Half Life2 ep 1 problems

[ZeroCooLZZ66]

Hello everyone, I just joined this lovely community today in hopes of solving a problem. I'm having alittle bit of a freezing problem, not sure if any of you have stumbled onto this problem yet. I don't think it's my computer, cause I've played Half Life 2 and it played just fine. Pretty much I'm at the beginning of the game, I have to sprint across a bridge before the gravity machine pulls me off the bridge. Well before I can, the game hits huge amounts of lag, to the point where I can't alt tab forcing me to restart the computer. Any ideas?

Computer SPECS

Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2
BIOS: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3500+ ~2.3GHz
Memory: 1024MB RAM
Video Card: Radeon X1600 Series
Display Memory: 512.0 MB DDR2
Sound Card: SB Audigy 2 ZS Audio [C000]
HardDrive: 300 GB 16Bit cache

 

[Xendance]

Welcome to the forum.
I'm not technical, but can you wait for the lag to pass over? Would that help at all?

 

[Jintor]

Odd. I have about equal specs and this has never happened to me. As a general thing, try validating your Steam files for Ep 1.

 

[Naudian]

Or try restarting that chapter, might me a random glitch...

 

[Bulletbrain]

Or you can turn down all the graphics settings and resolution to low, until you get over the bridge...

 

[Laivasse]

Is it only happening on the bridge? This could be an overheating problem. Episode 1 is a bit more graphically demanding than HL2 in terms of level design, and especially with HDR switched on, to the point where I have to turn the fan speed up a bit on my card while playing or else I encounter problems that sound identical to yours.

That bridge does some snazzy looking graphics stuff too, so maybe it would be enough to down settings until you get over it like Bullet says.

 

[ZeroCooLZZ66]

Well guys I found out what it was. I was searching through valves support page and it turns out, that Half Life doesn't work very well with my sound blaster. They had me try one thing, turn off the sound with the launch options. Worked just fine after that, so I updated the sound drivers and it works fine now. Thanks for your input guys =).

 

[Xendance]

Bravo.