Fri, 19 Nov 2004 06:17:08
I tried to resist…
You haven’t seen a blog entry in some time because I have Half-Life 2.
Opening screen
Your nemesis.
Those images are with all settinging on high, 1024 x 768, antialiasing on 2x. The game runs so smoothly I may increase the AA setting.
It’s good...the physics engine is the best I’ve seen, and the game is challenging without being obnoxious. I ordered it through Steam, and I got the silver package. You get:
Half-Life 2
Half-Life
Half-Life: Source
Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike: Source
Counter-Strike: Condition Zero
Counter-Strike: Condition Zero Deleted Scenes
Day of Defeat
Ricochet
Opposing Force
Deathmatch Classic
Codename Gordon
Day of Defeat: Source (when it’s released)
That’s a lot of gaming goodness for $59.99. Surprisingly, the original Half-Life is very playable. It was clearly advanced for its time.
The biggest problem with HL2 so far is the crashing. Doesn’t seem to matter what video card you have, what drivers you are using, lots and lots of people are having the same issue. the screen freezes, sometimes a sound stutters and then the game crashes or the Blue Screen Of Death shows up. There is a fix...and it seems to reduce the amount of crashing dramatically.
1. Set the sound quality to “Medium.” Also, make sure you have 2-channel sound set and not 5.1.
2. Go to the HL2 icon and open the properties (or go to Steam>Play Games>Half Life 2>Right-click on it and select Properties>Launch Options). In the Target box add “-heapsize [memoryamount]” (without quotes), e.g. -heapsize 128000 makes the game use 128MB of your RAM. Try not to exceed half of your system RAM with this setting.
3. Go to your \Program Files\Valve\Steam\SteamApps\[username]\half-life 2\hl2\cfg\ directory, and create a new blank text file, then rename it to autoexec.cfg. Open this file and copy and paste in the following commands.
snd_mixahead 0.7
cl_forcepreload 1
sv_forcepreload 1
cl_smooth 0
Save the file!
4. Defrag the drive after Steam has installed everything it is going to install. This is a huge amount of data that just got dumped on your hard drive, and defragging will help a lot.
*Update*
I should have included my video card info here...it’s the Gainward Golden Sample nVidia GeForce FX 5900XT 256MB Ultra 1600XT, the original, dual-slotted monster.
They have since revised this to be a red single-slot card, but when I bought this it was the bleeding edge. Even ATI’s best wasn’t out yet, this was the top of the food chain. It still holds up great when paired with the Athlon64 3200 processor and a gig of RAM.
Posted by JimK at 06:17 AM on November 19, 2004
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Categories: Technobabble (Technology), Gaming
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#2 Posted by sardiax 
on 11/19 at 02:14 PM -
got the silver package over steam myself as well. i haven’t encountered any such crashes but a little stuttering every once in awhile, usually right after loading a new area. i’ll have to try some of these tweaks.
also - if you go to the same cfg directory you mentioned, open up valve.rc and comment out “startupmenu”, it’ll skip loading those basic levels for the main menu background. its nifty the first time around, but after that i apprieciate the ability to shave a little time off the initial load.
#3 Posted by JimK on 11/19 at 02:16 PM -
It’s a ...(long name!):
Gainward Golden Sample nVidia GeForce FX 5900XT 256MB Ultra.
I bought it more than a year and a half ago, and it’s held up very, very well against Far Cry, Doom 3 and everything else.
#4 Posted by davidst on 11/19 at 03:49 PM -
I’m *really* pissed at valve for this steam shit. I bought the retail version, brought it home and found out that I couldn’t play it! Until the release date. That also means that if I reinstall in the future, I can’t play it without valve’s permission. If valve isn’t around… well I hope I can find a crack. I bought a game that isn’t really mine (I mean, usually you get a copy of a game that you can play at will).
So I go and install it… and the fucking thing doens’t even work.
It’s ok though, Metroid Prime 2 was released the same day and I’ve been playing that. And now Metal Gear Solid 3 is out and after that will be KOTOR2 and the Nintendo DS. Maybe I’ll play valve’s copy of HL2 (if it’s ok with them) in late December.
I would just return it or sell it to someone in anger, but now that I’ve attempted to use the cd-key, it’s not possible. The CD key is permanently tied to my steam(ing pile of shit) account.
#5 Posted by JimK on 11/19 at 06:54 PM -
david: valid points, all. Steam is a pretty dumb way to deal with the long-term.
What happens if if Valve dies and I want to play HL2 or the other umpteen games say, two years from now…
The way I still play Halo. Or Unreal. *cough*
Steam is a suck way to stop piracy and will likely backfire on them, but by the time it does, the people at Valve will have made their money and gotten out.
They took a good *distibution* model and made it...ass-y.
#6 Posted by zerodamage on 11/21 at 12:06 AM -
Hey Jim. Not sure what you were comparing the 5900 XT card too but it was never the top of the line card. When the 5900 XT came out, Nvidia used the “XT” addition to make peole think it was as good as the 9800 XT which it wasn’t. The 9800 XT was the best card at the time. The 5900 XT was comparable to the 9600 XT card.
As to the game. The best game I’ve ever played. I’ve been upping my system over the past few months just for this game.
Athlon 64 3200
1-gif of Ram
ATI X800 XT
MSI Nforce-3gb mobo/chipset.
Audigy Sound card.
Have you completed it yet?
#7 Posted by Harley W Daugherty on 11/23 at 09:02 AM -
HL@ kicks ass!! i been playing since tuesday!
i onlyt had a few problems with sound stutter, that is about it.
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#1 Posted by doorik
on 11/19 at 02:07 PM -
Wow,
Looks great Jim. What kind of Vid card do you have?