after installation HL2 won't run?

[sodaggy]

hi, I hope someone can help! trying to install a (legal) copy of HL2
on my son's PC- specs on the PC are higher than required according to
the game's box. When we try to run HL2, there's a splash screen and an
hourglass and "loading half life 2" and then it just closes down and
goes back to the desktop. Counterstrike works okay.

Although there was no error, I did try the fix suggested in some places
of renaming one of the files ( sourcemodels.gcf ) and then on starting
the game next time, it was re-downloaded... didn't help though. Also
we upgraded his nvidia drivers to the latest ones.

ANy suggestions would be great.

~sd

[Shawk]

Post by sodaggy
hi, I hope someone can help! trying to install a (legal) copy of HL2
on my son's PC- specs on the PC are higher than required according to
the game's box. When we try to run HL2, there's a splash screen and an
hourglass and "loading half life 2" and then it just closes down and
goes back to the desktop. Counterstrike works okay.
Although there was no error, I did try the fix suggested in some places
of renaming one of the files ( sourcemodels.gcf ) and then on starting
the game next time, it was re-downloaded... didn't help though. Also
we upgraded his nvidia drivers to the latest ones.
ANy suggestions would be great.
~sd

First time for me it just stuck at a black screen - turned out the McAfee
firewall was waiting for me to grant access to the Internet for HL2 but I
couldn't see the request behind the damned black splash screen - might it be
something like that?

If not you may need to verify your installation - I can never remember the
link but go to Steampowered.com, look in support and do a search for 'verify
my gfc files'

You may want to also try in alt.games.half-life. This HL2 group has never
taken off.

HTH.

[Ian Hastie]

hi, I hope someone can help! trying to install a (legal) copy of HL2 on
my son's PC- specs on the PC are higher than required according to the
game's box. When we try to run HL2, there's a splash screen and an
hourglass and "loading half life 2" and then it just closes down and goes
back to the desktop. Counterstrike works okay.
Although there was no error, I did try the fix suggested in some places of
renaming one of the files ( sourcemodels.gcf ) and then on starting the
game next time, it was re-downloaded... didn't help though. Also we
upgraded his nvidia drivers to the latest ones.
ANy suggestions would be great.

Which version of MS Windows is he using and how much memory is installed?
If it's MS Win ME or older then this old bug could be causing problems,
http://tinyurl.com/3elp.

I have a little used MS Win ME installed mostly for HL2(!) which showed
similar symptoms until I set the MaxFileCache value appropriately. The
game now runs without any problems.