*CRASH* The memory could not be 'read' error, for HL2 and CS:S

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ForI have managed to get the game working without a crash. But it's not the solution I would like!! I have a AMD XP3000+ with a MSI-6590 (KT6-DElta), 512Meg of Ram and a Raedon 9800Pro...the only way it will work for me is if I underclock my Processor to a AMD XP1700+ (100Hz x 13Clock Multiplier)
As soon as i increase to 133 (and it should be at 166hz) it crashes after a few seconds (or at least a minute or two), I get a windows "Bong" and then back to desktop!
Not a perfect soltuion...but it's very playable but I wish I could run it properly...

Hope this helps someone..as I like most on this thread have been pulling my hair out to find a solution....
 
Apparently I have this bug too, but I'm not getting an error message, so I assumed that it was a variation of the sound looping bug. I'm running Windows 2000 Pro so maybe that's why I don't get a message... I'm not sure. All that happens on my computer is the freezing and speed looping. I can't exit the game in any way (ctrl-alt-del, etc.) and I have to reset it everytime. I used to have the stuttering problem too, which made it impossible for me to make any progress in the time I could play before it crashed, but the patch made that problem gone for the most part. I'm going to try some of the things I've read on here now in effor to fix the problem myself. It's just hard to tell being that the game may take up to 20 or 30 minutes to actually freeze.
 
StarBob said:
Apparently I have this bug too, but I'm not getting an error message, so I assumed that it was a variation of the sound looping bug. I'm running Windows 2000 Pro so maybe that's why I don't get a message... I'm not sure. All that happens on my computer is the freezing and speed looping. I can't exit the game in any way (ctrl-alt-del, etc.) and I have to reset it everytime. I used to have the stuttering problem too, which made it impossible for me to make any progress in the time I could play before it crashed, but the patch made that problem gone for the most part. I'm going to try some of the things I've read on here now in effor to fix the problem myself. It's just hard to tell being that the game may take up to 20 or 30 minutes to actually freeze.
Click to expand...

Hey just try pressing the Space button first next time.. the first time i got the error i started pressing escape and ctrl+alt+deleting and all that and nothing seemed to work so i had to restart.. but i think for most of us theres a pop-up that shoots to the front even though u cant see it
 
Here's some more information... now it mostly seems to happen after some of the textures I see are replaced by shifting colorful artifacts or something. Here's a picture. It useually slows down and starts stuttering. At first it went away when I set all of the video options down to the recommended levels but now it keeps showing up and crashing me. Here's a picture.. it's not very visible here but I haven't been able to get to a more well lit place being that it keeps crashing here.

HL2Error2.jpg
 
Upgraded video card now it doesn't work.

Having read through a lot of this post it is clear that this problem isn't going away fast.

Well, I played all the way through HL2 on my crappy Gforce FX5200 128MB card. I ran it at 1280x1024 with most settings high but ofcourse I was missing out on all those good old DX9 features and extra detail. Although the game did do sound stutters every now and then (usually at auto save points) it was mostly playable. But having just bought today a new ATI Saphire 9800 pro 128MB card, I am sorely dissapointed. Not only does it seem to get really jerky when turning gordon around in places, but the sound stuttering and pauses is frustrating. Then I started getting these memery problems like you all. Anyway, I tried several things that haven't worked for me:
1) Set AGP apperture size to different settings from 64-128-256.
2) Set cas latency time for memory.
3) default all ati driver settings
4) installed latest drivers of everything.(sound,video,m-board,)
5)stop all uneeded processes from running.
6) tried beta ATI drivers
7) lower video settings.

It seems to have the most problem when I set higher video settings. But when I read others having flawless gameplay with the same video card, I feel a little miffed.

Anyway, STEAM/ATI GIVE ME A SOLUTION OR GIVE ME MY MONEY BACK. I have never heard of a more buggy game for a long time.

My specs are:
AMD 2.4GHz
1GB 333 RAM
Nforce2 Chipset - onboard sound
ASUS A7N8X Duluxe M-Board
DVD Drive and CDWriter drive
2 x IDE HDD (total 330GB)
Nothing more nothing less.
 
Ever since that steam update my game now crashes at the main menu screen before i could play until i had to save and then it would crash....man i am really pissed off. Why is this happening....why steam WWWHHYYYYYYYY!!! Is this happening to anyone else plz post to ease my mind
 
Come on people someone give me some support someone must have solution any one...OH HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!
 
Dude...stop complaining. They havent fixed the problem, lots cant play or have played with the errors.

Just wait. Im sure the community have done there best to fix it, hopefully Valve will soon.
 
