Intermittent gameplay - Game Freezing

[RonnieDobbs]

Hi, this is my first post because i recently purchased HL2 and installed it a day or 2 ago. It was quite the task to get this done i might add. Finally i got through the Steam madness and finally got it to run, first problem I encountered was the game locking up when the Valve vid finishes playing. I managed to get past this by inserting the -console command in my launch options. So I finally start a new game and it seems to be working. The Gman is there talking to me, Wake up....blah blah blah, then it start freezing whiles hes talking so the opening scene labours along till i am on board the train. I am able to move around but I keep freezing for intervals of i'd say 30+ seconds with random amounts of me be able to move again. Thats not the only problem either. There are patches of random coloured squares all over the place, seem to be the skins of NPC's and textures. Basically its unplayable. I meet the minimum requirements, my weakpoint in my current setup is my videocard, its a 3D Prophet Geforce 2 Ultra. I guess I should list my rig.
AMD 2500+ Barton Mobile
Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe Mobo
512mb PC3200 OCZ Platinum
120 SATA WD1200
Pioneer 16X DVD Rom
3D Prophet Geforce 2 Ultra 64mb Vidcard

*I have another 120 SATA WD 1200 & a SB Audigy Platinum Card and Audigy Drive I plan to install on this rig in the future. I decided to use the onboard sound for now. I have updated all my drivers, even going so far to use the Beta NVidia Drivers.

The only thing i can think of is maybe theres values in my BIOS that I need to configure correctly. I've seen the blotches before when i installed Battlefield Vietnam and basically abandoned it for the time being. I've gotten Doom3 to work on this PC before with no problem at all.

I've read the forums searching anyone with a simular problem as me but no one mentioned the freezing up for 30 second intervals like mine did. I should mention that I've turned down all the settings and i'm playing 640x480, i can play it at the higher resolutions but i just tuned it down to the lowest resolution. I'm getting decent frame rates when i actually get to move around. Like anywhere from 90-30 @ 800x600 so far.

 

[RonnieDobbs]

so not even a suggestion as to what could be gong on here?

 

[titaniummonkey]

i have the same problem of it locking up after the valve video. how do you fix this.

 

[general griffin]

Hi, this is my first post because i recently purchased HL2 and installed it a day or 2 ago. It was quite the task to get this done i might add. Finally i got through the Steam madness and finally got it to run, first problem I encountered was the game locking up when the Valve vid finishes playing. I managed to get past this by inserting the -console command in my launch options. So I finally start a new game and it seems to be working. The Gman is there talking to me, Wake up....blah blah blah, then it start freezing whiles hes talking so the opening scene labours along till i am on board the train. I am able to move around but I keep freezing for intervals of i'd say 30+ seconds with random amounts of me be able to move again. Thats not the only problem either. There are patches of random coloured squares all over the place, seem to be the skins of NPC's and textures. Basically its unplayable. I meet the minimum requirements, my weakpoint in my current setup is my videocard, its a 3D Prophet Geforce 2 Ultra. I guess I should list my rig.
AMD 2500+ Barton Mobile
Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe Mobo
512mb PC3200 OCZ Platinum
120 SATA WD1200
Pioneer 16X DVD Rom
3D Prophet Geforce 2 Ultra 64mb Vidcard

*I have another 120 SATA WD 1200 & a SB Audigy Platinum Card and Audigy Drive I plan to install on this rig in the future. I decided to use the onboard sound for now. I have updated all my drivers, even going so far to use the Beta NVidia Drivers.

The only thing i can think of is maybe theres values in my BIOS that I need to configure correctly. I've seen the blotches before when i installed Battlefield Vietnam and basically abandoned it for the time being. I've gotten Doom3 to work on this PC before with no problem at all.

I've read the forums searching anyone with a simular problem as me but no one mentioned the freezing up for 30 second intervals like mine did. I should mention that I've turned down all the settings and i'm playing 640x480, i can play it at the higher resolutions but i just tuned it down to the lowest resolution. I'm getting decent frame rates when i actually get to move around. Like anywhere from 90-30 @ 800x600 so far.

Hi ronnie

Your spec seems fine apart from one thing. Your card is very very old. I don't mean this nastily but HL2 is very demanding on the old GPU and a geforce 2 isnt really going to cut it with only 64mb of texture ram.


First things to check are your graphics drivers up to date. Are your motherboard drivers up to date. Plus check soundcard drivers too.

If i were you id get rid of the card and buy an entry level geforce 5900 or an ati 9800 pro. For about 200 dollars you can get a good card to run hl2 thesedays. Now you say the processor is a mobile. Are you running this on a laptop?

 

[RonnieDobbs]

Hi ronnie

Your spec seems fine apart from one thing. Your card is very very old. I don't mean this nastily but HL2 is very demanding on the old GPU and a geforce 2 isnt really going to cut it with only 64mb of texture ram.


First things to check are your graphics drivers up to date. Are your motherboard drivers up to date. Plus check soundcard drivers too.

If i were you id get rid of the card and buy an entry level geforce 5900 or an ati 9800 pro. For about 200 dollars you can get a good card to run hl2 thesedays. Now you say the processor is a mobile. Are you running this on a laptop?

The Mobile CPU is in a A7N8X-E Deluxe mobo which is a desktop mobo so no, its no a Laptop.

I am planning to upgrade my Graphics card soon, im leaning towards a 9800XT if i can find one, which im confident i will on Ebay since they are getting cheaper now.

 

[RonnieDobbs]

Why don't they just list the videocards that are supported instead of being vague with Direct X 7 support graphics card. My GF2 Ultra is a Direct X 7 card yet its possible its not supported.

 

[giant384]

9800 and 5900 arent entry level cards

 

[general griffin]

no i guess not but they are GOOD entry level cards

 

[RonnieDobbs]

I want the 9800XT, I've wanted it since last summer but I'm never paying $500+ for a videocard, Theres no justification
especially when todays technology is tomorrows relic!