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this pretty much sums up the whole problem and what valve is doing about it:
http://www.blep.net/hl2stutter/#041127103530
most of the problems had to do with texture caching if recall correctly.

Really? It's been weeeeeks? The game hasn't even been out for two weeks yet. This isn't reporting on the problem, it's reporting on the fact that Valve has admitted it's a problem and is pledging to fix it.

internet weeks, lol. You know time passes faster in the tech world than in other markets. I'm serious too.

Reported weeks ago yes, but Valve have only just ADMITED that it's their problem...

Yeah. Their track record for that is awesome!

lol.. couldn't have said it better myself..

if only they'd promise an online content delivery and authentication system that would screw everyone over royally, especially in the long run.... at least they would've met that one.

You sure you aren't overclocking your CPU or memory? When I get 'memory could not be read' errors it's always because I just upped my clock speed a little too much. I finally found the right clock speed that allows me to play HL2 with none of these errors.

Keep in mind that different games might not tolerate the same clock speeds. HL2 is a good example. HL2 is more sensitive to overclocking then other games. I suspect that all the new crop of games are like this now. Doom 3 is another example I found.

This is not a hardware specific bug. It is a common bug with the code

Nope, no overclocking! I must get round to overclocking my CPU and graphics card, I'm still soaking up the loveliness of 3.06ghz of Pentium 4 power and Radeon 9800 Pro-ness.

Swap your memory sticks around. Everyone I've seen who tried this fixed the problem.

I was getting that same error whenever i tried to do a -heapsize that was larger then 512000. I have 1.5GB of ram, but 512000 seems to be enough for the game . Sucks that others are having the problem outside of a -heapsize option.

Didn't work for the stutter I have using 4 speakers.

I think it's good value for the £25 I paid for it, considering I spent £25 of my £30 fortnightly Giro on it.
It's a shame that all the bugs, and everything to do with Steam, spoils it a bit.

hehehe....my giro was all spent when the game was released, so i had to go to Cash Generators and pawn a few items lmao.....

Gonna buy em back tho on me next giro

Have to say i haven't had a single problem but maybe a single stutter for 1 sec.. hardly even something to bother me... Game has been fantastic.

Sorry to hear folks had such horrible probs with then game

Curious to know is there a hardware commonality to the probs...?

What hardware were you using?

What bugs? o_O

RaWShadow,

Delayed once. And clearly you haven't played a lot of games.. considering this was a brand new (and pioneering) engine let alone a new game, this was a superb piece of work. And talk about optimised - I can play HL2 at 1280x1024 with 4x AA on my crappy cheapo 9600 Pro EZ card which is worth about £70.

I'll defend HL2 till I am blue in the face - yes, purchase, activation AND playing the game has basically been flawless for me, but I just think its a masterpiece.

...cash generators???

QUOTE

Delayed so many times and its one of the most buggy games i have ever played.

Buggy... I didn't encounter any bugs and found the game to be truely amazing and worth every penny - also, as others have said, it was delayed once. Buggy would be Final Fantasy VII for PC, whereby a huge amount of people couldn't get past certain areas, or the game would repeatedly crash out at a particular scene.

Still, some people just like to whinge...

Just type "half life 2 delayed again" into google and you will see it was delayed more than once. I been playing games everyday since well before the orginal half life, and hl2 just feels like another shooter. Maybe i was expexting more from all the hype, sure the graphics are nice and the physics are quite cool but the game was not very fun to play. Multiplayer games are fun but they just stuck cs in which feels just like the old game which i already played to death guess ill have to wait for some mods becus valve are really getting lazy in my opinion (Maybe there surprise will change my mind though) starting to get bored of games though, theres nothing really thats fun to play anymore.

Well everyone is entitled to an opinion. But I really don't agree with yours!

But I just felt HL2 was so damn innovative and had so many fresh ideas. I literally felt that HL2 was the best game EVER when I played three specific sections :

* Controlling the crane! So much fun! Smash some combine AND solve the puzzle..

* Playing catch with Dog. Alyx laughing and shouting encouragement, the great EAX echo effects, stunning graphics and lighting, the whole section just blew me away..

* The last level inside the alien base.. picking up the combine with the blue grav gun, firing them into things, pulling equipment off the walls and throwing it at people. Sheer genuis.

The game was a tour de force for Valve - lazy is the LAST thing they deserve to be called.

QUOTE

sure the graphics are nice and the physics are quite cool but the game was not very fun to play

The game added so many new concepts... as mentioned, the crane was great, but also the sequence with the plane dropping bombs, which had a real arcadey feel to it. The buggy and airboat created a totally different atmosphere to the game that hasn't been seen before. Also, fighting in the crumbling City 17 with Striders abound felt really epic and immersed you in the game world.