;(
dude... if it helps... I haven't even played the game... I've just seen the main screen and then the blue screen followed by the crash... sad indeed..
by the way... how do you know your installation has been updated... y check my update news and I see no updates, just the original release (if I check counter strike I can see several update news); but I haven't been able to figure out wich version I'm runnig...
let's just play some other thing and wait till the offical patch comes out...
 
falyfal said:
Ever since that steam update my game now crashes at the main menu screen before i could play until i had to save and then it would crash....man i am really pissed off. Why is this happening....why steam WWWHHYYYYYYYY!!! Is this happening to anyone else plz post to ease my mind
Click to expand...

I got the same problem, crashes on the load screen, cant even get into the game or anything
 
patch seemed to have helped me in so far as the sound stuttering however I STILL cant play the game due to the memory cannot be read error :(

cummon VALVe ;X I wanna play this beast :)
 
putting "-developer 1" after "-applaunch 220" in ur shortcut might get u a bit further... no idea if that helps
 
for the first time, i had the memory error, and it is with
"NEW PATCH" ?? :flame:
 
Problem Solved!!!

I had purchased 2x 512mb sticks of Kingston PC3200 DDR Value RAM (KVR400X64C3A/512) as part of a recent upgrade. I've been in touch with Kingston Tech Support and it turns out that Kingston has discovered instability issues with the ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe motherboard and these modules (400MHz) so they DON'T recommend using these sticks and suggest DDR266 and 333 instead. You can check using their configurator here, http://www.valueram.com/config/modelTest2.asp?mfr=ASU

Thought it a bit unbelievable at first but installed 2x Unbranded PC2700 modules I had spare and sure enough no problems with CS: Source or Blue Screens and random reboots anymore.
 
tooty007 said:
I got the same problem, crashes on the load screen, cant even get into the game or anything
Click to expand...

Same for me...I used to be able to play until the lock up, then reload and continue until the next auto save and do this over and over to at least get some play time...now, since the supposed "patch", I can not even get the game past the first loading screen.

Man, I am sooooo fed up with this crap..it is complete BS!
 
Guys check your ram.

Run memtest on them to see if they are the problem.
 
I never noticed steam(ing dung) download anything, so I don't know if I got patched or not. After the patch was released, I didn't notice a change in the game. I was stuck at the part right before "Follow Freeman", and it would lock up at any given point in the big room with the transport crane. I tried making my auto save files read only, and that just made the memory error go away, but it would still lock up and I couldn't get past that room. I was running the latest Beta drivers from Nvidia (67.02), so I dropped them down to the 66.93 that I had used before with the same result. After this I decided to try the 61.77 drivers and what do you know. My lockups and memory errors are gone. I'm running a 6800 GT, and it's OCed to Ultra speed too. My processor is overclocked as well. I can now play the game, with the occasional stutter, but play it without lockups. I even changed the autosave files back from read only and put the sound quality on high. New Nvidia card owners, if you are getting the memory error try the 61.77 drivers and see if that helps.
 
yea see i new i wasnt the only one.....everyone was so happy saying everyone restart steam and get your update and look what happened when i did now i cant even play it
 
its not mem probs i have a brand new comp and i already checked the mem
 
ok now im ****in pissed, i have played through this damn game crashing every 10-20 minutes then spending 20 mintutes trying to get back to the save-point cuz it just crashes every time it tries to load.. but now i have come to what i believe is the ending sequence and IT ****IN CRASHED!!! and now it just keeps crashing when i try to load a save point or if it doesnt i get to play max 30 secs and i get the memory error GOD DAMMIT GIVE ME THE ENDING U ****S!!!!
 
I emailed vivendi about the little crashing problem and this is wat i got back.

Hello,

Thank you for contacting Vivendi Universal Games Technical Support.

I suggest you to follow the troubleshooting steps given below.

1. Please make sure your system meets the minimum system requirements and video and specifically sound drivers have been updated to the most current version ( uninstall and then install drivers in safe mode ).

2. Increase the Virtual Memory

* Right-click on My Computer, then left-click on Properties.

* Left-click the advanced tab at the top.

* Click the Settings button under the Performance heading.

* Click the Advanced tab at the top.

* Click the Change button to change the virtual memory.

* Write down the numbers that are currently set.

* Change the initial size to 512.

* Click the Set button.

* If you are asked to reboot, say Yes.

* If you're not asked to reboot, click OK on each window to get all the

way back to your desktop, and then reboot your machine.

* When the computer restarts, try the game.

If the issue persists I suggest you to uninstall and reinstall the game including default folder and registry entries given below and then follow the installation procedure given below.

Install path

"C:\Program Files\Valve\Steam\

Registry keys:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{D45EC259-4A19-4656-B588-C2C360DD18EA}

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Valve\Half-Life 2


Installation Procedure:

1. Inserting the disc1 into CD-ROM drive you will get Half-Life 2 Autorun Screen.

2. Click on Install Half-Life 2 to start the install.

If you do not have Steam installed you will get Steam installation Wizard screen.

