driver. When I used that in MOH Pacific Assault I had the same stutter problems. In that game you can change the sound driver. I changed to direct3d sound and the problem went away in the MOH. I didn't see an option to change from the miles in HL2. Can anyone else confirm this issue on their system?

 

[Shadow-warrior]

Can anyone else confirm this issue on their system?

Yep, Miles is the only sound option

 

[prineass]

Can we get our money back? Will the shop refund our money because of this unplayble game? I don't buy a 60 euro game for sitting duck untille the sound patch will be released screw that!

I was looking for this game so long..i feel robbed..;(

heads up pal !

my Grandpa always said:

better robbed than raped !

i hope you get your fixes soon

 

[kielhanson]

Yep! I also have an Audigy 2 platinum and get a load of stuttering, so I disabled it and am now using my onboard sound. But now I get a ****ing blue screen whenever I quit half life 2, or search for server in CS:S
This is a complete joke !!!!! :angry: