The Gamer's Quarter

david · . Joined: 03 Mar 2005 Posts: 170 Location: b, md

I joined Steam and downloaded Half-Life 2. Every time I start a new game, after the little intro with the guys face talking to me, as soon as I get to the subway car, after a couple seconds the game freezes and the audio starts looping.

I updated my graphics card drivers and now it freezes slightly earlier than before, while the subway car is fading in from a white screen. But basically the same thing happens.

My computer is a Dell XPS 410 that I got in October. It's pretty smart, so I don't know what is wrong.

Ideas?
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dhex · Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 6:56 pm Post subject:

what kind of vid card? does dell itself have a package you have to go through (they're dicks like that iirc) that you'd get from their site?

how much ram, etc?

specs plz.
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david · . Joined: 03 Mar 2005 Posts: 170 Location: b, md

Thanks for the reply. It's this computer: http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/xpsdt_410?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs ... although I got it in October, so I don't know if there are any differences. This is dumb, but where in Windows does it tell me about my hardware? I've been a Mac user up till recently, so...

Also, I was just playing Counter Strike: Source, which I downloaded in the same package as H-L2, and it ran fine for a little while... until I turned a particular corner, and the game froze and the sound started looping, just like H-L2 did.

I pressed the power button on my PC, and after some grumbling, a message appeared saying that the relevant file is "ati2dvag" and that the device driver got stuck in an infinite loop. Apparently that usually means it's a problem with the device itself or with the driver programming the hardware incorrectly. So!

EDIT: By the way, dhex, at GDC shaper was talking about how good you are at interviews, and nice, etc.
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dhex · Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 7:27 pm Post subject:

well, that was nice of him. (it's probably mostly true)

if you go to the start menu one of the choices in xp (which i don't use so i'm kinda flying blind here) says "system profile" or something like that.

or

if you right click on the desktop, check "properties" and go to the settings tab (i think it's the same in xp) you'll see the settings for your monitor - it'll tell you what your graphics card (graphics adapter) is. you seem to have an ati error message, so you probably have the 256MB ATI Radeon X1300 Pro, of which i know nothing being a lifetime nvidia user.

it sounds like you have the stutter thing, but it might be some other shit:

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=314512&highlight=ati2dvag

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=348264&highlight=ati2dvag

if you're feeling adventurous.

http://www.omegadrivers.net/ati.php

just follow the instructions for replacing drivers, though generally it's "remove device and drivers" then reboot and when prompted, install new drivers (After unzipping them to some folder on your desktop or whatever)
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

I use Omega Drivers. They did WONDERS for morrowind on my pc.

Dhex, help my Darwinia problems :(
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

david · . Joined: 03 Mar 2005 Posts: 170 Location: b, md

Yes, the Settings panel shows a drop-down menu set to "Radeon X1300/X1550 Series".

Okay, I'm downloading Radeon Omega Driver 3.8.330...

But, I have to remove the device? Meaning, open up my PC? I realize that's probably like popping the hood of a car for a lot of people, but not me, at least not right now. I need this PC for work, so I can't risk fucking it up...
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dhex · Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 7:41 pm Post subject:

that shit i posted didn't work?
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david · . Joined: 03 Mar 2005 Posts: 170 Location: b, md

I got rid of the ATI drivers, rebooted, installed Radeon Omega Driver 3.8.330, rebooted, ran H-L2, and it crashed like always!

I guess I will bug Valve customer support.
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Mister Toups · Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 9:01 pm Post subject:

It may be a problem with your sound card. Have you tried adjusting the level of sound detail in the audio settings? Or updating your sound card drivers?

What kind of sound card do you have?
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Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

Clearly you need to find the girl who did the voices for the Portal trailer and ask her.
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david · . Joined: 03 Mar 2005 Posts: 170 Location: b, md

Okay, sorry for being such a technical numbskull. Here's the info:

Dell Dimension DXP061
Intel core 2 CPU
6400 @ 2.13GHz
2.13 Ghz, 1.00 GB RAM
256MB ATI Radeon X1300PRO

It looks like my sound card is a SigmaTel Audio, uh... sound card.

