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HL2 Help Please!

RhettRhett (Not even a monkey)
in Zocalo v2.0
Alright well as I mentioned in another thread, I have been having graphical issues with HL2. Corrupted textures/artifacting type of deal. Here are two screeshots to show you what I mean (taken from the main menu, no spoilers at all).

[url=http://rhettdb2005.0catch.com/HL2.html]Here[/url]

As you can see by the barn is where it is worst (red barn on right side)
and then a minor part to the left of the mouse pointer in the first picture (purplish looking area). Hopefully you have some idea what could be causing this. I am running an alienware laptop with a Mobility Radeon 9000- with the latest Omega Catalyst Drivers (using omega bc it is a mobility card). I am not overclocking, and I do not believe this is a heat issue at all (bc I get the same problems even when the laptop is completely cold just after starting up). Any ideas/questions? I love the game but the texture problems seem to be getting more prevelant the further I get in the game (not more prevelant the longer I play, but rather the more progress I make in the game). And I get them at the main menu as you can tell... Thanks for your help!!!
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Comments

  • BigglesBiggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
    Firstly, before people complain about the hotlinking thing: Once the error page has loaded add a ? to the end of the url and load it again.

    Next, I have to say that mobility radeons suck more than any other card I've ever used. I have one in my laptop and it could barely be classed as a graphics accelerator, let alone one capable of running something like HL2.
    Are these omega drivers the ones ati provides? If so, start complaining to them as well. Also, most mobility cards rely on drivers from the laptop manufacturer due to requirements of the hardware. My card only works with drivers from Compaq, for example (well, unless I'm in linux).
  • RhettRhett (Not even a monkey)
    Omega Drivers are a tweaked set that are usable on Laptops (primary reason that I use them). Finally just put the images on an HTML page, so now you should see them... As for mobility cards sucking, its always done fine for me in the past, certainly not as good as a desktop, but considering I move back and forth between houses so much its the only thing that allows me to play games.
  • BigglesBiggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
    Have you tried with drivers from ati or your laptop maker?
  • RhettRhett (Not even a monkey)
    ATI catalyst drivers dont support laptops, the Alienware drivers are a couple months old. I think Im going to just delete all offline content and start over, seeing as how HL:S isnt working either... So I think I might have a bad preload file... :mad:

    EDIT: Wait a second, found a little glitch where HL:S said it was done downloading, but in fact it isnt. So Just gotta wait for the last little bit to be downloaded (hopefully). So Ill wait up on the whole reinstall idea... Any suggestions/tweaks would be very much appreciated. I figure I can play HL:S until I figure out what the hell to do about my HL2 problems...

    Link to Omega Drivers, for those of you who have no idea what I am talking about: [url]http://www.omegadrivers.net/index.html[/url]
    They are considered the best and most reliable drivers around (as far as tweaked drivers go).
  • BigglesBiggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
    A "couple of months" isn't that long so you should really try them.
  • RhettRhett (Not even a monkey)
    Alright, downloaded and installed older drivers from Alienware... heres to hoping it works.

    EDIT: Problem is still there, in fact it is now even more prevalent... :( Im gunna just go ahead with the whole deletion of all offline content, and then start over... what a pain in the ass...
  • BekennBekenn Sinclair's Duck
    What rendering path are you using? DX 8?
  • RhettRhett (Not even a monkey)
    DX 9.0c... arg this is painful to have to download 3GB again. But if it works it will have been worth it. One nice thing about installing those other drivers though is it runs alot cooler now... So I think there must have been some sort of minor overclocking in the basic driver for Omega Drivers. But unfortunately that wasnt what was causing my problems.

    EDIT: well the more I read, the more discouraged I get... seems like this type of issue is associated with either: a) overclocking (which I have never done) or b) a graphics card going bad... which sucks for me. Damn. Well let me know if you guys have any other ideas, maybe this will work to redownload. But Im starting to think it wont. Damn damn damn
  • BigglesBiggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
    Is the laptop still under warranty? If it is, call up Alienware and have a chat to them.
  • RubberEagleRubberEagle What's a rubber eagle used for, anyway?
    I had this "polygon" problem when my Radeon 9700 was dying, so you might really have a damaged graphics chip...
  • E.TE.T Quote-o-matic
    You might also check this:

