getting HL2 to run better

[branden7]

Well i just picked up HL2..and wow.
But it's taking forever to load and gets patchy at some points of the game.

Heres what i'm running
2.4 ghz
1024 ram
ati 9600 128 video

I think thats the important things..
Is there anything i can do to cut down on load times a little or is it just a huge game and thats how long it takes? i dont really want to change the quality of the textures or anything like that, because i think that makes the game what it is.

Thanks.

 

[kngHenry]

my system's specs are better than yours, and HL2 does take A WHILE to load I imagine it is normal.

 

[Asus]

Only thing I might recommend is turning off any background programs while you play.

 

[kngHenry]

but Steam runs in the background too! so maybe that's what is slowing it down?

 

[^Ben]

If you don't have steam running you won't be able to play the game atall, the biggest whores of the computers are A/V and spyware.

 

[jocky68]

I used to have a 9800 pro 128mb on 3.2ghz, 1024ram pc and it was slow for me to. when i got my x800xl the load times were cut in half.

 

[diluted]

HL2 maps just take long to load. I have a P4 3.0ghz, Radein 9600xt and 1gig of RAM and it takes just over a minute to load most maps. When I had 512mb of RAM it took like 2-3 minutes. :|

 

[gweedodogg69]

CPU is a bit of a bottleneck, it seems everyone I know has a 2.4GHz P4 CPU. OC that CPU a little bit or get a new one.

 

[branden7]

ya i do think it's time to build a new computer, but i'm about to buy a house and i need to put some money into my car so it's going to be another month or two. anyway, thanks for the responses!

 

[Geronimous]

TweakGuides has had a guide on HL2 for ages:

http://www.tweakguides.com/HL2_1.html

 

[ELIXIR]

please help:

hey this is bit off topic, bit i just installed the new nvidia drivers 77.72 and now my game wont start i get this error message "failed to set video mode - reseting to defaults", and when you click ok the same thing happens, it shows the intro and goes back to desktop with the same error message. anyone had thi happen to them? please help.

 

[Beerdude26]

ELIXIR : Install older drivers.

EDIT : Tadaa.

 

[ELIXIR]

thanks Beerdude26