Yeah, I turned down the audio settings and it still does the same thing.
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dhex · Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 10:50 pm Post subject:

onboard sound can be a pain in the ass (i.e. soundcard is actually a chip on the motherboard) with a lot of pc gaming.

i will dig through some forums tomorrow.
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david · . Joined: 03 Mar 2005 Posts: 170 Location: b, md

Okay, I installed the recommended ATI driver... I tried this once before, but I guess I didn't do it right? Maybe I didn't uninstall the previous one first. For some reason, the Valve diagnostic check didn't recommend the most recent driver (feb 07), but one from november last year. Anyway, the game has been running fine, until just now when it seems to have frozen while loading up the next area. At least, it's taking a really long time.

Goddamned PC games. Sorry. It just seems terribly uncertain and fiddly compared with, say, a DS. But DS doesn't have anything like Half-Life 2. So there you go.

I wrote some more stuff before, which I think I will save here for my own reference:

I've used the control panel's uninstall program to get rid of the ATI driver... but it seems to come back every time I reboot.

I don't know if the Omega driver I downloaded is working. I'll check the display control panel and see what it says. I got thrown off because the new driver didn't show up in the uninstall list, but the ATI driver did. So it seemed like nothing changed.

But, when I rebooted, everything was low-res and just moving windows around was a little choppy, so I'm guessing it's not using the video card, i.e. there's no active/functioning driver.

So, one of those times when everything was low res and it seemed like maybe the video card wasn't working, I ran Half Life 2 with all the graphical settings low, and it actually worked. For some reason, in my previous tests I forgot to lower the resolution, although I turned down all the other display features. This time I turned the resolution way down. It actually worked fine! Except it looked like an N64 game. When I turned the video features back on (except the resolution, which I left low), the game kind of screwed up... the screen started to flicker, and the options window wouldn't go away. I hit ESC and the audio of the game resumed... I could move the mouse and hear sound effects moving from left to right, so the game was running, partially. It's just that the image was still stuck on a flickering options page, which wouldn't go away. I was able to alt-tab out of there and reboot.

Okay, again the ATI display driver is in the Add or Remove Program list. What the hell?

The screen was already kind of low res (maybe 800x600) but when I opened the Display Properties control panel, suddenly the screen switched to 640x480. Weird, like a cartoon character who runs of a cliff and keeps going until he notices there's no ground under him.

Yeah, system properties doesn't see the Radeon.

So...

I guess the Omega driver isn't working.
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dhex · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 7:34 am Post subject:

yeah there's more work but less japan so it kinda evens out in the end.

i should qualify this: there can be more work. it's a luck of the draw thing - depending on your manufacturer's hardware (in your case, dell), your personal software environment, and the developer and the state of their build, their skill and their timeline. if you roll your own, as it were, you can plan ahead with ideal chipset/mobo combos, etc. (plus you save a super mega fuckton of money)

but nothing can stop every bug. oblivion was stupid for me for a good two hours before i finally found the nvidia driver set that worked best.

but on the other hand, half life 2 is a better game than anything released on any of the 6th? (whatever the ps2/gamecub gen is) generation consoles. that tends to be why i stick with pc gaming; i may still only be interested in a fraction of releases, but some of them have the potential to be ultrahottt. (three ttts) bonus points for not making a packaging of alyx in a bikini with 55Q sized boobs.

unrelated: david, when are you putting out a book? i would like to buy several and give them out to people.
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Man, this is so funny because, like, HL2 was released on a 6th gen console. A better more AMAZING version is getting released on the 7th gen consoles too.

Seriously, for all the troubles that dave is going through It would have been better just to pay $10 and play it on the Xbox. If you wait a little longer for the 360/PS3 game you get all this for $60:

Half-Life 2, plus Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2, & Portal.

