Load times Sound loop HL2

[VegasJKD]

hello,

I recently installed HL2 and the orange box on my laptop, the graphics are great but when the game loads, any game, the load bar gets to the last little bar then a sound loop occurs for a while before the game loads. this is worst in Portal where at time quick loads are necessary, and i might have to wait 2-3 mins. Any suggestions on how to fix this issue and make my load times faster?

thanks in advance,
sincerely,
JohnD

 

[99.vikram]

add this parameter while running the game from a shortcut:
-heapsize #

where # is half of your total RAM in Kb.
Eg- if you have 1 GB of RAM, then # = 512000.

It might solve the problem.

 

[VegasJKD]

Thanks, it makes it significantly faster.

essentially, what does this do? why does it work? are there any negative aspects about it?

thanks again for your quick reply.

 

[cranphin]

Hi!

I've got the exact same problem here, stuttering sound for a long long time when the loading bar has reached the last dot.

The suggested fix seems to help, somewhat, but it seems odd having to do that.

Considering that loading, especially when doing a quicksave/reload, takes much much much longer then HL2 Episode One, or HL2, even with the suggested fix, I've got a bit of a feeling Valve did something funky here

Now that I'm at the end battle it's really starting to hurt, the end battle is hard enough, with slow reloads it's simply torture

If anyone has any other insights in this, it'd be greatly appreciated

Also, I've got a feeling TF2 and Portal are similary affected, since loading, especially on TF2 levels seems long there too, comparing against friends with similar or even slower hardware for example.

Btw. This looks like someone else with the same problem:
http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=136719&highlight=load+times