Half Life 2 Stuttering Bug Official

sinner0423 writes "Due to recent complaints on several forums, Steampowered announced they are working on a fix to this stuttering problem in Half Life 2. Usually, a game bug isn't news-worthy, but the sporadic nature of this bug makes me wonder - who else has problems with HL2 pausing/skipping? This site outlines the problem certain users are having in a very clear & concise manner, and also includes some stopgap solutions from Erik Johnson & other Valve employees."

Comments

Hmmm....

[lxt]

...one might have thought given the year of so the game has thought to have remained in a workable state they might have come across a bug like this, especially if it's affecting large numbers of people...

Re:Hmmm....

[cortana]

HOW long as the concept of checksumming data to detect corruption been around?

Re:Hmmm....

[neko9]

from This site - Vampire: The Masquerade, which is based on Half-Life 2's Source engine is also reported to have the same stuttering issues.

looks like engine problem.

Finally!

[EventHorizon]

This bug has been degrading an excellent game for many people--good to see Valve finally acknowledge it.

Now if only they would fix the "Loading" delays that show up every 3 minutes... it's 2004 already, there has *got* to be some way to stream/cache/prefetch around having to break up the game experience so much.

Re:Why is this exactly newsworthy again?

[bogie]

First off I'm sorry but what the hell does Linux have to do with this? Yea Linux has bugs, so what? Most of the distros out there don't cost $49. Even if they did what does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Linux isn't a game and nobody here said "too bad HL2 isn't as bug free as Linux".

Second and related to my first point this is a major problem that the game obviously should not have shipped with. Accepting your point that all software has bugs that doesn't mean something that was delayed for years and years should be able to ship with such a noticeable flaw. If they had done a public demo this would have been very apparent and could have been fixed. It is completely right to hold Valve's feet to the fire on this. On the topic of whether this is "front page material" I happen to think that it is. Slashdot is news for nerds and most nerds are playing HL2 right now being that its one of the biggest releases of any piece of software this year. I'm sure many of the readers here are glad to hear this info. Yea it could have easily gone in the gaming section but so what? What , you wanted to read yet another article on the Ipod?

Amen to that!

[Zarathustra.fi]

The loading times are awful, and loading occurs way too often. It really wrecked my suspension of disbelief. Example: At the beginning, when you're running to the roof, the game stops to load for 30 seconds or so in the middle of fierce action! How am I supposed to keep my adrenaline up during that time, by slapping myself in the face or what? This is not good game design.

What I cannot understand is the people praising this game as a whole to high heavens. Sure, the Source engine kicks ass and everything, but what I really expected from a sequel to Half-Life was a coherent story and script. After completing the game, all I had was an aftertaste of a huge railroaded marathon and a handful of loose ends in the script.

I was left confused and unsatisfied. Props to Valve for making the game, but even the most decorated shell is empty without a good plot.

Maybe Half-Life 2 is really an introduction to third part of the story, where all the pieces come together. But it makes me a bit unease thinking that all these years I was only waiting for a prologue to the real thing.