WHY SOME & NOT OTHERS!!

[dogboy73]

sorry for the shouting but this is still the billion dollar question that nobody, Least of all Valve, Seem to be able to answer!

It's regardless of system or 3D Mark score or RAM amount or gfx card RAM amountor whether the sun is shining or not!! So, Why does this game run like s**t for some or fine for others? Does it make any sense to anyone, anywhere, EVER!!

 

[Ennui]

because people have different kinds of computers.

 

[BlackMesaDude]

NO and it pisses me off that more users with crap computers got less problems then us with top line hardware this blows valve!!!!!1111111111

 

[Ennui]

NO and it pisses me off that more users with crap computers got less problems then us with top line hardware this blows valve!!!!!1111111111

*wink*

I have a 2.6ghz p4, 512mg RAM, and an FX 5200 128mg and HL2 ran on medium like a dream! Slight audio stuttering but thats it.

 

[nib]

Ran great for me with everhthing on HIGH except water. Specs:

AMD 2000, 1 Gig Ram, FX5900

Although, the first time through I didn't notice any studdering, I'm going through a second time and have noticed it happening. Weird.

 

[dogboy73]

because people have different kinds of computers.

Okay then. I'll give you that.

But what does this mean for the future of PC gaming? Could it be a case of once bitten twice shy? I'm certainly getting cold feet. As games become more power hungry & complex it follows that more & more people will experience problems. Will this turn people off? Is PC gaming heading back to the 'Geek' dwellings from whence it came?

XBox 2 anyone? They will all be the same, They will be the bol**cks & they will runs all games the same. All XBox's are created equal. I fear this may be the future of gaming. PC gaming is dead (And fu***ng expensive!)

 

[karloslim]

I agree with you dogboy. PC gaming is f**king expensive and it must be an absolute nightmare to code with the different types of pc's out there...it gives me a headache just thinking about it.
BUT it is usually cutting edge stuff that they make. Almost everthing of any real originality has come out on the PC IMHO even in the "geek" days. Long may PC gaming exist even if the crap computers can play HL2 and the good un's can't(Usually anyway)

 

[Brazooka]

I don't know what is going to happen with PC gaming, I still love it... But I'm kind of getting too old(24) for this s**t!... bugs, and patches, and fixes, and steams, and tech supoorts... Last console I had was Mega Drive, but this Xbox thing is getting my attention...

 

[nib]

Ah...my friends, my friends. You're showing your age. PC gaming started in DOS. You had to code for special sound drivers, you had to code for special input devices, you had to code for dozens of video drivers. Talk about a nightmare! Now that we're in windows, most of that has been streamlined with DirectX.

 

[karloslim]

Ah remember them days lad when you had to worry about your RAM pack wobbling when you'd typed in a program which probably wouldn't have worked anyways. When a megabyte was something you'd just read about in books.....Ah those were the days...

Nowadays you've you've got your new fangled direct X thingymebob and your USB's, ya Firewires, PCI, SLI and many other fancy bits and bobs. Is it any better you say? Bloody right it is!!

Long live PC gaming (X Boxes are pretty good too like)

 

[Flyingbig]

Actually i am going to join the other team for once, ok here it goes ...(deep breath) I can run Half-life 2 on super uber high settings with incredibly high textures and unbelieveable sound quality settings (you need to access these settings within the console) AND i have AA and AF set to infinity and you know what? It didn't stutter once, i didn't even see the loading screen once through out the whole game. Thank you Valve, i love you!

Man that felt good, i recommend it. To answer your question one half of us are dillusional and the other half of us are not. The other half would like you to believe their PC's can run hl2 flawless but in reality they are wearing rose tinted glasses or are too stupid to realise there is a problem in the first place (i know of a few like that) Sad but true. I honestly believe that there isn't one computer on this planet that can run hl2 stutter free other than the ones used by the respected reviewers flown into Valve headquarters. Just my opinon though.

 

[nib]

Heh, exactly. I used to have to mess with extended and expanded memory (anyone remember the difference?) and do all kinds of magic tricks to free up enough of my 640k of ram to get the game to even load so it could then use my extra memory. oh, the glory days.

