Half-Life 2 graphic problems [56K beware]

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LawBeefaroni
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Half-Life 2 graphic problems [56K beware]

Post by LawBeefaroni »

WARNING, EARLY SPOILERS: SCREENSHOTS WITH SUBTITLES

Oh, the torment.

After going through the Steam rigamarole (which wasn't as bad as I expected, but wasn't flawless either), I finally got HL2 up and running.

Damn, this game is a beauty. I made it as far as the canals and I have to say it's lived up to the graphical hype thus far. Gameplay is top notch so far too (except for the Gordon on skates factor). Just hearing the name Gordon Freeman again is a thrill.

But then I ran into a problem.

First, everything is humming along, looking brilliant:
Image
Image

I find some guys hanging out in a shipping container. An alien and...a floating head?
Weird.
Image

Ok, whatever you freaks. Maybe it's the fumes from this invisible fire with purple checkerboards floating overhead just outside their makeshift home:
Image

Yeah, that's it. Everything else looks normal.
Get to the canals and have to marvel at the water as a pistol floats in front of me:
Image

But then I enter a strange tunnel:
Image
A floating wireframe head is telling me to keep going. She sends me through a tunnel. But wait, there's something in my way. A grate? But I can't see it. What's that. An invisible box? WTF? Textures are dropping like mad, objects are invisible (but sometimes cast shadows). Quicksave and reload. Same thing. Maybe it's the lighting in this tunnel.

Get outside and...shit. Nope, the world has gone mad:
Image

I manage to find my way around invisible barriers, stack invisible boxes (cinder blocks look fine), and avoid killer choppers. But uh, this isn't fun anymore. Maybe once I get back inside. Oh, wait, everything is cool again:
Image

Oh, no it's not:
Image

Started with DirectX9.0b. Restarted, switched resolutions, put eveything down to minimum and at 800x600. Same thing. Installed DX9.0c. Restarted. Same thing.

XP2600+, 1GB Dual Channel, 8GB HDD free, Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB, Win XP Home SP1, newest catalyst drivers, audio up to date.

Any ideas?
" Hey OP, listen to my advice alright." -Tha General
"No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer." -Stigler's Law of Eponymy, discovered by Robert K. Merton

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Blackhawk
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Post by Blackhawk »

That is very odd. Most of thos pink checkered textures are water or super-reflective surfaces. The floating head at the bottom is a woman who is actually kneeling inside a giant concrete pipe.

Have you tried disabling hardware AA and AF in the control panel AND in the game?

If that doesn't work, I'd almost think a reinstall is in order. It looks like something got corrupted.
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disarm
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Post by disarm »

i just had a quick look over at the SteamPowered Forums, and it looks like you're not the only one with this problem...although it's apparently worse for some people than others. the closest thing to a solution i've seen is the suggestion that the file source materials.gcf in your SteamApps folder is corrupt. there are quite a few people over at those forums that report the problem is fixed if they get rid of that file and let it download from Steam again. the popular suggestion is to rename the file to something else (e.g. source materials.old) so that Steam can't find it...then restart Steam, it will notice the file missing, and download a non-corrupted version. the only downside to doing this is that files is 1GB...makes for a long download. if you bought the game retail, you might just try a reinstall from the discs first...although people have reported that downloading the file from Steam works for the retail version.

that's what i've seen in a quick search of Valve's forum. since you're not the only one to have the problem, you might look around a few more HL2 forums and see if there are any better solutions if this one doesn't appeal to you. in any case, i'm sorry to hear things aren't working right now. i do think you'll love the game once you get it looking right though 8)

update: just found one other thing you might want to try...Valve has just posted a news message about people have problems due to corrupt Steam cache files, and they've released a small update that will validate your files. have a look at what they have to say here. there's no way of knowing if it'll fix your problem, but i'd say it's worth a shot...
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LawBeefaroni
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Post by LawBeefaroni »

Disarm, thanks for doing the legwork. With Bloodlines and CS:CZ I didn't feel like wading through the HL2 forums. I've was staring at Steam for about 3 hours yesterday.

I did notice on a second attempt that Steam updated. I'll try the update links first and then try re-downloading the source materials.gcf. I don't have a CD or DVD so if it comes to that I'll do it overnight.

Appreciate the help. :D
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"No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer." -Stigler's Law of Eponymy, discovered by Robert K. Merton

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disarm
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Post by disarm »

no problem...i was skimming those forums the other day and remembered someone mentioning the same thing with similar screenshots, so i had some idea what to look for this time. hopefully one of those fixes will work for you...
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Post by Hamsterball_Z »

The file validation worked for me. I started having glitches at the same point but I got shiny red squares and instead of the floating head I found the lady in the pipe staring at me with blank white eyes. When I tried to quit the menus were blank, had to reboot to get out. Couldn't even load a save game until I ran validation.
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ScaryMike
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Post by ScaryMike »

They released a fix for something or another, maybe it will help you.

http://www.steampowered.com/?area=news

-Mike
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LawBeefaroni
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Post by LawBeefaroni »

Yeah, it worked for me too. After I ran the validation, Steam downloaded some files (guessing around 50MB). Everything's back to normal. I had to go back to an earlier save, around "Red Letter Day," back before I had any missing textures.

What a game.
" Hey OP, listen to my advice alright." -Tha General
"No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer." -Stigler's Law of Eponymy, discovered by Robert K. Merton

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