Steam refuses to play Half-Life 2

[Pocketa]

I have Steam, and a friend bought me Beyond Good and Evil, Half Life 2, and Half Life 2 Ep. 1. I also have Peggle, but that was free, and the L4D2 demo, which I haven't tried yet.

I can play Peggle and BGaE just fine, but whenever I try HL2, it won't work.

I've tried launching it with no other windows open, with no IM clients on, etc. It'll get to the main launch screen, go into "Not Responding" mode, and the one time it did get past that screen, the sound just stopped and stuttered, repeating one word over and over and over, with the display failing.

I run Windows Vista, I have the game downloaded into my Program Files. I tried turning off my visual styles in case that was what was conflicting with it.

Any help?

[Makensha]

Could you give your system specs? Processor speed, graphics card, memory (generally one of those is the problem).

If you don't know, to find these run dxdiag (search for it on the start search engine and it'll come up).

Probably isn't Vista, but a combination of your graphics card and Vista.

Not sure if I can personally help you, but anyone who can help you will probably ask for your system specs anyway.

[Pocketa]

Could you give your system specs? Processor speed, graphics card, memory (generally one of those is the problem).

If you don't know, to find these run dxdiag (search for it on the start search engine and it'll come up).

Probably isn't Vista, but a combination of your graphics card and Vista.

Not sure if I can personally help you, but anyone who can help you will probably ask for your system specs anyway.

http://www.mobilewhack.com/reviews/h..._notebook.html

[warty goblin]

You are connected to the internet, right? Because VALVe titles won't launch without an internet connection insofar as I can tell.

[KBF]

You are connected to the internet, right? Because VALVe titles won't launch without an internet connection insofar as I can tell.

Just tried unplugging my internets and Steam just put itself in offline mode or something, the game launched fine.

It sounds like the computer might not meet the specs though, which would not be too surprising for a laptop. Dumb question, but are you launching it from Steam? If you are you don't have to bother responding, I have no idea why that would matter. :P

[MCerberus]

On a fresh restart, try bringing up the game first thing. If that doesn't work, do an unistall/reinstall of the program. Also check your process list to see if anything weird pops up. Sometimes hl2.exe works funky with people. For me personally, it doesn't terminate when you exit a game. ever. if that .exe is still running, go over to valve support.

Oh, and it may be a good idea to have steam and all programs in a public folder for Vista. My first ever experience with Vista was an hour head-banger because I should have put something in one.

[Pocketa]

Just tried unplugging my internets and Steam just put itself in offline mode or something, the game launched fine.

It sounds like the computer might not meet the specs though, which would not be too surprising for a laptop. Dumb question, but are you launching it from Steam? If you are you don't have to bother responding, I have no idea why that would matter. :P

I am...And it won't run outside of that.

[Thanatos 51-50]

I can play Peggle and BGaE just fine, but whenever I try HL2, it won't work.

Your computer just cares about you. HL2 is a bad game.

Other than that (Admittedly, a rare opinion), I honestly don't know. Have you tried rebooting your computer?

[Phase]

Your computer just cares about you. HL2 is a bad game.

Dude, do you need to drag your absolutely terrible taste into a troubleshooting thread?

Try plugging your computer into Can I Run It to see whether your computer is up to the task...

[chiasaur11]

Your computer just cares about you. HL2 is a bad game.

Other than that (Admittedly, a rare opinion), I honestly don't know. Have you tried rebooting your computer?

If I had that "Boo this man" animation, you'd be receiving it SO HARD right now.

[Pocketa]

If I had that "Boo this man" animation, you'd be receiving it SO HARD right now.

I did restart, I did reinistall, I do have it correctly installed, I did try restarting and having nothing started except steam and hl2.exe.

[Phase]

Your computer just cares about you. HL2 is a bad game.

[chiasaur11]

I did restart, I did reinistall, I do have it correctly installed, I did try restarting and having nothing started except steam and hl2.exe.

Not you, Thanatos.

Your problem seems legitimate. Wish I could help, but I'm drawing a blank, especially if you're connected to the net when booting up.

[warty goblin]

Try updating your drivers. Sometimes that does the trick.

[Pocketa]

Try updating your drivers. Sometimes that does the trick.

Drivers are all up to date.

@chia

Yeah, I'm usually really good with troubleshooting stuff, but I haven't played anything other than World of Warcraft for a while, so I haven't had to deal with all this. My drivers are all set to their defaults, etc.

Could the amount of space I have on my computer affect this? I recently used up a ton and that seems to make my PC slower.

[Thanatos 51-50]

My bad taste was being used as to launch a joke.

What is your programme manager saying? Does CPU usage spike up after attempting to start the programme?

[chiasaur11]

Drivers are all up to date.

@chia

Yeah, I'm usually really good with troubleshooting stuff, but I haven't played anything other than World of Warcraft for a while, so I haven't had to deal with all this. My drivers are all set to their defaults, etc.

Could the amount of space I have on my computer affect this? I recently used up a ton and that seems to make my PC slower.

It leads to slowdown, yeah, so that might be it.

[Kyouhen]

My bad taste was being used as to launch a joke.