The game is full of great new concepts that haven't been seen before, creating a truely compelling singleplayer experience. Also, while not to everyones liking, CounterStrike is the most popular online game (ever) and the Source update is incredibly fun, with the new effects for the flashbang changing the way the game is played to make it more fun.

It is a shame that there aren't that many CSource levels, but that's really its only fault - one that should be fixed over time.

PS - All the dates that were "missed" weren't stated by Valve, but by outside sources that didn't know anything about it.

It is a common misconception that HL2 has been delayed numerous times - mainly because retailers kept making up their own dates based on hearsay and rumours throughout the game's announced development.

In fact the only gate given after Sept. 30th was an estimation that Valve would finish the game in October by Doug Lombardi - and they did. After October it was all about getting it done to Vivendi's satisfaction.

Bugs? I didn't notice one my whole time through the game.

i'm assuming most of the people that name such innovative and new features like

- controlling a crane.. or
- driving a buggy..

haven't actually played any other games, ever. No, really!
Halflife does do a lot of things nice.. for instance it seems very good at creating atmosphere, and the storyline is nice.. all without the use of cutscenes, or ever going out of first person mode.

but the engine isn't as great as people say, at least, for the most part to me it looks like every other engine that's come out recently with the addition of some now [almost] old hat shaders. the hl2 engine was revolutionary 2 years ago when they first showed it off, but it's really nothing special now.

halflife2 to me seems like it's trying to be all things to all men, and in the end does only 1 or 2 of them really well (at least better than those that came before). The close quarter gun fights are very intense, probably some of the best and most rewarding that i've seen since planetside. However the vehicle sections are weak, and overly repetitive which often goes to show the flaws in the havoc physics engine and did nothing more than reminding me of the vehicles in tony hawks underground1.. an amusing yer frustrating distraction designed to do nothing more than extend the play time of the game.

however for me that will be remembered from the game, by 1,000's of people is the fact that the game takes a very long tme to install, activate, load, and then insists on stuttering, and / or crashing. The best game in the world is rendered sub-par when it is accompnied by numerous high profile technical issues and problems.

Im thinking they made steam just so they can release untested buggy crap and have us download a load of patches to fix problems that should not be there.

Last edited by 27867 on 01 Dec 2004 - 22:56

Didn't fix anything for you maybe... It did for me on the other hand.

And there are plenty of other reasons you might get this, not just texture thrashing, you need to run through some of the tweaking guides that are knoking about and see if it helps.

And no it's not "Full of bugs" (unless you count Antlions!!!) It has had some problems that have been worked out very fast, but the amount of people that have had NO problems far outstrip the ones that have.

Great work Valve (even though i did have "The Stutter" Greatest FPS i have ever played!!

Last edited by 4433 on 29 Nov 2004 - 17:36

You need to think less about numbers of people and more about percentages of the userbase.

Im guessing that the percentage with "The Stutter Bugs (there are 3 of them)" is quite low, and acording to valve "The Stutter Bugs" made up 95% of CS enquires.

thrashing, not trashing

lol

Actually, you know what? Bite me

Learn french and I shall laugh at your miserable and pathetic attempt to construct a sentence.

@mr_da3m0n:

I agree totally with that. You should have known better than to come on neowin and not spell something properly or give an opinion that someone doesn't agree with.

This site is starting to suck with all these self righteous indignant mother f*ckers.

it of course, also has to do with with speed of other components.. the slowest of which being the hard disk.. loading images and sounds in can really slow things down if it's coming from an old, slow, fragmented to hell hard disk.. factor in a nice unhealthy dose of pagefile swapping as well and stuttering is bound to happen.

unfortunately counterstrike was designed for very low specced machines by todays standards, and i'm sure a lot of cs players really haven't kept abreast of hardware developments as much as gamers who play new games... it's easy to see why they're complacent, but equally, easy to see why they shouldn't be.

my 3800+ a64, sata 16mb cache 300gb drive and gf6800 gt plays the game just fine. and the worst part... it wasn't expensive!

Last edited by 25229 on 30 Nov 2004 - 16:20

Isn't that a known bug with the cracked version?

try buying HL2 next time u

According to Google: Step into the elevator, quick save, and quick load. One of my helpdesk interns told me to save my money he finished the game in less than 10 hours and said the story was underwhelming. I think I will wait until the bugs are out before I plunk down my $60.

@Enrickey:

My version doesn't have that problem. Apart from a couple anomalies here and there, nothing major.

My friend has a 9200SE also and he plays at 1024x768 or 800x600 and it didn't stutter on his pc either!

boo hoo. at least you get those kind of fps to begin with

did everyone who is having problems with this game reformat? i was gettn little bugs in games i was playing before i reformated. then before hl2 came out, i reformated, and boom, no more bugs in any of my games.

I haven't heard anything about alternate patching methods. It seems that you must have Steam at the moment.
They've released a patch already but I haven't heard anything about other methods.

Maybe they will create a external patch after they've fixed the common problems. Sort of like a christmas gift.