Valve's "1-on1" Support Offer for HL2

Rasta Monsta · Oct 14, 2005, 12:35 PM

Well, I promised I would let a month go by before I got in a huff about this, and the month has passed, so here goes.

Remember this thread, in which an offer was made to e-mail Erik Johnson for help with Half Life problems? I sent him an email 30 days ago, and have gotten no response, not even "thanks for the email, I will be with you shortly."

I am majorly disappointed with how HL2 runs on my high end rig, and with Valve tech support's response. This offer of help with no help being given just rubs salt in the wound, especially given Newell's ingratiating quote, "That is how we can make this stuff better - by working with individuals to diagnose and fix their problems."

Anyway. . .did anyone else email Erik? I would like to know how many others here in the DH community have been dogged on this issue. Use DH for good publicity, then give us the finger. . .not cool!

rasta

SFOSOK · Oct 14, 2005, 01:20 PM

Naw, but I realize now what you guys meant by horrid stutturing. On my new rig that is the only thing wrong with the game and it is very annoying as eerytime it happens I think to myself how much I paid for this system only to have a stutter filled HL2.

2gb of ram do not help either. I think the reason they cannot fix it is because it may be sone type of Source optimization so that it does not demand as much from your system. Lets take a roadtrip to valve and protest steam and this hitch outside their building.

Rasta Monsta · Oct 14, 2005, 01:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SFOSOK

Naw, but I realize now what you guys meant by horrid stutturing. On my new rig that is the only thing wrong with the game and it is very annoying as eerytime it happens I think to myself how much I paid for this system only to have a stutter filled HL2.

No way, you had the upgrade blues, too? Freakin annoying, eh? I went from i850e/X800 to i875p/X850/P4EE and had the same experience. It played great on my old rig, crappy on my new one.

rasta

P.S. Oh yeah, and as for the road trip, you can pick me up in Portland on your way to Seattle...

The_Neon_Cowboy · Oct 14, 2005, 02:05 PM

they probubly have 100,000,000 emails

BWX · Oct 14, 2005, 02:16 PM

After the last HL2 steam update-

I kind of gave up for a while and decided to play something else rather than dissect HL2 to figure out why my shiny new X800XL stutters like hell.. \

I have played through HL2 so many damn times now waiting for that mysterious "HL2 smoothness" all the way through the game so I could really enjoy it... that I am burned out again. Maybe in a few week s I will right a letter, but I really never expected any results even if I did get a reply because I have tried absolutely every possible configuration and HL2 tweak I can think of or have heard of.

MythicaL · Oct 14, 2005, 05:07 PM

Steam should probably start from scratch and re-write the code, kinda like for Windows Vista. It will probably help them a lot though... imagine, Steam actually working

topbob · Oct 15, 2005, 01:57 PM

this is interesting, you guys have systems very similar to mine.
yet I have no problems, in fact im amazed how well hl2 runs on my system on max all settings.
but as for steam not replying, just imagine how many emails they get every 5 minutes, I doubt it's any thing personal.

BWX · Oct 15, 2005, 02:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by topbob

yet I have no problems, in fact im amazed how well hl2 runs on my system on max all settings.

How "well" or how "smooth"? What settings exactly do you use" Resolution and AA/AF?

topbob · Oct 15, 2005, 05:36 PM

1600x1200 6xAA/16xAF runs on avarage of around 50 fps

Rasta Monsta · Oct 15, 2005, 06:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by topbob

as for steam not replying, just imagine how many emails they get every 5 minutes

Well, we're not talking about some random tech support guy, this was an offer FROM Gabe Newell to work with one of HIS software engineers to work out the problem.

As for it working good for you, congrats. The problem is that nobody can say why it works for you and not for me (or why it worked on my old rig but not on this one).

rasta

Richie-b · Oct 26, 2005, 02:44 PM

Has anyone had any update on the ongoing stutter/crash saga ?
I've got exactly the same problem with CS and Half-life as shown in BWX's post and have tried everything to try and sort the problem out but to no avail.
Can any one shed any light on this ?

Dark Lord · Oct 26, 2005, 02:56 PM

ive got a rig similar to most peoples here, and it runs extremly smooth. 1024x768, everything max, 6xAA/16xAF and theres no stutter at all. VSS puts me at about 120fps.

BWX · Oct 26, 2005, 02:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richie-b

Has anyone had any update on the ongoing stutter/crash saga ?
I've got exactly the same problem with CS and Half-life as shown in BWX's post and have tried everything to try and sort the problem out but to no avail.
Can any one shed any light on this ?

I haven't messed with it much since then, I have other games I am occupied with.. I imagine a complete re-installation would fix it though... at least that crash I got.

I did play it for a few hours after that with no crashes though.

Rasta Monsta · Nov 10, 2005, 05:17 PM

Two months now.

Valve is great!

rasta

BWX · Apr 6, 2006, 06:08 AM

Well my stuttering is pretty much all gone with an Nvidia card and new system..

Playing @ 1600 x 1200 4xAA, 16xAF, transparency AA (SUPERsampling, and gamma correct AA)... I get the odd stutter here and there, when auto saving or whatever, the game is still prone to stuttering, but it happens WAY less now.

Who knows why, it is the same hard drive, new mobo, same memory, new video card, new CPU... (edit- same sound card) Maybe the 1mb cache on te CPU helps, maybe it is just the overall speed of the machine. maybe it was a patch. Who knows.

edit- it looks awesome too.. (I am playing through it one more time)

IvanV · Apr 6, 2006, 07:49 AM

I seem to be one of the luckey few, as since I got another 512MB of RAM HL2 almost doesn't stutter at all (a hiccough occures once in awhile, but very rarely). And all that at max detail, 1280*960, 4X AAA and 16 Performance AF.

Ogimos · Apr 6, 2006, 08:30 AM

Maybe a Dumb Question , If i reinstall steam and Half-Life 2 how can i prevent from updating?
Is it possible?
Maybe a no-steam patch?

btw i have a legal copy

Thanks in advance For the reply

BWX · Apr 6, 2006, 10:40 AM

I tried the FakeFactory mod this morning... all was going well but the load times were huge, (I have only 1 gig ram) and I did get some stuttering so I went to 2xAA still high quality 16AF, supersample transparency AA, still 1600 x 1200.. but then on one of the loading screens it thew up a vbscrip error and crashed.. I guess the FakeFactory mod is too buggy or something, I installed it correctly and then defragged..

It does look good when it is running though.. I wanted to play through the whole game with it.