Half-Life 2 and Vista

I am running Vista 32bit, and when I play HL2 I the game will randomly stop working for about 30 secs and the work again; when I minimize to desktop I get a message saying "Display Driver Stopped Responding and Has Recovered." I thought just needed to update drivers, so I did, but I am still having the problem. My comp. specs. are in my sig., I am perfectly capable of running HL2. So, is it Vista that is creating this problem or what? Somebody please let me know what this is.

 

I am pretty sure this is a driver issue. Which ones are you running now?

I had the same problem on my desktop and Gears of War until I updated to the latest betas....then things were fine.

 

I have gma950 and vista 32bit... I think its vista... since it happens to me too. But I believe its gone since I just updated it...

 

It isn't vista, I know lots of people who play HL2 without any problems.
Try updating your drivers.

 

I just got the newest nvidia 8600M GT drivers, what else would it be?

 

As I said.... I just updated HL2 and Vista... try it

 

Definitely not Vista issue, played both HL2 and Episode Two, no problem at all.
You might want to try the modded driver at laptopvideo2go.com

 

its workn fine for me on vista

 

I am using automatic updates, so I'm pretty sure Vista is up to date. But I just checked to see if there were any other updates I need and there was one for my graphics card, so I'm installing that one right now, hopefully it fixes the problem.

 

I had the same problem when I was using Vista.... I also have the same PC. When I downgraded to XP the problem went away; I would think it was a problem with Vista.

 

I am still pretty confident it sounds like a display issue (graphics)....I had the same thing happen to me and it was remedied after I got a good driver, which is somewhat of a guessing game.

Let us know how your updated drivers work.

If it doesn't work, start googling your specific issue. It took me several hours to get games working in Vista correctly because I need some hotfixes.

 

Often times using the newest driver doesn't yield the best stability. Go to laptopvideo2go.com and download one their more mature drivers (I use 169.04). Remember to include the INF file in the extraction directory.

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/drivers/vista

 

Ihad exactly the same problem with my Vostro 1500, and I ended up having to ring up dell and get them to replace the Graphics card and now HL2 works perfectly.

 

Ok, so I installed the driver for my graphics card, and as of now HL2 seems to be working well. I'm actually on the level "Our Benefactors," which is a gorgeous level, and very graphics intensive. So, if my graphics card was going to stop working, it probably would have done it by now. I'm going to keep playing, if anything happens I'll let you guys know...

 

..."Display Driver stopped responding and has recovered"...Ok so it happened again. So, it's either the driver I'm using or Vista, or both. I looked at the list of drivers for my card and the list is somewhat overwhelming (about 4 pages of them), not mention my lack of knowledge when it comes to drivers and such. I'm not really sure which one I need, or if I even need it. So, hopefully somebody can figure this out, I'm puzzled...

 

I'm using vista home premium 32bit and Half-Life 2, I got no problems... works perfect

Actually all my games work perfect on vista

 

I haven't had any issues to date. I am using 169.04 on 64bit vista and about 1/3 of the way through the game.

 

Just go to laptopvideo2go.com and look for the latest driver for Vista under 32-bit. Then just download the driver itself, and the customized .inf file. Once both are done, unzip the driver folder and copy and replace the old .inf file with your new one. Then, either just run the installer or go the long and safe way by uninstalling your existing GPU driver and rebooting.

 

go to laptopvideotogo and download the 169.04 drivers and then try te game as they are the most stable

 

I'm running that one as well with no issues. According to the user forums the 169.04 driver is supposed to be the most stable.

 

Which do I download "Driver," "Modded INF," or "INF Inhancer" ?

 

The first two, for the third you will have to check their INF enhancer list of tweaks to see if they apply to you. In most cases it's not required.

 

Ok, I think I installed 169.04 correctly, is there anyway I can find out if I did it correctly? I'm also about to try HL2 and see how it works. By the way, can I just trash my old driver files or should I keep them?

 

bump me up

 

Look under device manager and look for the properties of your graphics card. Under the driver tab the last 4 numbers should say 6904.

I don't understand what you mean by trashing old driver files, you can safely delete the extracted driver installation files when you installed 169.04.

 

What I mean is can I delete the files for my previous driver, in this case it is "163.75." Is it just taking up space or is its necessary to be kept?

 

You can always redownload 163.75 if your current driver is giving you problems. Delete the files which you extracted to install 163.75.

 

I would like to find out how the fix goes i plan on playing half life on my rig too specs below.

 

You have to do a PROPER driver install - be careful because overwriting drivers in normal windows can be buggy.

You gotta extract your drivers from laptopvideo2go, and then download the modded .inf and overwrite the old one. use 169.04's. they're the "crysis" drivers. Make sure you are using the 32bit ones.

Then, restart your computer. When it's loading (after/during the logo screen), mash F8 until you get to a different screen that lets you start in safe mode. start it up in safe mode.

Then install your drivers normally. Restart and everything should be ok. Anyway, there are some more things you can do if stuff is still crappy - there are driver removal tools...i think there's one called driver cleaner..

but the safe mode method should be ok.

 

Ok, so apparently I didn't install 169.04 because it still lists 163.75 in driver properties. I was also looking through my files to see where my driver files were located and I am a bit confused because they seem to be in a few locations. For instance there is a file named "NVIDIA" that appears to have the drivers files and also one named "drivers," and another named "dell," with "drivers" sub-folder. Should the driver files only be in one location? I am really confused... forgive me for having such a lack of knowledge when it comes to drivers, I just find it all a but overwhelming and confusing.

 

Bump it up.

 

I have Vista HP and am running HL2. For the most part it runs great, but then after a while it will all of the sudden start to lag and when i press the wasd keys to move around it just makes beeping sounds. The only way that i found to get the game running normally is to exit entirely and start the game again. I have the latest drivers for my graphics card and my hardware is far more than enough to properly run the game. Any help would be appriciated.

I am running an Asus m50vm-b1
CPU - Core 2 Duo 2.53Ghz 1066 FSB 6MB L2 cache
GPU - Nvidia Geforce 9600M GS 1GB dedicated
RAM - 4GB 800Mhz