It's just so far away :(
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

dhex · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 8:21 am Post subject:

playing fps games with a joystick is unnacceptable for those of us with the acclimation to fine culture and high breeding that comes from being from new jersey.

no i mean, i would never recommend someone buy a dell period, but i'm not an off the shelf kinda guy. but i can appreciate the desire to off the shelf it if you don't want to do research and all of that.

besides, it works now, right? crash aside. (we'll find out more tomorrow.)

also: japanfactor=0

(i just like to keep throwing that in there)

also, the new consoles are still kind of expensive. you can get a really bitching video card for 300 bucks or whatever.
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

HL2 (valve=US) + Xbox (microsoft=US) = japan0
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

aerisdead · . Joined: 03 Dec 2006 Posts: 254 Location: Toronto, Canada

I'm a little over half way through HL2 (on PC) and I don't really see what's so good about it.

It's alright (I rather like it) but it's a bit flawed. As long as it ends better than HL1 I'll have enjoyed it.

I don't think it's better than, you know, Resident Evil 4, though. Totally not.
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aerisdead

SuperWes · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 8:57 am Post subject:

dhex · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 9:30 am Post subject:

SuperWes · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 9:56 am Post subject:

aerisdead · . Joined: 03 Dec 2006 Posts: 254 Location: Toronto, Canada

dhex · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 10:27 am Post subject:

i'm not clicking on that link, dude.

wes: naw, i mean, yeah, it's close, and more importantly, it's irrelevant to the larger issue of game design (or should this read "should be irrelevant..." maybe?) and whatever you want to call "the total package."

i do like having things that are contained in one place, so i can design, edit, record, play music, play games, watch porn, write blog entries about porn, etc without having to move too much. it's better for the joints that way. i also build my own pcs, and have so since long before i entered high school, so to me having to do all this stuff is what you do, like if you enjoy tinkering with cars or anything else that requires fiddling. (the physical version of some kind of suspension of disbelief, i guess?)

in as much as there's still something of a pc asthetic, as far as designers are concerned, i appreciate that as well in terms of matching my personal interests. when i think of series i really appreciate (i still have my copy of the pc version of RTK, the first CGA/EGA version for pc, somewhere) they all came out of a pc design background. my old saw about japanese and us developers may be more appropriately figured against pc and console development at this point, though perhaps not for much longer.

i also have no real desire to give sony or msoft or nintendo any more of my money, nor to really play with joysticks anymore, etc, outside of a mame session here and there. i'd give away the ps2 except my wife insists on using it to watch dvds. i haven't played a game on it since i gave black a whirl a few months back. (short version: snooze/ugly but with good cutscenes of hilarity) the gamecube will go as soon as she finishes paper mario 2. (december 2009 at this rate) i haven't seen anything that spoke to me on the console side, including my time with the wii, in the sense that something like stalker or bioshock gets me interested. it's just not my thing, japan jokes aside.

so in short there is a difference, but its small. hoping for the second coming of interplay or whatever is probably totally stupid, no matter how much of an utter tragedy cross-development is (for the pc side; i don't know if things are really lost on the console side from being forced down from a pc port or whatever). which is fine, as i'm getting old anyway and eventually my joints will give out. no one can change the march of time.

so long as the few titles i'm interested in get built primarly for the pc, i'll be happy - the day valve's next game is cross developed may be the day it's time to stop caring once and for all, you know?
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david · . Joined: 03 Mar 2005 Posts: 170 Location: b, md

Not to associate this with dhex's reasonable and self-respecting preference for PCs...

