Thrik

I don't want to lose my wisdom teeth. I like being wise.

Man. HL2. So cool. So cool.

Nothing. I just think he has a similarity to that guy from HL2.

You try my patience old man..

Oh, MAN.

Can you defragment specific files? If so, how? I did a full defragmentation (for other reasons) since installing HL2 and it didn't clear up the problems. There have been some patches since then though, and it'd probably be worth trying it again.. except it says I now can't defragment because I don't have 15% HD free. D:!

Yeah, I've tried everything. Defragging, different drivers, removing the sound card, sound drivers, all of Valve's patches and fixes, running all settings on low -- none of it helps. Another thing worth noting is that I played HL2 without the stutter (it was just generally slow, but it wasn't stuttery) on this exact same system a few weeks earlier, except instead of my new DX9 nvidia 6600gt, it was a DX8 ti4200. Most people who complain of the stuttering also seem to have DX9 nvidia cards. :/

I'm on a 6600gt, 2.6ghz P4 and 512mb DDR. It's not a top-end system, but it ought to be more than adequate for HL2. I've spoken to loads of people who are running it fully at a smooth rate, one of which is on a 9600 and I've been to his house and seen it first hand. :~ What's even more infuriating is that it will be smooth as pie between the frequent stutters. It couldn't be any smoother. Urgh. >:

Not fixed it for me. :(:(:(

Oh man, for a minute I thought this was a War of the Worlds thread.

You're not on a 6600GT are you?

LOL!

The bastards.

It'd crash out with a DX9 error of some sort at random.

I got a 6600GT a few days ago, since my ti4200 has been pissing me off with its random crashing during HL2 and various other games. Anybody have idea of what kind of overclocking potential this thing has, if any?

Maybe they were aliens?!?!?11

Hrm, Black Mesa East? I was planning on doing a hl2dm map based around Black Mesa in HL2's timeline, and was just wondering what kind of role it had in HL2. Was it destroyed, occupied, what? Do you find out? :|

To anybody who has completed HL2: Does Black Mesa appear at any point in the game, excluding the introduction?

Pre-beta? Say what?

http://steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=184810 There were rumours surrounding Valve putting a warez torrent of HL2 onto various sources around the release date. It looks like this has been confirmed, and anybody who used the key to play HL2 through Steam has now had their joy cut short with the banning of any Steam account affiliated with it. This tactfully nullifies all online usage of any other Steam games which they have affiliated with the account such as HL1, or even HL2 if they decided to warez it initially to test it and then buy it later (which I know a lot of people have suffered from). Ph34r the Valve. Hopefully there'll be more of this happening in the future.

What's hilarious is that quite a few people claim to have used the dodgy key, and then later bought it and used the legitimate key on the same Steam account. This of course all happened before Valve shut the lot down, and took the legitimate keys with it. It's by no means a perfect method (an "experiment", in Gabe's words), but it's highlighted how easily 20,000 people have been screwed by such a simple little bluff. If they start getting more advanced (report and keep tabs on individual IPs for example, and if that IP has ever been affiliated with a dodgy copy..) it could mean big things in the industry's quest for piracy-free gaming.

You should try that logic over here. Seriously though, I don't see how it can be looked at in any legitimate way whatsoever. They download the dodgy HL2 (even if they intend on buying it later), and get burnt. Hopefully they'll learn their lesson. It's like going up to a Pick 'n' Mix counter and biting a sweet before you buy it. The simple route is to either buy the full game (which is pretty well priced at various places, I might add), or wait for a demo if "OMG BEST GAME EVER" being shouted from everywhere ever isn't enough to convince you.

Yeah, I'm fully for developers doing anything they can to stop piracy -- including bombs, and anthrax-loaded torrents. Steam isn't really that much of a hurdle, and is far more effective than various attempts to stop the game on our end, such as SecuROM and other such dodginess. Whilst it is a bit of an inconvenience to get people that're on dialup and such to do the labourious activation process, it's worth it in my opinion for less piracy casualities -- you have to remember that piracy can cause an awful lot of profit loss, which is a massive problem for big-budget games like HL2. Piracy does make me sick at times though, particularly the people who use key generators with games. With pretty much every online game now being fixed so that the same key cannot play twice, and some going even further and directly affiliating keys with accounts like with Steam, this opens up the problem of direct theft. Imagine you get Half-Life 2 for Christmas. You're pumped. You're excited. You're looking forward to a week or so playing the best single-player experience that the PC currently has to offer. Then, as you go to type in your CD-key which will be tied to your Steam login, it responds with a big "CD-Key is already in use. Please check your details, and re-enter the key.", whilst some Counter-Strike loving 13 year-old geek in California happily continues along with your key. Well, fuck.

:barf: