Problem with HL2 on new PC

[SpotEnemyBoats]

I figured I would try out HL2 on my new computer and it seems to be that HL2 is not responding during the game start up, it will not progress. See pic:

Spoiler

The odd part is that HL2: Episode One, HL2: Episode 2, HL2 Death match, CS:S, HL:S all work fantastic.

-I've tried running HL2 through administrator
-Tried defragmenting HL2's cache files
-Tried installing HL2 from Orange Box CD, rather than downloading and installing through Steam, which both have failed.


My specs are:

XFX GeForce 9800GTX+ Black Edition 512mb GPU
AMD 64 Phantom X4 9950
M3N72-D Asus MoBo
OCZ Nvidia SLI 2 gig RAM (low-latency)
RAID MAX 530 watt power supply
Western Digital 500 GiG SATA 2 HDD (32mb cache)

Thanks

 

[AciD]

Are you using Vistax64 or XP x64?

 

[Laivasse]

...If the answer to Acid's question is yes, you'll need to add '-32bit' to the launch options in HL2's Properties menu. AFAIK there is no significant performance difference.

For some reason the 64-bit mode is broken. It wasn't always this way, but it has been this way for a long time now. Presumably it got broken in an update. I'm surprised this still hasn't been fixed.

 

[SpotEnemyBoats]

I have Vista x64. Also, I did the '-32' (without the ' ') in the launch options and I started up HL2 and I'm still seeing "64-bit mode active" and it is still stuck on the blurred part while not responding.

I'm probably doing something wrong.

 

[Laivasse]

It needs to be '-32bit' not just '-32'. Leaving out the ' ' is correct. I just doublechecked this myself and yes, I still get the hanging problem too unless I start it in 32-bit mode (therefore you have every reason to expect this solution to work). Bit ridiculous that it's broken tbh.

 

[SpotEnemyBoats]

I didn't read it throughly.

Well anways, thanks very much. It worked.