... but on the PCGamer podcast to which I sometimes listen, there's a total playground resentment mentality. They all talk like defenders of the PC, and cheer when a PC game doesn't get ported to XBOX, or takes a while to get ported, or gets ported but isn't as good. They all come off as really insecure. And sometimes their zealotry blinds them to reason: they did a stunt at the time of the PS3 launch where they went to FRYS or whatever and asked the dudes near the front of the line if anyone would leave the line and promise to never buy a PS3 ever ---- in exchange for a ridiculously high end gaming PC with a giant monitor and fifteen stupidflops of RAM and the latest voodoohoodoo17 graphics card. They crowed with victory when the number one guy in line signed their contract and accepted the ultimate gaming PC. This, to them, was a massive victory of PC over console. The only guy on the podcast to think otherwise was Gary Whitta, who pointed out that giving away something awesome for free is not hard, there's no way they can really prevent this guy from getting a PS3 at some point, and that at best this was a cute promotional stunt, but it proves nothing in the interminable PC-versus-console rivalry. Of course his opinion was not popular. Anyway, I just thought of that... the snobbish defensiveness of those PCGamer people.

But again, there's a difference between holding a reasonable preference and being a child about it. and I don't mean to join a chorus "against" dhex. For me, I have to get used to playing a game like Half Life 2 in front of my PC. I like to create the right atmosphere in the room when I get into an immersive, story-filled game, and even with the lights dimmed, etc, I still felt kinda like I was working, or something. Maybe I need a new chair, but... sitting with my hands on top of a desk doesn't feel as intimate or invisible as a game controller. But I'm going to get into it because the game is clearly awesome. And I'll post later about the performance... hopefully that crash was a fluke...

By the way, has anyone used the world-building tool, Hammer? Is that the premier tool for making Source engine expansions/mods? How do you get it?
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Ethoscapade · . Joined: 30 Oct 2005 Posts: 276

this debate's not really going anywhere, but i just want to throw in that my marginal attention span finds it a lot easier to invest time into gaming on a laptop (that's laptop, not "PC") with, say, seinfeld DVDs on the television over my shoulder, than just sitting in a room playing videogames.

i emulate or purchase the PC versions of things whenever possible; beyond that even, i emulate on my DS whatever doesn't absolutely require a fifteen inch screen and a three dee video card. i don't want my ps2 in the house anymore either, but hell if i'm going to buy a dvd player i don't need. i buy games on virtual console only when they have multiplayer features that are not exactly conducive to the screen being in my lap.

i am going to great, great lengths to avoid ever having to buy a ps3 or 360, and this laptop only cost me $1100 a year and a half ago.

that said, i only play one or two proper PC releases each year.

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Aerisdead: Half-Life 2, unlike RE4, is constantly excellent. RE4 has the most amazing section then flounders to recapture the awe and horror that it creates. To go from the town into one of the silliest sections I've ever seen in a horror game (napoleon kid in _magical castle land_) really kills the overall greatness of the game. I would almost agree with you because the Krauser fight and the island are pretty good, but that castle really killed the game for me. HL2 continues to re-invent itself in a way that keeps you engaged and thinking. The scenery varies greatly and the over arcing story keeps you caring about it. I honestly can’t say the same about RE4.

About the ending: I haven’t finished HL1, but HL2’s ending was very unsatisfying for me. It does make the “episode” stuff make sense even though I haven’t played episode one.

EDIT: With that said, the ending does have a sort of awesome quality to it.

Faux Edit: Listen to the HL2 podcast from us! It's not horrible and has bug fisting and sex arguments.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

dhex · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 12:59 pm Post subject:

Mister Toups · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 3:10 pm Post subject:

Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

Those dolls are not nearly as cute as kigurumi.
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dhex · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 5:39 pm Post subject:

tiny pokemon head elf computer

apparently all the gear is in the back of head. at least she's not crying. (needs more cigarette burns though)

i wonder how much it costs to cool this thing?

domo arigato mr roboto oh why is she on her knees? (that song is totally unbearable)

ok this is pretty cool.
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dessgeega · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 5:50 pm Post subject:

creepy robots aside, how is this steam thing? can i install it, download half-life 2, and play it? assuming it doesn't crash at startup?
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david · . Joined: 03 Mar 2005 Posts: 170 Location: b, md

I haven't fully explored it yet, but it seems all right. It's presented as a unified "experience," but it's hard to say how helpful that is at this point.

