Can't start Episode 2, original copy, please help.

[zombie_sidekick]

Hi guys. I got some unusual problem (well I think it's unusal problem after struggling with it for 2,5 days) with my Orange Box (original copy, polish edition).

Half Life 2, Episode 1, Portal and TF2 run perfectly. And that's great. But I can't play Episode 2 no matter what I do. Here's what's not right:


-I'm opening Episode 2, there's this Valve's guy and here we go - blurry loading screen.

-After a while some kinda sound cache processing program turns on. (Same thing happened with Portal, but there it worked out without any problems and I haven't experienced it since)

-Yet it gets stuck at some point - sometimes it's flechette_explode_3 file, sometimes it's some Vortigaunt file, sometimes it's some other file. All in all, it gets stuck and the only way to shut Ep2 is to use ctrl+alt+del.


What I've done:
- Checked if it's installed properly, it was, reinstalled it just to be sure.
- Checked GCF files with GCFScape (Episode 2 content was at 99.98%, so I used some upgrades I found on the net and upgraded it to 100% with CFToolbox)
- Run Episode 2 with "-nosound" command. It worked, got straight to the Main Menu, ran new game, perfect graphics, collapsing bridges and all. I got to the point where Alyx is injured by Hunter and became even more frustrated I can't play it with sound.

So it's not my comp specs, it's something else. Please help me with that, it's so effing frustrating!

OK, here's my general specs, just for you to be sure:
P4 2,4 GH
ASUS P4PE motherboard
512 RAM
nVIDIA 6600
11,4 GB free space (after install)

 

[Rapstah]

And you have Steam?

 

[PimpinPenguin]

- Checked GCF files with GCFScape (Episode 2 content was at 99.98%, so I used some upgrades I found on the net and upgraded it to 100% with CFToolbox)

There's your problem don't use anything other than Steam to update you GCFs. CFToolbox is meant for pirates and can cause problems just like this.

 

[AciD]

[Polish]Możesz spr?bować poprostu odpalić raz po Angielsku a potem wr?cić na język polski. Język gry zmienia sie przy zmianie języka Steama[/Polish]

 

[zombie_sidekick]

Hi guys, thanks for the replies.
@Rapstah - yeah, I got Steam. Everything is 100% original.

@Pengiun - Steam "told" me that Episode 2 didn't need any upgrades. Yet it still stucked at this sound processing thing. So I googled around and found out that sometimes audio files are incomplete. That's why I "upgraded" Episode 2 content with CFToolbox. It didn't work out though. No matter what I do I get stuck every time I try to start Episode 2. And as I wrote, I played a bit, but without sound. No sound - it's working, sound on - it gets stuck at sound processing...

@Acid - [polish] Wiesz, problem lezy tylko w tym przetwarzaniu cache dzwieku - jak napisalem, gdy odpalam Episode Two bez dzwieku to gra chodzi idealnie. Ale ok, sprobuje Twojej rady[/polish]

 

[Operational]

I'd try redownloading/reinstalling the Episode 2 content.

 

[zombie_sidekick]

I did it yesterday, unfortunately it didn't help at all.

Today I have a "defragmentating day" with my good old Diskeeper, maybe my comp is just full of shit that needs to be wiped out.

 

[PimpinPenguin]

@Pengiun - Steam "told" me that Episode 2 didn't need any upgrades. Yet it still stucked at this sound processing thing. So I googled around and found out that sometimes audio files are incomplete. That's why I "upgraded" Episode 2 content with CFToolbox. It didn't work out though. No matter what I do I get stuck every time I try to start Episode 2. And as I wrote, I played a bit, but without sound. No sound - it's working, sound on - it gets stuck at sound processing...

Then you right click on the game go to properties,locals files then verify integrity of game files.Steam will then check all your game files and if any are incomplete or damaged it will redownload them.Again using anything other than Steam WILL damage the GCFs.

But by the sound of your problem it doesn't seem like missing sounds are your problem because they don't cause the game to crash. The game will still work just not play the sound.Give me your system specs so i can see what else might be the problem.

Oh yeah do you get error messages like this in the console
Failed to load sound "vo\aperture_ai\00_part1_entry-3.wav", file probably missing from disk/repository"

 

[zombie_sidekick]

Pimp, thanx for the reply.

Then you right click on the game go to properties,locals files then verify integrity of game files.Steam will then check all your game files and if any are incomplete or damaged it will redownload them.Again using anything other than Steam WILL damage the GCFs.

OK. I'll reinstall WHOLE Episode 2 content, manually.

But by the sound of your problem it doesn't seem like missing sounds are your problem because they don't cause the game to crash. The game will still work just not play the sound.Give me your system specs so i can see what else might be the problem.

As I wrote, game works without sound, I played thru the first chapter muttering sounds and talking as the characters. Funny, but not satysfying

My specs:
P4 2.4 GH
512 RAM
nVidia 6600
ASUS P4PE
Win 2K Prof.

Oh yeah do you get error messages like this in the console
Failed to load sound "vo\aperture_ai\00_part1_entry-3.wav", file probably missing from disk/repository"

Nope.

UPDATE:
Something new:

You won't believe what just happend.

I turned the Steam's language from Polish to English.
I launched Episode 2.
There was no sound processing, I passed thru Loading screen.
Main Menu appeared and freezes after like one second.

What do you think about it?

 

[PimpinPenguin]

UPDATE:
Something new:

You won't believe what just happend.

I turned the Steam's language from Polish to English.
I launched Episode 2.
There was no sound processing, I passed thru Loading screen.
Main Menu appeared and freezes after like one second.

What do you think about it?

Yeah i was just looking on the Steam Forums and it seems to be a common problem which changing the language solves.It should work fine now.

 

[zombie_sidekick]

But what about freezing? Main Menu freezes - I just can't play the game.

Yeah, there was no sound processing, ok. But after all I gained nothing - still can't play properly.

 

[zombie_sidekick]

OK.

It's working. Yeah.

Changing the language + adding two command lines = Working Episode Two English Version. Hooray, hooray.

 

[PimpinPenguin]

Glad you got it working

 

[AciD]

Horrray Next .neter is happy with his working game

 

[zombie_sidekick]

Yeah, but I'm a little sceptic 'cos it happend kinda... fu<king random?!

I mean, my comp's specs ain't that bad (just today upgraded my comp, got 1 GB Ram), Orange Box is original and yet I got to fool around for like three days.

Why changing the language from polish to english deactivate sound processing? Why changing hardware acceleration in game does nothing, but changing it by adding a command line get game to work? Such a buggy product Steam is...

I'm not a gamer, so after victory I got so pissed off at Episode Two, that I'm playing good old HL now (for the first time I'm playing it on High-As-Fu<k quality, that game looks great!), and Ep 1 is next in line

Thanks for your help, guys!

PS: Team Fortress 2 is neat! I'm pretty sure you fragged me once or twice, AciD, ty draniu

 

[AciD]

Sound processing is caused that your language is different and sound files and close captions needs to be processed to Polish. You can apply to HL2.net
TF2 clan under TF2 forum.