    [url]http://community.vugames.com/WebX?13@185.3DxvdFD20wK.0@.efda915[/url]
  • RhettRhett (Not even a monkey)
    Redownload didnt help anyhting... So yea that means I think Im basically screwed. The GPU seems to be dying. Damn damn damn- and I think the wareentee expired a few months ago, Ill have to double check whether it was one year or two...
  • BigglesBiggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
    Oh well there's your problem. Things always break after the warranty expires.
  • RhettRhett (Not even a monkey)
    Exactly... well I guess that relegates me to playing only when I am at my dads, on his older computer. Thanks for your guys' help though. Its kinda odd though, using the older drivers HL2 is now unplayable, is that just bc the GPU dying is more apparent using older drivers? or something else?
  • C_MonC_Mon A Genuine Sucker
    I don't know, but on ATI mobility radeon drivers can have a pritty big difference. Like the newest driver won't play Baldur's Gate 2 well for me, but an older one plays it as it should.
  • BigglesBiggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
    I've also had problems with different driver versions on my mobility radeon. Older ones will play Giants but not Morrowind, newer ones will play Morrowind but not Giants.
  • RhettRhett (Not even a monkey)
    So now I just have to hope [url=http://www.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=179519]this[/url] doesnt happen to me :rolleyes: Craziest thing Ive ever heard of... especially since it is specified that you can have steam on multiple computers, and play your games on multiple computers.
  • RickRick Sector 14 Studios
    That's called "tearing" and is typical when you have vsynch off in either the driver, the game, or both.

    Try turning vsynch on, and see if it goes away...

    -R.
  • BigglesBiggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
    I've never seen tearing look like that, it looks way too much like polygon data gone wrong to me.
  • RickRick Sector 14 Studios
    I have...in Elite Force.

    And again in jedi knight 2

    It happens wiuth the games based on BSP maps more than others for some oddball reason...apparently it has to do with a depth sort that gets ahead of the data or something of the like.

    -R.
  • BigglesBiggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
    But isn't tearing where you get part of one frame and part of another on screen at once because the frame gets updated while the screen is midway through a redraw during rapid movement?
  • RhettRhett (Not even a monkey)
    Hey Rick, glad to see you around again. Ill look into the VSynch thing, but I think that in this case it really is a GPU going bad. Ill give it a shot though just in case!

    EDIT: Just tried it, it didnt work :( it did make the problem a little better however. Still no go though. Thanks for the continued suggestions, anything is worth a try.
  • the_exilethe_exile Kupo!
    I blame the G-Man.
  • RickRick Sector 14 Studios
    [QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Biggles [/i]
    [B]But isn't tearing where you get part of one frame and part of another on screen at once because the frame gets updated while the screen is midway through a redraw during rapid movement? [/B][/QUOTE]

    I think you're right...I forgot the technical name for this, I just know that the vsynch thing fixed it for me.

    Rhett-- You may also wnt to try Bilinear instead of Trilinear filtering, if you're using it. Also try the DX8 render path. There may be an oddball instruction in the pipeline your chip isn't processing right.

    If none of that works, re-install DX9.0c.

    I'd also go back to the "ATI/Alienware" drivers. Never had good luck with the community drivers.

    -R.
  • RhettRhett (Not even a monkey)
    Ill give those things a shot when I have some time over the weekend here. Thanks again for the suggestions, and I am back on Alienware drivers. The odd thing is I started using the cool little program SpeedFan, and my laptop temp has never broke 42C... Which is good (anything about 60ish is very bad IIRC). So it could be a bad install of DX, I am using DX8.1 rendering bc the card doesnt support DX9 rendering. Ill look into the bilinear filtering also.
  • RickRick Sector 14 Studios
    If all else fails: try these drivers. They were written EXPRESSLY for Half-Life 2 performance.

    I don't use them myself, but many people I play with claim they fixed allot of issues for them.

    There are ATI and nVidia Versions

    Here's the link to the ATI:

    [url]http://www.tcmagazine.info/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8534[/url]

    And the nVidia:
    [url]http://www.tcmagazine.info/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8535[/url]

    No warrantee claimed, just another option :)

    -R.
  • A2597A2597 Fanboy
    eh, worst case senario, get the x800 mobility. :D

    80FPS at 1027x768 resolution on a laptop?
    Sweeet...
  • BigglesBiggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
    Unfortunately, upgrading the video card on a laptop usually means replacing the entire laptop. :)
  • RhettRhett (Not even a monkey)
    HAha yea that would be a problem, video cards are a bitch to upgrade for laptops. Get this, my battery just died in the laptop, wont take on a charge anymore. When it rains it pours I guess?
  • BigglesBiggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
    Told ya. Warranty expires -> laptop fails. :D
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