How I fixed the stuttering prob

[klaviernista]

By now everyone knows that the stutter bug has impacted a lot of people out there. I have found a fix (that works for me anyways) that gets rid of most of the stuttering (and, while its extreme, it doesn't involve command line parameters). I figured I'd share it with you all.

here is what I did.

1) Formatted hard drive (not a quick format, I did the long one that takes 2 hours)

2) Reinstalled WIN-XP home

3) Did a clean install of all drivers, including the beta 67.02 nvidia drivers available here; and the July 29 2004 Sb Audigy 2 Drivers available here

4) I then updated Win-XP for all security updates through service pack 1 only (I haven't tried the game yet with service pack 2 installed, but when I do I'll update this post)

5) I then reinstalled STEAM, and re-downloaded HL2 without interrupting the download (took ~1.25 hours with broadband cable to re-download).

Result: the sound still stutters when I change the antialiasing settings and when the game initially loads a new level (for about a 0.1-0.2 seconds, then its gone). But other then that ITS GONE. Best of all, the game has not once hardlocked on me during a level/area load (over a period of ~2 hours of playing, including lots of cheat induced level swaps to test things out).

Further, the game overall runs MUCH better for some reason. My frame rate was good before, but now it seems as though every area runs smooth as butter. The level loads are also much shorter, and scripted sequences don't have any hitches in them.

All in all I am happy. It sucks that this is what it took to get the game to run properly, but honestly, I needed to reformat and reinstall anyways, so I wasn't too upset. Plus it gave me an excuse to try out my new back up external HD I just bought. And evidently there was a problem in there somewhere that was causing the issues I was experiencing. As I reinstall some other programs (including norton antivirus and a firewall) I'll keep an eye out to see if things start to act funny again.

Hope this helps some of you all out there who are having probs. The game is truly phenomenal and worth all this time and effort to get running right

Oh! My system is as follows:
Hand Built
P4 3ghz
Asus P4C800 Deluxe Mobo
1gb pc3200 DDR
eVGA GeForce 6800 Ultra
Audigy 2

 

[BlackMesaDude]

Sorry but i doubt that reinstalling or formating does any difference since its not a computer problem, its a bug in the game.

Perhaps the drivers for my 6800 are wrong, gonna try thoose you suggested, but other then that its better for valve to just release that god damn patch.

 

[klaviernista]

Sorry but i doubt that reinstalling or formating does any difference since its not a computer problem, its a bug in the game.

Well, irrespective of whether its a bug in the game or not, all of the problems I was experiencing (stuttering, hard locks, slow load times, graphic corruption) went away after I did the above steps.

I, unlike a lot of people (including you it seems) do not think this is a coded bug. I admit that it could be, but after my experience with the reformat and reinstall (which would eliminate most if not all other things that could possibly cause the problem), it doesn't seem that its a coding problem.

Also, if it were a coding problem, the problem would be universal. However, plenty of people (including myself now), can run the game perfectly.

 

[^Ben]

That reminds me im due for my bimonthly reformat

 

[kensan]

Jesus. I for one am too old to be doing these lengthy, time consuming things. I would rather play than reformat, and if a game is going to be buggy like this, like hl2 is turning out to be for me, I'll just pick up another game until they get it right.

I wish I could return my collector's edition to bestbuy until they do get it right. sigh.

 

[^Ben]

There will hopefully be a patch this week.

 

[BlackMesaDude]

There will hopefully be a patch this week.

Hopefully ? they BETTER release it this week, or how many weeks do they think im gonna sit and roll my thumbs over a bug they screwed up on, they have tons of feedback of people having the issue, now they better work 24/7 if they have to because i refuse to play any further.

 

[^Ben]

Im sorry i thought there was an age limit on HL2?

They WILL be working on a patch but as in development in general some other bug might pop up to-do with this bug and when they fix that bug there might be something else that is related to that which needs fixing.

Don't play, but also dont come complaining here with a bug we know that's an issue, and we know they are working on a fix.

 

[klaviernista]

Moderator please lock this forum. I do not want this to turn into another bitch fest when I was just trying to help some folks out.

 

[dogboy73]

They WILL be working on a patch but as in development in general some other bug might pop up to-do with this bug and when they fix that bug there might be something else that is related to that which needs fixing.

LOL. You make it sound like they are still Beta testing the damn thing .................... Hang on, They are aren't they? They should have sorted these bugs out before the release & not relied on the fact that everyone can update without even knowing about it through Steam.