 

[dogboy73]

Ah...my friends, my friends. You're showing your age. PC gaming started in DOS. You had to code for special sound drivers, you had to code for special input devices, you had to code for dozens of video drivers. Talk about a nightmare! Now that we're in windows, most of that has been streamlined with DirectX.

And it still doesn't bloody work! Or does it? If it anyone says it does then they must also agree that there is something seriously crap about HL2/Source engine's coding. HL2 has single handedly set back 'plug & play' 10 years to 'plug & pray'!

Trust me. XBox 2 is the future. You just put your disk in, Hit the ON button & it starts. end of story. there's rumours that XBox 2 could be out by January 2005. Could this mean HL2 for XBox 2? To me thats much more attractive now than upgrading my PC. Probably be cheaper as well!

 

[Flyingbig]

HL2 on the Xbox 2 would be a pleasure. I can wait as long as it is perfect.

 

[doomed - uk]

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, no.

What could be useful is for someone to set up a website or a sticky thread somewhere in a forum for people for whom the game runs well to give as complete as possible list of all their drivers, settings, etc.

This would allow people with similar systems but who have problems to try these drivers and settings combinations that are known to work well.

Although there are a vast number of permutations, a lot of people have a lot of components in common. I see people giving system specs all the time that have a lot of components in common with mine.

 

[The Mullinator]

I am beggining to get the idea that alot of people who say they are having problems with god-like system specs are completely lying to make the game seem worse. Alot of them probably have much more modest computers.

I'm not saying everyone is like that, but there are definately alot of people I can't help but be very suspicious of.

So far I havn't come accross any online reviewers (people who reviewed the final game) who have had any problems whatsoever. It is just making me really suspicious.

 

[doomed - uk]

Lying would seem a strange thing to do.

My system is pretty decent and I can get bad stuttering with HL2 with high textures. On medium textures it's okay but I'd expect frames-per-second to drop consistently if my system was being pushed beyond its limits. The inconsistency of the FPS drops is unusual.

Maybe you should be suspicious of the reviewers as well. It's been known for people to not actually play the game, or it could be that they thought the problem was only their PC and reviewed it on someone else's.

That Anandtech can do benchmarking of HL2 with about 20 different GFX cards is surprising, though, as you'd expect them to hit the problem several times by doing that.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2278
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2281

And yet, I don't remember seeing any mention of stuttering when I read through the review.

I've seen a benchmarking article on HL2 at another website somewhere in which they did have stuttering, however.

Very weird.

 

[Ennui]

I am beggining to get the idea that alot of people who say they are having problems with god-like system specs are completely lying to make the game seem worse. Alot of them probably have much more modest computers.

I'm not saying everyone is like that, but there are definately alot of people I can't help but be very suspicious of.

So far I havn't come accross any online reviewers (people who reviewed the final game) who have had any problems whatsoever. It is just making me really suspicious.

I know what you mean. Seems like too many people are having problems.

 

[doomed - uk]

I had a look in the Anandtech forums and found a thread about HL2 and if anyone was having problems here.

About 2/3 of the people had no problems and 1/3 had the stuttering but it sounded okay-ish in most cases.

It wouldn't surprise me if this was roughly true overall.

 

[VoiVod]

From what I read so far in this thread this is what needs to be done. A petiton need to be made up and signed by everyone that has HL2 letting Valve know that to copy protect there game or games is fine but it should be done in a offline type way. I feel bad for the sucker that picked up a copy of HL2 and has no internet connection. There are people out there that don't get involved in the internet but do have computers. Just a side note T2 WMV extream addation DVD has to be activated over the internet just to watch the movie also. If PC gamers accept this kind of online activation crap and let it go you watch the X-Box 2, and PS3 will end up using this kind of activation on there games to. Also most of my studdering I get with HL2 is do to Steam being on online mode(this also happens with HL) I go into offline mode everything is fine with maybe a slight studder sometimes. All these priblems also fuel the code crackers otu there and after seeing all the complants I hope someone cracks HL@ so it can be installed and played without ever going online. Last where is the spellchecker.

Be Cooolllll

Eric

 

[bliink]

PC Gaming != Console Gaming

 

[dogboy73]

What could be useful is for someone to set up a website or a sticky thread somewhere in a forum for people for whom the game runs well to give as complete as possible list of all their drivers, settings, etc.

