Game unplayable

[jengo]

I am able to load the game to the main menu no problem. Everything loads and runs very smooth, no problems sound wise at the main menu either.

However, when I go to new game ... I am getting 1 fps. I turned on showbudget and its reporting 1fp and maxed out "refraction overhead". Everything else is very low. Durring this time, the sound is jumping like crazy.

Needless to say, I can't play the game I have tried the tweaks I found all over the place, but it doesn't resolve it.

This computer plays WoW and Doom 3 perfectly.

Dell Inspiron 8200
2.2Ghz
GeForce 4 (Dunno model, but again runs other games perfectly)
1 GB RAM
60gb 7200rpm drive

Any ideas or suggestions as to whats going on ? I find it very odd that all the animations on the main menu work perfect, but loading the game doesn't happen.

 

[jengo]

I forgot to mention ... yes, my drivers are all current. I am also running DX 9.0c, since WoW requires it.

 

[redundant]

What settings are you trying to play HL2 in?

 

[Platinum]

dude ... ge force 4's suck ... dont see how that could run doom 3 "perfectly" ...

 

[Kommie]

I thought g4s couldnt hack dx9 they werent compatible with it or somethiing try changing the heapsize since you have so much ram change it to 512000 I cant remember the exact string do a forum search for heapsize

-------------------------
nvm here is a quote
"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."

 

[Mr. Redundant]

-heapsize 500000
for a heapsize of 500mb

or 256000 for 256mb, etc etc.

it's recommended to use half your system memory.
you add it to your launch option for hl2.

however so far I fail to see any difference, and at default both my computers have a heapsize of 64mb. (no idea why, the one has 512mb, the other has 1gb) as I said though, through experimentation I have seen no difference in changing heapsizes.

damn, Kommie edited, now it looks like I am merely being redundant.

 

[The Dark Elf]

I am able to load the game to the main menu no problem. Everything loads and runs very smooth, no problems sound wise at the main menu either.

However, when I go to new game ... I am getting 1 fps. I turned on showbudget and its reporting 1fp and maxed out "refraction overhead". Everything else is very low. Durring this time, the sound is jumping like crazy.

Needless to say, I can't play the game I have tried the tweaks I found all over the place, but it doesn't resolve it.

This computer plays WoW and Doom 3 perfectly.

Dell Inspiron 8200
2.2Ghz
GeForce 4 (Dunno model, but again runs other games perfectly)
1 GB RAM
60gb 7200rpm drive

Any ideas or suggestions as to whats going on ? I find it very odd that all the animations on the main menu work perfect, but loading the game doesn't happen.

Turn off the water reflection, especially if you have it set to the highest setting (reflect all)

 

[bliink]

You cant tweak this problem away.. something is broken.
Try to narrow it down by disabling/enabling different things, then you can focus your effort on one thing.

 

[jengo]

I did try changing my heapsize ... I currently have it at 500000 (I have 1gb RAM)

Ok, I was able to load the first cannel map, but loading it in the console. It runs no problem. intro won't run faster then 1fps The cannel map seems to be getting 80+ fps.

But, when I get to the 2nd loading point ... it always crashes the computer. Blue screen for a split sec, then reboots.

My settings are all low (For testing purposes) ... tried the resoultion at 1024x768 and 800x600 ... Everything still happens like before.

Yes, I know the GeForce 4 isn't the greatest. I haven't seen any other games give me any trouble. I haven't heard many issues regarding DX9 with it. This is my laptop ... I am building my gaming machine in January. (Waiting on the dual core AMDs .. and its going to cost me about $3500 for what I want to do)

I have been trying to change my settings little by little trying to pin point what is making it do this.

 

[Reaktor4]

try running it in dx8

 

[The Dark Elf]

I did try changing my heapsize ... I currently have it at 500000 (I have 1gb RAM)

Ok, I was able to load the first cannel map, but loading it in the console. It runs no problem. intro won't run faster then 1fps The cannel map seems to be getting 80+ fps.

But, when I get to the 2nd loading point ... it always crashes the computer. Blue screen for a split sec, then reboots.

My settings are all low (For testing purposes) ... tried the resoultion at 1024x768 and 800x600 ... Everything still happens like before.

Yes, I know the GeForce 4 isn't the greatest. I haven't seen any other games give me any trouble. I haven't heard many issues regarding DX9 with it. This is my laptop ... I am building my gaming machine in January. (Waiting on the dual core AMDs .. and its going to cost me about $3500 for what I want to do)

I have been trying to change my settings little by little trying to pin point what is making it do this.

What about the AA.. It runs perfectly on both mine (geforce4mx 440 and a 9600XT) with everything cranked up. UNLESS I put the AA up, then it crawls, especially when water is visible. Thats the one thing that both mine have problems with.

Check through the nVidia CP, see if there's some setting that might need changing in there too.

 

[Mr. Redundant]

another thing to try would be to do the Verify cache process recently offered via steam, and make sure you don't have something that is corrupt.

if that still does not work you could try run the game in dx7 or dx8

this may sound silly but make sure for some odd reason your maxfps isn't 1

console command
fpsmax 100
(or whatever you want)

 

[jengo]

AA is disabled ... both in the CP and in the game.

DX9 comes with XP, its not safe to rollback to an older version ... last time I tried it, I ended up having to do a reinstall because it screawed everything up.

Water is set to the lowest, it won't even allow me to increase it.

Outside of the crashing, it doesn't make any sense why intro won't work but all of the other maps are fine.

I already verifed the cache file via steam, no problems there. It can't be set at max fps of 1 since all maps except intro work fine (avg 80fps)

 

[Mr. Redundant]

AA is disabled ... both in the CP and in the game.

DX9 comes with XP, its not safe to rollback to an older version ... last time I tried it, I ended up having to do a reinstall because it screawed everything up.

Water is set to the lowest, it won't even allow me to increase it.

Outside of the crashing, it doesn't make any sense why intro won't work but all of the other maps are fine.

I already verifed the cache file via steam, no problems there. It can't be set at max fps of 1 since all maps except intro work fine (avg 80fps)

when we say try dx7 or dx8 we mean there is an option to do so ingame not the operating system's Dx level.

your card, is a dx8 (I think, although it could be a dx7) level card, this means no matter what dx level windows has your card will only have the functionality of the dxlevel it was created for (and you wont get dx9 effects even though you have dx9 installed in windows)

anyway to make a long story short all you need to do is bring down the console ingame and try

mat_dxlevel 7

or

mat_dxlevel 8

 

[jengo]

Ok, I tried to switch it to DX7 .. intro is still doing it.

The default value for mat_dxlevel was 70, which I am assuming is the same thing

Hmmmm

 

[Mr. Redundant]

try turning off bumpmapping and specularity
from the console

mat_bumpmap 0
mat_specular 0

 

[jengo]

mat_bumpmap was already set to 0
I set mat_specular to 0, that didn't fix it

Isn't CS-Source based on the same engine, different game code ? I was able to play it no problem for like 2 hours last night. No crashes, just very laggy when I got flashed.

When I load intro, its complaining about Failed to load sound "ambience/mechwine.wav", file is probably missing from the disk/repository ... same thing with ambience/wind1.wav

Another common error on maps I see is Error: Material "engine/occlusionproxy" users unknown shader "Occulsion" ... not sure if this has anything to do with it. All maps seem to give the error, even those that work.