Portal refuses to start

[lenswipe]

Hey guys

i decided to try portal: first slice from steam, i downloaded it but when it finished downloading and i click "Play Now" in steam, the screen just flashes black for a couple of seconds and thats it.

If i go into program files and try and run hl2.exe under the portal subdirectory i get a message telling me that gameinfo.txt is missing from the hl2 subdirectory.

If i try and copy over the one from the portal subdirectory i get a white screen with black diagonal lines telling me some video decoder or other is missing

can someone help?

ive spent the past 2 days googling and im out of ideas...

 

[lenswipe]

can someone help?

i cant belive nobody out there knows the answer

 

[Hectic Glenn]

First of all try right clicking 'Portal: First Slice' in your Library then going to properties. Go to the local files tab and click 'verify integrity of game cache' and let Steam confirm any errors in your files and fix them. Try the game again.

Also, what are your PC specs? Is your computer good enough to run Portal?

Minimum: 1.7 GHz Processor, 512MB RAM, DirectX® 8.1 level Graphics Card (Requires support for SSE), Windows® Vista/XP/2000, Mouse, Keyboard, Internet Connection

Recommended: Pentium 4 processor (3.0GHz, or better), 1GB RAM, DirectX® 9 level Graphics Card, Windows® Vista/XP/2000, Mouse, Keyboard, Internet Connection

 

[lenswipe]

First of all try right clicking 'Portal: First Slice' in your Library then going to properties. Go to the local files tab and click 'verify integrity of game cache' and let Steam confirm any errors in your files and fix them. Try the game again.

Also, what are your PC specs? Is your computer good enough to run Portal?

ive tried doing the game cache thing, also i downloaded the full version from a torrent tracker (yes i know you guys don't like pirating on here, which is understandable, but i felt this was necessary for testing purposes) and it will load and get to the video intro (albeit crash afterward) but it will sort of load, so it proves the machine is able to run portal and that steam is shipping a knacked download.

I have also tried downloading it again with the same results...

I should probably mention that this is running in a windows server 2003 virtual machine

 

[lenswipe]

on second thoughts scratch that, does anyone know if its possible to change the game settings (resolution) when the game isnt running, i gave the game a weird setting and now when it runs it crashes because of the weird resolution i picked by accident...

 

[MorganFreeman911]

also i downloaded the full version from a torrent tracker (yes i know you guys don't like pirating on here, which is understandable, but i felt this was necessary for testing purposes)

You're not helping your case at all.
EDIT: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=change+resolution+steam+game+properties

 

[lenswipe]

You're not helping your case at all.
EDIT: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=change+resolution+steam+game+properties

i know, it was the only way i could think of to test to see whether or not there was a problem with the download from steam.

According to the results of the test there is...

 

[diluted]

I should probably mention that this is running in a windows server 2003 virtual machine

why are you running it in a VM? 3d acceleration support in most VM products is shit to none. that is why you are having problems.