This bug is really driving me crazy

[Grandpa Porridge]

I recently got Half=Life 2 and played it without any errors whatsoever. It ran great. But two days ago I decided to start playing it and every time an area loads in a level the game crashes to the desktop with an "Engine Error" saying something about Direct3D.

So I tried a couple of things. I updated my video card drivers (ATI Radeon X1300 256 MB PCI Express). But that only seemed to make the problem worse as it is crashing even more frequently. I surpass all the minimum requirements. And I should know because the game worked like a dream on my computer.

I found the file that was causing the problem. It was vidcfg.bin. But that file re-spawns every time I start the game and it's annoying to have to delete it every time I load a new area.

This is driving me crazy. It has to do with Directx I know, but I have DirectX 9c, so I don't understand what the problem is. The same thing happens with Half Life 2 Episode 1.

 

[Bulletbrain]

Seems like your system is having trouble playing the opening movies. Right-click on the shortcut icon for Half Life 2 and select Properties. Under the properties, edit the command variables in the Target box so that it reads something like this:

"C:\Program Files\Valve\Steam\Steam.exe" -novid

This tells the game to skip the opening videos.

 

[Grandpa Porridge]

Thanks. But it's not just opening videos. Every time a section of a level needs to load I get this stupid crash. At it bugs me because 3 days ago it was working just fine. I've done everything possible to solve it, I've re-installed it countless times.