What is your programme manager saying? Does CPU usage spike up after attempting to start the programme?

We're launching games, not jokes.

*coughcough*
Aaanyway, possible solutions/questions:

How old's the laptop? I had HL2 running on my laptop just fine when it was brand new, but now I'm lucky if it wants to run HL1 without throwing a fit.

How long have you waited at that loading screen? I'm assuming you're talking about the main menu. It can take a while to load on some older systems, I used to have to wait a good 5 minutes to get past it. "Not Responding" can easily mean the game's trying to load and isn't happy about being interrupted by the Task Manager.

What are the graphics settings like in-game? Have you tried turning them down as low as you can?

[endoperez]

I had trouble launching Team Fortress 2, because my firewall/PC security program didn't give it enough permissions. It took me a while to realize what was happening, because it caused the program to grind to halt without letting me alt-tab out of it. So, make sure the program has all the permissions it needs. This might include having some/all of it in a public folder, as someone already mentioned.

[Pocketa]

We're launching games, not jokes.

*coughcough*
Aaanyway, possible solutions/questions:

How old's the laptop? I had HL2 running on my laptop just fine when it was brand new, but now I'm lucky if it wants to run HL1 without throwing a fit.

How long have you waited at that loading screen? I'm assuming you're talking about the main menu. It can take a while to load on some older systems, I used to have to wait a good 5 minutes to get past it. "Not Responding" can easily mean the game's trying to load and isn't happy about being interrupted by the Task Manager.

What are the graphics settings like in-game? Have you tried turning them down as low as you can?

Haven't gotten in-game yet. Not past the main menu.

@Than: the percentage didn't, but the usage went to over 500k, the only six digit number on my list of programs, which I take as a bad sign?

[chiasaur11]

Haven't gotten in-game yet. Not past the main menu.

@Than: the percentage didn't, but the usage went to over 500k, the only six digit number on my list of programs, which I take as a bad sign?

I'd say yeah, but I'll check.

My machine is slowing to a crawl these days, but it still can kinda run HL2.

Ah. Okay. A quick check puts the regular number for HL2 episode 2 at nearly 200k. Which means, I think, that something odd is going on, yeah.

[Isak]

As far as your actual issue; I am honestly stumped.

I can recommend the following, however.

Defrag your computer. This helps remove any "clutter" files from your hard drive. Moving files, uninstalling and installing programs, downloading new files; These tasks all leave unneeded bits and pieces of data left all over your system. A Defrag will remove anything of that nature, improving general speed by a small margin.

Run your Anti-virus and Anti-Spyware Program(s). It could be some silly piece of spyware denying you access outright or just being a nuisance by using up any and all spare resources.

When running the game, Turn off said programs. Sometimes they can conflict with it. Leave your firewall and such active still, obviously. But close out as many unneeded programs as possible.

Is your computer running abnormally hot when trying to run HL2? It's very unlikely, but possible that your CPU may be overheating and attempting to shut down the game due to the stresses. I have seen similar cases in my own experiences as a Technician and Gamer . If it IS running hot, what surface are you attempting to use it on? A bed/comforter? A desk? A cooling pad of some sort? Beds and comforters KILL the ability for a laptop to dissipate heat.

Check available Hard Drive space, remove any unnecessary, unneeded, or no longer used programs. Then try reinstalling HL2 once again. Try running the game with and without Steam open (Should be able to locate the .exe for the game itself through it's install folder).

Last resorts include, but aren't limited to: Reformatting your computer. This is almost guaranteed to fix your problem, unless it's hardware related.

The other last resort, is to buy a new laptop. The DV6000 series is, unfortunately, a bit older. The specs are top-notch like they once were. It was recently replaced by the DV6 series and the G-60 series.

Going by www.bestbuy.com ; You can get a fairly inexpensive laptop that will easily run HL2, as well as both episode packs (Which require a bit beefier of a computer), for around $500. Understandably, not everyone has that sort of money readily available, especially during current economic conditions... But the Holiday Season IS right around the corner. Black Friday is coming up in a couple weeks, and if your brave enough to face the long night of waiting outside your favorite Electronics retail store, you can generally get a very nice toy for fairly cheap.


Hope that helps a bit

[ObadiahtheSlim]

I think i know your problem. That link you gave us says your laptop is a NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150. The 6150 is their entry level processor and not built for serious 3D rendering. Add to that you got the moblie version of it and it gets worse. I think that is your problem.

HL2 looks at the processor and sees that it is a DirectX 9 compatible card, but then hangs when it tries to use it. IIRC Beyond Good and Evil is a DirectX 8 game and won't try to use the DirectX 9 stuff that may be causing HL2 to hang. My brother had a similar issue when he tried to play Overlord 2 with an older AGP card. Sure his card was a late enough generation to play the game, but because it was a lower powered version it caused the game to hang when he tried to launch it.

EDIT: Try adding "-dxlevel 80" to the run command in Steam. Right click the game and there should be an option in there. That will force the game to run in DirectX 8 mode and not DirectX 9. If that doesn't work then try to create an "autoexec.cfg" file in steamapps\HL2\hl2\cfg\ and add this line:
mat_dxlevel "81"

That should make it work.