That's a great idea but you tend to find that there's not many people who are not having problems that come anywhere near these threads. They tend not to be bothered about people who can't play the game. their input is usally to the tone of, 'Why don't you just stop whinging about it & upgrade your PC!'. Helpfull NOT!

I said before, HL2 has split the PC gaming community down the middle. I fear the future of PC gaming could be in turmoil when a game as big as HL2 has this many problems & nobody seems to give a f**k apart from people experiencing them. For me all of a sudden Half Life 2 on XBox 2 sounds like a fantastic idea :thumbs: A couple of years back I would never have dreamed that I would say such a thing. but needs must as the devil drives & HL2 has driven a nail in the coffin of PC gaming for me. With all the money I've spent on upgrades over the last year or so, with HL2 in mind, I could have bought about 4 XBoxes!

 

[Kirock7]

With all the money I've spent on upgrades over the last year or so, with HL2 in mind, I could have bought about 4 XBoxes!

Man, you sure got that right! ($400 for a video card? Ouch!) At least Doom 3 and Far Cry look great now... otherwise I'd feel like I just pissed those bucks away.

 

[WhiteZero]

With all the money I've spent on upgrades over the last year or so, with HL2 in mind, I could have bought about 4 XBoxes!

Welcome to the world of PC Gaming...

 

[Dill0n]

All XBox's are created equal.

not quite ... different generations of the xbox are made with different dvd drives, among other things. my year old xbox is much more POWERFUL - for lack of a better word - than my bro's 3 year old xbox.

that said, FPS gaming on the console is a nightmare. give me the keyboard and mouse config anyday, leave the analog sticks, shoulder buttons, and triggers to the driving/sports games. won't be getting halo 2 because it's xbox only, and hadn't gotten the original halo UNTIL it was released for PC.

and i know there are mouse/keyboard adapters for the xbox (http://www.lik-sang.com/info.php?category=82&products_id=5438&), but it's still not the same. a console is a console is a console.

 

[WhiteZero]

Heh, pitty that Halo didnt come out for Mac/PC first, like it was supposed to before X-Box was even in development.

 

[dogboy73]

that said, FPS gaming on the console is a nightmare. give me the keyboard and mouse config anyday, leave the analog sticks, shoulder buttons, and triggers to the driving/sports games. won't be getting halo 2 because it's xbox only, and hadn't gotten the original halo UNTIL it was released for PC.

and i know there are mouse/keyboard adapters for the xbox (http://www.lik-sang.com/info.php?category=82&products_id=5438&), but it's still not the same. a console is a console is a console.

Very true. FPS's with a joypad are far from a joy! It's a friggin nightmare. You spend most of your time struggling with the controls. It just doesn't work.

 

[Tenspeed]

sorry for the shouting but this is still the billion dollar question that nobody, Least of all Valve, Seem to be able to answer!

It's regardless of system or 3D Mark score or RAM amount or gfx card RAM amountor whether the sun is shining or not!! So, Why does this game run like s**t for some or fine for others? Does it make any sense to anyone, anywhere, EVER!!

I don't understand this either. I have a SOYO KT600 m/b with a gig of ram plenty of disk space, and a Gigabyte Radeon X800XT video card that I just purchased so I could enjoy these new graphics. hah!

The first time I loaded HL2 on my computer, the game loaded fine, no stuttering, and I thought I was on my way. I get to the first load screen after talking to Barney, and POW! BAM! CRASH! to a black screen, with nothing to do except reboot my system. I tried that 3 times. I uninstalled, and reloaded HL2. This time I get to the first loading screen, the initial one where you do options, load game, etc. as soon as I click on new game, and then it starts to load, it freezes and stutters with nothing except a black screen. reboot-reboot-reboot.. I getting tired of this. It's been a month now since I received this game. You would think there would be a patch by now at least. If not, then why did Valve release this game in such a hurry for X-mas. Poor timing on their part I think. Okay enough rambling for me. I've been reading these postings for several weeks now and thought I would give my specs and problems too, so everyone doesn't think they are alone in this place with problems. There are probably many many more who have similiar problems with similiar specs who haven't posted yet as well.

Tenspeed

 

[Tenspeed]

Sorry guys and gals.. I also have an AMD XP 3200 in my system as well.

Tenspeed