The game continues to crash every so often. It's enough that it makes the game feel really unstable, and I'm getting fed up.
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B coma · . Joined: 06 Dec 2005 Posts: 279

Dess: although it looks gorgeous on a modern computer, HL2 scales pretty damn well to older PC setups (if that's a concern), and personally I've never had major issues with the wide variety of computers I've installed Steam on, including my old 800 mhz Celeron computer with no memory and a terrible card for gaming (not that I would recommend doing this, as things load really slowly)

I suppose the answer is "why yes, you can!"

Edit: that sucks David. do other PC games tend to crash as well? the reason I ask is that, if drivers don't fix the issue, there may be something going on hardware side. I ended up replacing a motherboard after HL2 and other games (and eventually, normal desktop apps) began to crash at random intervals =(

Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

dhex · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 6:23 pm Post subject:

dessgeega · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 6:51 pm Post subject:

Cycle · Mac daddy Joined: 08 Sep 2006 Posts: 2767

If you guys think PC gaming is bad, try writing reviews for a PC gaming magazine. I spend half the time before my deadline trying to get the buggy and/or unoptimised preview or review code to work.

dhex · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 8:07 pm Post subject:

i may be the only person on earth who really enjoyed the end to both hl1 and 2.

i like being kicked in the balls by a game sometimes. keeps me sharp.
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Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

I liked the endings too. Half-Life 2's, perhaps a little less so than the first one's, but it still put a smile on my face.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

aerisdead · . Joined: 03 Dec 2006 Posts: 254 Location: Toronto, Canada

It's not the literal ending of HL1 that's the problem - it's the fucking shite alien levels that precede it.
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aerisdead

dessgeega · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 8:35 pm Post subject:

i installed steam. but i don't have enough space on my hard drive to download the half-life 2 demo. is the full game super-huge? it's otherwise distributed on a cd, right?
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dhex · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 8:39 pm Post subject:

figure the final bit is like uh 1.7gb, at least according to my shizz. probably need more than that all told (i think the deathmatch stuff and all that comes along for the ride.) but i've also backed up all of my stuff and somehow my steam folder is nearly 30gb. too many demos maybe, or the 6gb of mods or whatever.
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Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

I am pretty sure Half Life 2 comes on a DVD at retail.
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Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

My local files come up as being 841 Mb. Episode One is 606.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

dhex · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 9:06 pm Post subject:

Mister Toups · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 11:31 pm Post subject:

The Great Unwashed · Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 12:58 am Post subject:

The one thing that I really didn't like about HL2 - and this is pretty much the ONLY thing I didn't like - was the ending sequence. Because (spoiler) basically the game just sits there waiting for you to blow up the energy-orb-thing while Breen yells "You can't get me Gordon" and "You smell Gordon" and "Gordon let's talk I love your hair who do you go to" on a continuous loop until you actually finish the game by blowing up the thingo. Even though you're told a million times as you go that "OMG THIS THING IS ABOUT TO BLOW EVERYONE BOOM" - it never actually does. You can sit there forever. It's ridiculous. Kinda disappointing end to one of the best games I've played.

Also HL2: Ep. 1 is very on-rails-ey and kind of lacklustre but still great fun.
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Winged Assassins (1984) · Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 1:41 am Post subject:

The things I like about Episode 1 is that you don't need Half-Life 2 installed in order to play it.
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Ethoscapade · . Joined: 30 Oct 2005 Posts: 276

conversely, the thing i don't like about episode 1 is that if you install it on top of hl2, it plops a second 800 meg source engine file onto your hard drive that must be like 90% redundant.

Mister Toups · Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 1:51 pm Post subject: