Half life 2 running very slowly on laptop

[sonata--arctica]

Hey,

I recently bought a new Dell laptop. I've installed Half Life 2, but when I run it, it runs really slowly. Seeing as it's a new laptop, I would expect to be able to run it fairly easily, but it runs slowly even with the lowest resolution and with all the video settings set to low, I've updated all my graphics drivers and it's still running very slowly. I was wondering if anyone could maybe help me? Sorry if I said something that doesn't make sense, I'm pretty new to all of this stuff lol

My laptop is a Dell Inspiron 1501 running Windows Vista Home Premium. (32-bit)
Processor: AMD Turion(tm) 64 X2 Mobile Technology TL-56 1.80 GHz
1918 MB of RAM
ATI Radeon Express Series

Thanks :cheese:

 

[Xendance]

Apparently, there are some problems with Half Life 2 and Vista. Watch this space.

 

[Destron]

First things first, make sure you're running Steam, and not a cracked version of HL2.

 

[sonata--arctica]

Yeah I'm running steam lol

 

[Beerdude26]

Try running the game in DirectX 8.1. mode:

Left-click on the Steam tray icon.
Select "Games".
Click on the "My Games" tab.
Right-click on the game that you want to run in DX8 mode.
Select "Properties".
Click on the "General" tab.
Click on the "Set Launch Options" button.
Put in the window box: -dxlevel 81
Click "OK".
Click "Close".

You can also try -dxlevel 70.

 

[giant384]

sigh why does every think vista has problems with hl2??? it runs perfectly fine with it. its the express series video card that he has which you cant change unless you purchase a laptop with a better graphics card.

 

[Jintor]

Because Vista screwed up a lotttttt of drivers, and became the biggest problem for HL2 support for a while after its release.

 

[giant384]

and vista has been out for about 6-7 months now and i see no problems.

 

[Jintor]

It's still one of the more likely problems, ey?

 

[Naudian]

and vista has been out for about 6-7 months now and i see no problems.

The problem is that framerates are STILL way lower than what they are when using XP.
I'm surprised that the drivers for Vista still can't match XP performance after this much time...at least they don't for my setup.

As for the OP's issue, I think the Express chip just isn't powerful enough...best bet is to do what Beerdude posted.

 

[sonata--arctica]

I did what Beerdude said, and now I can run HL2 under 800x600 resolution with most of the settings on low or medium, which is good enough really. And I'm guessing the problem is due to the graphics card. I'm guessing it's an integrated graphics card, and I've heard this don't run so well. Thanks for the help

 

[giant384]

I did what Beerdude said, and now I can run HL2 under 800x600 resolution with most of the settings on low or medium, which is good enough really. And I'm guessing the problem is due to the graphics card. I'm guessing it's an integrated graphics card, and I've heard this don't run so well. Thanks for the help

all laptop video cards are integrated lol. well besides some alienware pcs. it all depends on what card you have and the xpress video cards arent great.

 

[sonata--arctica]

Fair enough I'm not exactly an expert lol. I'll try get the graphics card upgraded if I can.....

 

[giant384]

Fair enough I'm not exactly an expert lol. I'll try get the graphics card upgraded if I can.....

im sure you cant.