Infact could this be another definition for what Steam means for PC gaming? A game can now be released to meet dates even if it is bug ridden. The company can then continue work on the game & release updates for it that install automatically any time the Steam client is being run.

Ben, You believe Valve are working on a patch as we speak? If that's the case (And I hope it is) then they obviously no something is wrong. If they know now then is it not far fetched to say they knew about it pre-release? I mean, How could they miss something like this? It's just not possible.

 

[^Ben]

Maybe they knew maybe they didnt.

I'm not in that position to say.

And they know about theese bugs because the admitted it in the last patch that the nvidia bug was still being worked on.

 

[dogboy73]

Maybe they knew maybe they didnt.

I'm not in that position to say.

A small amount of speculation given all the facts will most likely sway you in the direction - OF COURSE THEY BLOODY KNEW!! How could they not know? Check the E3 2004 video demo. Even that has stuttering in it (The G-mans speech right at the start of the demo ends with the line "Lets just say that your hour has come a-ga-ga-gain"). You think they just didn't notice that? You seriously believe that nobody at Valve said, "Hang on a minute. Why is old mattey stuttering like a bastad in that part?"

 

[^Ben]

Well let's just hope they get fixing the bug.

 

[dogboy73]

Well let's just hope they get fixing the bug.

Indeed.

 

[Punisher_23]

Lol!!!

By now everyone knows that the stutter bug has impacted a lot of people out there. I have found a fix (that works for me anyways) that gets rid of most of the stuttering (and, while its extreme, it doesn't involve command line parameters). I figured I'd share it with you all.

here is what I did.

1) Formatted hard drive (not a quick format, I did the long one that takes 2 hours)

2) Reinstalled WIN-XP home

3) Did a clean install of all drivers, including the beta 67.02 nvidia drivers available here; and the July 29 2004 Sb Audigy 2 Drivers available here

4) I then updated Win-XP for all security updates through service pack 1 only (I haven't tried the game yet with service pack 2 installed, but when I do I'll update this post)

5) I then reinstalled STEAM, and re-downloaded HL2 without interrupting the download (took ~1.25 hours with broadband cable to re-download).

Result: the sound still stutters when I change the antialiasing settings and when the game initially loads a new level (for about a 0.1-0.2 seconds, then its gone). But other then that ITS GONE. Best of all, the game has not once hardlocked on me during a level/area load (over a period of ~2 hours of playing, including lots of cheat induced level swaps to test things out).

Further, the game overall runs MUCH better for some reason. My frame rate was good before, but now it seems as though every area runs smooth as butter. The level loads are also much shorter, and scripted sequences don't have any hitches in them.

All in all I am happy. It sucks that this is what it took to get the game to run properly, but honestly, I needed to reformat and reinstall anyways, so I wasn't too upset. Plus it gave me an excuse to try out my new back up external HD I just bought. And evidently there was a problem in there somewhere that was causing the issues I was experiencing. As I reinstall some other programs (including norton antivirus and a firewall) I'll keep an eye out to see if things start to act funny again.

Hope this helps some of you all out there who are having probs. The game is truly phenomenal and worth all this time and effort to get running right

Oh! My system is as follows:
Hand Built
P4 3ghz
Asus P4C800 Deluxe Mobo
1gb pc3200 DDR
eVGA GeForce 6800 Ultra
Audigy 2

If I have to do all that for the game to work it's not worth playing....and I really don't have the patience or time for all that.....my comp is well maintained so that should be all that's needed to run this game well or any game for that matter, so I'll just wait for valve to fix what they are responsible for.

 

[AlaskanStewie]

Sorry but i doubt that reinstalling or formating does any difference since its not a computer problem, its a bug in the game.

Perhaps the drivers for my 6800 are wrong, gonna try thoose you suggested, but other then that its better for valve to just release that god damn patch.

Strange, I'm not getting this problem. So I guess I have a different version of the game then you :|. It is a computer problem.

 

[zakka]

1)
here is what I did.
Formatted hard drive (not a quick format, I did the long one that takes 2 hours)

Well, *If* I’m not wrong, there’s no really reason to do “full format”, cause it wont do nothing to disk, it just scan it first (searching bad sectors) and then create new file system, and quick format just create new file system.

If you have scsi discs, then Low-level format could be useful, but you should check manual is there any reason to do so (Last time I use scsi drives, I had only old 1-2GB drives, no Idea how these days. ;/

Sorry my bad English ;/

 

[dogboy73]

Anyone have any joy with the new patch released yesterday? Still the same here :-(

 

[Ryjalon5k]

good work original poster