Half-Life 2 Forum

Placing this here due to no Portal/Episode two game section yet.

text not rendering properly in the options menu. Just grey menu with raised section for the buttons.

CS:S, Episode One, TF2 all work properly with launch options :-novid -windowed -w 800 -dxlevel 81

Using 15" MBP Core.

If you run "regedit" for the bottle in question, under the key [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\AppDefaults\hl2.exe\Direct3D] you will find a value called "tf2_alpha_hack". It's value should be "-game tf". You can extend that by adding additional strings separated by semi-colons. I don't know the names used for those games, off-hand, but assuming that Portal uses the name "portal", the new value should be "-game tf;-game portal".

These strings are taken from the command line that Steam uses to launch the game. If you open a Terminal window and type ps xww | grep hl2 when one of those games is running, you will see the command being used. To work with a Terminal window at the same time as the game is running you'll either have to run it in windowed mode or use Command-Option-Shift-R to restore CrossOver out of full-screen mode.

Making this change in the registry will activate the hack which we use to fix the fonts in Team Fortress 2 on the Mac. This [bold]may[/bold] fix the fonts in the other games. There are other internal requirements that must be met for the game to trigger the hack, and I don't know if those games meet those requirements.

I Can confirm adding
-game ep2; -game portal
works for the hack currently set up. Although the Title "Portal" in the main menu screen at load up in portal appears in white blocks.

Thanks alot I shall continue to report on any issues with Episode 2 and Portal. Both are currently playable and run great but with slight mousing issues.

I'm experiencing the same font issue in Portal, and the hack as described works... until the first portal is opened in the very first scene, at which point all alphas go crazy; I get white blocks around clear surfaces, etc...

If it matters:
MBP 17", three weeks old. Nvidia 8600M (I think), 2Gb RAM, all 10.4 updates installed.
I'm currently on a trial license of CxMac, which will be a purchase if it lets me play these games :) I'm no slouch technically, so I can happily provide any other info the crossover guys might want vis-a-vis debugging.

I don't have that "tf2_alpha_hack" in my registry. I had crossover 6.0 (6.1?) and installed steam then went to crossover 6.2 Is that what is causing the issue?

The upgrade to 6.2 should have added that entry to your registry automatically. I'm worried that it didn't. 😥

You can always add it manually.

Ken Thomases wrote:

The upgrade to 6.2 should have added that entry to your
registry automatically. I'm worried that it didn't. 😥

You can always add it manually.

Weird.

Just to double check. Am I adding it as a string, binary, or dword value?

String value.

I also have missing fonts in my TF2. I created a brand new win2000 bottle for tf2. I also checked the registry and that string value is indeed there, however I am still missing fonts for the green menu's, etc.

Any ideas?

I'm dealing with the same problem, but I don't have any hl2.exe in regedit there... just hl.exe. I installed TF2 through The Orange Box installer, though... was that a mistake?

I don't think that the method of installing TF2 should affect that registry entry.

Are you sure you're using CrossOver 6.2, rather than some earlier version? Did you create the bottle with 6.2, or was it created by an earlier version?

To be honest, I don't know how the Orange Box installer works. The games still run from within Steam, right? I mean, there's no standalone version of TF2, is there? When you ran the installer, which software package did you select in CrossOver's Software Installer?

I've got Crossover 6.2, I've run regedit.exe and changed the string to "-game tf;-game portal", and I still can't see any text in the Portal menus (I'm running 10.5.1). Any ideas on what might be going wrong?

Ken Thomases wrote:

I don't think that the method of installing TF2 should affect that
registry entry.

Are you sure you're using CrossOver 6.2, rather than some earlier
version? Did you create the bottle with 6.2, or was it created by
an earlier version?

To be honest, I don't know how the Orange Box installer works. The
games still run from within Steam, right? I mean, there's no
standalone version of TF2, is there? When you ran the installer,
which software package did you select in CrossOver's Software
Installer?

Ran across this thread while searching the forums for information on getting TF2 (and Portal) to run smoother. To my knowledge, there is no standalone version of TF2; it has to be installed via Steam. I am running CrossOver 6.2 Pro (installed via the Loki installer under Linux). I noticed this evening that the tf2_alpha_hack setting was not in my registry. My installation order was CrossOver, a win2000 bottle, Steam and then using Steam to install TF2.