If you have Steam installed you will start with Half-Life 2 Setup.

3. The Directory of Steam is “C:\Program Files\Valve\Steam\ “ and also where the Half-Life 2 files will get installed as well. If you want to do a custom installation of Half-Life 2 you have to change above directory by clicking on Change button and selecting the drive location.


Half-Life 2 Setup

1. After the Steam setup is done and you click on Finish button the Half-Life 2 setup will begin.

2. You can see under Destination directory it is in C if you change in Steam install the drive letter would be different.

3. Sometimes you can not proceed to next screen by clicking the Next button when the setup asks for “Direct X9.0b is required for Half Life 2â€. Make sure you have at least 8GB hard disk space free and also perform a Disk Cleanup and Defrag before and After the Game installation/Authentication with Valve.

4. After you click to finish Setup the Steam Update will start

5. After Steam is updated the Steam Login window will appear to create an account or login to an existing account.

6. After you create the account or login to your existing account and try to Run Half-Life 2 it will go thru the Authentication/Unlocking Process

7. After the files are unlocked and account CD-key authenticated game will be ready to play.

Note: If you are having a sound problems like: Stuttering, garbled, static or other similar sound issues check and make sure the Speaker selection is set to 2 Speakers from Main menu screen.

To activate console on Half-Life 2 and Counter Strike Source go to Options then Keyboard/Advanced and check the Enable Console box.

Please feel free to contact us if you need any further assistance. You may access the technical support knowledge base at: http://support.vugames.com


Regards,

Srinivas

Vivendi Universal Games Technical Support

hope this helps everybody
 
well what bs as if that works.. i did all that crap on day 1 while i was chatting with some vugames support guy.. took about 3 hours chatting to him since he took forever to reply and didnt help nothing
 
i got the same reply and nothing worked, when are they gonna come out with a patch!??!?!??!??!?!??!?!??!

I cant tell you how pissed i am, cause i cant even get passed the main menu of half life 2 before that gay error comes up. What even werse is my friend doesnt have that ****ing problem and so that pisses me off even more. God forbid i get 20 min on de_dust without error. anyother map wont work.


cmon guyss WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!????????????????????????????
 
OK people, I have the same problem "memory could not be read", yadda yadda. I've tried every little thing suggested in the forums (u know them already), and nothing. The best thing I'd get was 5-15 minutes of gameplay.

HOWEVER

I have found what appears to be the best workaround solution.
It first came to me when I read a post that said: "It basicly means you're running out of memory." So there. What do you need when running out of memory? Yes, you, the little guy in the back - that's right, a MEMORY MANAGER. So I've looked around, reading reviews and stuff (because I really don't trust memory managers) and, on Cnet's Download.com, there's a small 520 KB freeware program called "FreeRAM XP Pro v1.40".

Didn't think it would work, BUT IT DID. I played Half Life for 4 and 1/2 hours continuously and no problems WHATSOEVER.

These are the settings I've changed in FreeRAM XP Pro (I left everything that's not mentioned below unchanged):

Program tab:
CHECK "If not started w/ Win, free RAM when starting"

Memory tab:
CHECK "Automatically free every 15 minutes"
UNCHECK "Prompt before automatically freeing"
UNCHECK "Don't auto run if CPU use over ..."
UNCHECK "Don't auto run during significant disk usage"
CHECK "No reports and pass prompts at auto running"

Sound/Shortcut tab:
UNCHECK "Use program sounds".

Save the settings, click on "Go" in the FreeRAM window, minimize it and start Half Life. That's it, hope it works for you too.

BTW, the video settings were set to 1024x768, minimum details (it's how I initially set it, now it's working like that and I didn't have the nerve to try and change it).

And one last paranoid thing: for all feeble-minded twerps that may pick on my post for promoting software (publicity): crawl up and die! I've used this memory manager and it works, I can now play HL2 properly. You can also try other memory managers, but this one worked for me. I wrote this post for those who are interested more in actually playing HL2 rather than staring at it's box and waiting for an official patch.
 
I actually tried the exact same thing last week with freeramxppro.. and i thought it worked for the same reason but when it would free up my game would lag like crazy and eventually i got the memory error again... so didnt work for me
 
I tried the free ram program and it just seemed to make the problem worse for me, crashed even more if thats even possible lol.
 
I don't know about you guys but I am really starting to get pissed off by this problem. Instead of a patch we get a half arsed attempt that in most cases makes the problem worse.

Before Valve start preparing speeches for awards they're going to win maybe they should try and fix their faulty product.
 
i have onboard sound and i get the error... i also get it with maya, The game probly needs more ram...
 
Hopefully a solution for some!

