Problem with running HL2 Ep 1

[inuratus]

Hi. I'm having a bit of an issue running Half-Life 2 Episode 1 on my computer. I was able to play HL2 without a problem. Basically I load and hit the "New Game" option. It proceeds in it's usual fashion loading up until all the bars are filled up. After that the title screen appears "Half-Life 2 Episode 1" in white bold text agaisnt a black screen. The screen gradually fades away as a voice starts to speak (G- man?). After he has spoken... well that's where my problem begins. The screen remains black and I am able to hear a lot of noise, I'm assuming it's from the game's background music. It sounds to me like jumbled alien talk in my opinion. Anyway this noise skips while it's playing, so instead of it being crisp and audible it's laggy and sounds like a broken record. This music increases in sound over the span of several seconds than decreases, ultimately fading out. After all the noise is gone a black screen remains and.. that's the end of it. I cannot proceed any further into the game. It remains black and silent. I'm unable to see the mouse cursor and cannot click anything to make a noise. However I can still bring up the option panel. I can change my settings and every other option such as saving, quitting, loading, etc.

I tried changing my video settings to the lowest possible configuration. That did nothing. Tried changing the screen resolution; also nothing. I'm not sure what the problem is. I've tried it time and time again with different combos of setting changes but after the first line of speech.. I remain at a black screen and that's the end of my half-life adventure.

My comp. specs are as follows if this helps:
EMachines
W4885
Intel (R)
pentium (R) 4 cpu 2.80 ghz
2.80 ghz, 1.49 gb of ram

grpahics
intel (R) 82845G/gl/ge/pe/gv graphics controller

Hope you can help, thanks.

 

[giant384]

ive heard that its a common problem with that graphics chip. your best bet is buying a new decent video card.