Half-Life2 Issues... choppy/freezes

[IanE]

Ok... so maybe a week after playing HL2 without a single problem whatsoever,this problem arises: About every 10-20 seconds the game freeze for around 3-5 seconds, then it loops a sound for around 10 seconds, then everything is fine until the next 10-20 problem happens again.

This never happened before, and it's really quite strange. Everything I have is up to date, I even uninstalled HL2 and installed it again, same problem.

System setup:

MSI K8N Neo Platinum
BFG GeForce 6800GT
1gb Corsair PC3200 VS
AMD Athlon 64 3000+

Not overclocking anything, running on Windows2k Pro SP 4, onboard 5.1 surround sound, and I have the video options and sound options correct, so it's really puzzling especially since Doom3 is on the same settings and runs perfectly, along with everything else.

Any ideas guys?

Thanks in advance

Ian

 

[Fenixgoon]

try reverting to some older drivers? put sound on normal w/ no special effects (sometimes messes some games up)
no reason why it should have any problems on your system though

 

[luigi1]

Somethings up guy, ive a slightly better proceser but otherwise the same system and hl2 runs fine. I am running xp but I dont see that as a killer. Spywaere or virus? does taskmanager want to report some memory usage?

 

[IanE]

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon
try reverting to some older drivers? put sound on normal w/ no special effects (sometimes messes some games up)
no reason why it should have any problems on your system though

It happened with the old drivers too... it started happening the day my girlfriend was playing and saved over some files, which I doubt is what causes this, but maybe so. HL2 still had the old saved game files even after uninstalling, so I deleted them, started a new game, and same problem. I'll try running it with sound on normal.

Originally posted by: luigi1
Somethings up guy, ive a slightly better proceser but otherwise the same system and hl2 runs fine. I am running xp but I dont see that as a killer. Spywaere or virus? does taskmanager want to report some memory usage?

No spyware of viruses here... checked with AdAware, SpyBot and Norton Internet Security 2005, in and out of safe mood, and even checked by booting off the Norton CD.... I'll check what the task manager has to say about the memory usage now.

 

[JBT]

Try disabling fast writes in the BIOS.

 

[IanE]

Played for 20 minutes with the sound set to 2 speakers instead of 5.1. No effects were turned on and for the first 3 minutes or so the game was perfect, then the freezes started again, but they only lasted from .5 to 2 seconds, and not as freqeuntly. As I got near 20 minutes, the were happening more and more, and for slightly longer periods of time. After each freeze a lot of white shapes would appear and disappear quickly.

Here's a screenshot of the task manager's performance record. All the while the CPU never exceeded 38 degrees celcius.

Max CPU usuage was during game play, low areas when tabbed out of HL2.

http://img91.echo.cx/img91/2820/untitled5ns.jpg

Very strange.

 

[IanE]

Originally posted by: JBT
Try disabling fast writes in the BIOS.

That did the trick! Played for an hour straight with absolutely no problems, even with the 5.1 sound turned on.

Thanks so much for the suggestion! Any downsides to having it disabled though?

 

[clickynext]

Originally posted by: IanE

Originally posted by: JBT
Try disabling fast writes in the BIOS.

That did the trick! Played for an hour straight with absolutely no problems, even with the 5.1 sound turned on.

Thanks so much for the suggestion! Any downsides to having it disabled though?

As far as I can tell, personally, no. When I had nothing better to do, I benchmarked my computer and got more 3Dmarks with it disabled, but that probably doesn't mean anything.

 

[IanE]

Originally posted by: clickynext

Originally posted by: IanE

Originally posted by: JBT
Try disabling fast writes in the BIOS.

That did the trick! Played for an hour straight with absolutely no problems, even with the 5.1 sound turned on.

Thanks so much for the suggestion! Any downsides to having it disabled though?

As far as I can tell, personally, no. When I had nothing better to do, I benchmarked my computer and got more 3Dmarks with it disabled, but that probably doesn't mean anything.

This is kind of weird... having it disabled actually lowered my CPU temp by 3 degrees celcius, and the graphics card runs cooler too, also by 3 degrees celcius. Hrmm...

 

[mundane]

Originally posted by: JBT
Try disabling fast writes in the BIOS.

Thanks for this advice. My Uncle purchased a new machine a few months ago, and it was killer except for the damn stutters during HL2. I couldn't figure it out - I even killed the entire Norton suite, expecting that was the cause. I'll suggest he try this, and then guage performance.

 

[JBT]

No problem. Many of the 6800 GT's and Ultras have stuttering issues in D3D applications such as Far Cry, HL2, and some benchmarks like 3dmark etc with Fast writes enabled. From what I have seen it really doesn't affect performance much with new cards, but it does help with stuttering issues with most 6800's.