Wow! I have read a lot of crazy solutions to this problem that do not seem to work or make any sense at all. Don’t change everything in your computer to get one game to play and find that nothing else will work afterward, here is what worked for me. The problem I had was every time I got to the teleporter sequence in the very beginning of the game, the sound would skip and the game with crash to the desktop with the memory could not be “read” error.

I have been able to fix the memory error, but the sound problem continues, this would make me think that they are not related.

Everyone has been posting computer specs to see what similarities in their systems they have and I haven’t found any. The question I have to everyone with this problem is, did you have any problems with the installation, including having to stop the update and Steam downloads and have to resume at one time or another? Keep in mind that I purchased the retail box with the 5 CD’s and still had to download about 11MB to play HL2. Anyways, to get to the important part of this long post, here is my solution.

SOLUTION:

1. I uninstalled HL2 through the Windows Add/Remove Programs.
2. I opened the steam folder and deleted the HL2 and shared folders in the directory (you will find even after uninstalling several key files still remained in the directories. If you don’t use steam for anything else deleting the entire folder may be an option also.)
3. Since I have a fairly old CD-ROM drive I created a folder on my desktop and copied the files from all 5 CD’s into the one folder. It seems that some of the larger files (i.e. >1GB) are broken up over more then one CD and .CAB file.
4. Next I reinstalled HL2, making sure that the internet was connected (high speed is a must unless you have all night) and did not interrupt the process at anytime.
5. Lastly, I launched the game and played it for hours on end, with annoying sound skipping and all, but no memory errors or crashes.

Just as an end note, I have been playing with the sound acceleration all the way up and graphic details at the highest so I do not think that these have any effect on the memory error. I can only speculate that one of the large installation files that does not delete during the uninstall has been corrupted and causes bad data to be “loaded” into memory that can not be “read” when the time comes. I have 1GB of RAM and was getting the error. Changing the Windows page file or using a memory manager is likely to just delay the inevitable.

Sorry for the long post but I spent several hours trying everything to get this to work, I hope it will help people play the game that they paid for and cannot return. Let me know if this worked for you.
 
The Mem Crash /Sound Loop Hard Reboot Shit

As we all are trying to figure this thing out.. I may aswell tell what my problems are.. When i first installed the game i had no problems with HL2 whatsoever, but CS:S i get that Sound loop freeze.. And 1 out of 3 times i have to hard reboot.. 2 out of 3 times it crashes to desktop with Memory Could Not Be Read shit. Then i believed this had something (as read in the thread) to do with my memory virtual memory or onboard sound chip..

I Played now.. Or tried :p.. Got the same crash as always after about 19 mins.. And it skipped to desktop and i was awaiting a "Mem could not.." But no.. I got an ATI memory message.. That the Hardware dint respond to the graphics driver command.. And that it did a "reset".. SO i tried opening the Counter-Strike Source tab and i could play on..

May this be a memory on gfx card problem? Not just System? :rolling:

AMD 64 XP3200+ 1MB Cach
1 GIG Ram
ATI 9600 XT Bravo
 
I got this for the first time ever just 10 minutes ago in CS:S.
 
Hmm... cleaning my \windows\prefetch directory seems to have solved the memory dumping in CS:Source for me. Framerate is also higher too. Perhaps it was using older prefetch settings and Valve updated it or something.. but it seems to be smooth sailing for me now. :eek:
 
I've been having this same problem since I bought the game. I couldn't play it longer than 10 mins before it would lock up. I found a solution for myself that has allowed me to at least play the game. I have a ASUS A7N8X-D motherboard with a AMD Barton 2500+ cpu and 1 gig of Kingston PC3200 HyperX. I had to go into the BIOS and switch my chip settings from "AGGRESSIVE" to "OPTIMAL". After doing this I've been able to play for over an hour before it locks up. It's better than nothing right now.
 
Pestul said:
Hmm... cleaning my \windows\prefetch directory seems to have solved the memory dumping in CS:Source for me. Framerate is also higher too. Perhaps it was using older prefetch settings and Valve updated it or something.. but it seems to be smooth sailing for me now. :eek:
Click to expand...


by cleaning u mean deleting?? which files in particular??
 
i did everything possible , i have a legal copy of half life 2 ,the only solution remaining is to download an illegal copy and see if it will work ,because the the legal seems to not work at all in my machine ,if the the hacked copy works ,what a shame for valve and steam .
i will keep you posted .
 
misterbelgic said:
by cleaning u mean deleting?? which files in particular??
Click to expand...
It's safe to delete all the files in your windows\prefetch folder.. windows just stores them for quicker access. A new prefetch file is created every time you run a new .exe file. If you want, you can just delete the application specific prefetch files such as the ones for steam.exe & hl2.exe/cs.exe. Obviously, it might not work for you.. I played CS:Source flawlessly for hours last night without the memory dump.
 
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