HL2 mega-stutter

Aod · 12 Mar 2006 at 15:56

right, so i'm aware that loads of people have problems with HL2 stuttering when going over autosave points, but i have this problem much worse.

every time the game autosaves, it crashes and i have to restart the game.

i get the looping sound and about 2 more frames, then nothing, just stuck on one frame and the looping sound.

this is wholly unnacceptable, as you might understand, and totally ruins the feel of the game, instead of thinking, Hmm, where will the next bunch of combine soldiers come from, its, gee, when will the game crash next.

is there anything that i can so to alleviate the problem?
i increased the memory alloted to HL2 from the default 64mb to 500mb (i have 1GB (yes, i know that 1/2x 1GB = 512mb...))

Anyway, thanks for any suggestions.

iGiDK · 12 Mar 2006 at 16:01

Check this link:

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=403258

It helped for me

Aod · 12 Mar 2006 at 16:10

should i try this beta then? this'll help?

Aod · 12 Mar 2006 at 16:36

Hmpf, didn't help

ajgoodfellow · 12 Mar 2006 at 16:54

Do you have a dual core CPU?

If so, have you installed the appropiate patches and assigning the affinity of HL2?

Aod · 12 Mar 2006 at 17:40

nope, good old fashioned northwood P4 w/HT

ajgoodfellow · 12 Mar 2006 at 17:43

Does disabling HT help?

Aod · 12 Mar 2006 at 17:56

haven't tried. will do now.

Aod · 12 Mar 2006 at 18:37

nope, doesn't help (and makes my PC jerky as hell)

ajgoodfellow · 12 Mar 2006 at 18:40

Not quite sure then

Stuttering is often caused by the executing thread being transferred between cores. As HT emulates two cores I wondered if this was the problem

A few programs do have problems with HT but this isn't it

You PC won't appear as smooth as you will have to wait for the CPU to be freed up - before with HT it was likely that one virtual core was always free so no or very little waiting

Aod · 12 Mar 2006 at 18:49

yea, i know...

this is REALLY *annoying* me, i can't even finish on level of HL2 without it crashing.

ajgoodfellow · 12 Mar 2006 at 18:54

Are you running an IDE hard drive?

If so have you ensured that it's running in DMA mode not PIO?

Aod · 12 Mar 2006 at 19:35

i worked out what it was.

it turns out that MAT (intel memory accelleration tech.) was causing it to crash. woohoo, working HL2!!!

ajgoodfellow · 12 Mar 2006 at 19:39

Glad you sorted it

iGiDK · 13 Mar 2006 at 08:01

have fun!

will need to revisit HL2 again, seeing as the expansion is out next month

VeNT · 13 Mar 2006 at 10:38

how much is that gonna cost?

Dutch Guy · 13 Mar 2006 at 11:53

You can also disable autosave:
http://www.tweakguides.com/HL2_10.html

iGiDK · 13 Mar 2006 at 11:56

VeNT said:
how much is that gonna cost?

At a guess, £15-£20 via steam

Ashman UK · 15 Mar 2006 at 11:46

Dutch Guy said:
You can also disable autosave:
http://www.tweakguides.com/HL2_10.html

Yes this stops it autosaving but dosent stop the irritating pause u still will get at this moment even though it dosent autosave..however through using the steps in this thread from steams forums a couple of months ago which lead to me playing the game with literally zero pausing and stuttering..(although a steam update has just come out few days ago which "again" is supposed to address the stutter problem) disables autosave properly without any pausing at all.

It takes a little fiddling about with though but is well worth it http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=353850

Dutch Guy · 15 Mar 2006 at 12:00

Ashman UK said:
Yes this stops it autosaving but dosent stop the irritating pause u still will get at this moment even though it dosent autosave..

Strange, I did that tweak and have no stutter at the autosave point :confused: