Half-Life 2 Forum

Every time I get to specific places in the game, it locks up in the middle of whatever sound it was making at the time and the only way to get out of it is to force quit crossover. The other thing that happens is that Steam suddenly stops working. I have had to reinstall it a couple of times but the only way the install has been a success is by removing references to the previous install. Unfortunately, this has had the side effect of removing my save games and I have found myself having to once again start a new game. This seems to be happening more with 6.2 than it did with 6.1. Any suggestions for what to do next time this happens would be appreciated.

If a full-screen game locks up, it should not be necessary to force quit CrossOver. First, you should try the key combination for the Restore from Full-screen menu: Command-Option-Shift-R. That should get you back the ability to access the CrossOver menus, access the Dock, Command-Tab to different applications, etc. You can then use the Quit Bottle button in the Manage Bottles window to shutdown Steam and the crashed game. Alternatively, you can use Activity Monitor to kill wineloader processes, which accomplishes much the same thing, although more forcefully and abruptly.

When you say that "Steam suddenly stops working", what do you mean? What happens when you try to launch it or use it? Does it display any errors?

If you do find yourself needing to reinstall Steam in a new bottle, you can save yourself the hassle of re-downloading your games by backing up and restoring the Program Files/Steam/steamapps folder within the bottle. I believe this also backs up your saved games.

Lastly, we should see if we can address the problem where HL2 locks up at specific places. What model of Mac do you have, and what graphics chipset does it have? At which points does it lock up?

One known issue with the Mac Nvidia drivers is that you should set Shader Quality to Low in the advanced video settings.

I too seem to be experiencing this problem. My setup is a MBP 15" 2.2 and Crossover 6.2. I got HL2 installed and everything fine, and with some launch tweaks like -novid, I was able to get to the menu. The game itself looks really good and runs well. It seems to hang however on the second loading point just outside of the train level. The problem seems identical to Marc's. I have tried running in windowed mode, low shadows and changed to dx7 but no luck. I imagine it is some kind graphical complication which is causing it to crash.

Any ideas as to how we could resolve this issue? I will try do some more tweaks later today.

Thanks
Muzz

It is not "shadows" you need to set to low, but "shaders". The area outside of the train station is exactly one of the spots known to trigger this driver issue, because there are shaders used in the glass panes above the dark metal bulkheads.

I also have this problem, though my game locks up while being chased through the apartment building very early in the game, directly after a load point. This also happened earlier in the game after jumping out the window after meeting Barney. As for Steam, it usually works fine while playing older games like Counter-Strike 1.6 and Team Fortress Classic. I'm using a 1.86gHz Intel Core Duo MacBook Pro with 1.5GB RAM and a 128MB nVidia graphics card.

mine has also been having this problem. when i get to ravenholm, and father gragory first appears, it freazes. im running a MBP 2.4 GHz with an nVidia 8600 gt. with launch properties of, "-nvoid -console -windowed".

P.S: i was also wondering if bioshock runs because you can buy it from steam.

Did everyone install steam via Crossover's steam profile, or copy it from somewhere else or install it as an unsupported application maybe? This can explain such crashes.

One way to test this is to start a new game, go through the trainstation, talk to barney. Then, after loading the next part of the map, a combine soldier appears. Does the game crash at this place?

I installed it via Steam download through Crossover. Like I said, most of my lock-ups are during or directly after a loading point. I've had it freeze in the area you mentioned, and also in other places. The current lock-up prevents me from getting any further into the game. Feel free to refer to my previous post.

ive also found that there are certain points where the story and NPC's do certain actions, and if you interfere, the game will freeze. two examples, in Ravenholm, when you meet father Gragory for the first time, he sets off some traps and kill most of your enemies for you. all you have to do is sit and wait for him to leave and then continue. the other is in HL2: EP:2, you are traveling down river, and you come to a blockage. you get out and go around and see a downed combine dropship. as you walk up to it, it twithces and a strider pops out. dont shoot at it, or your game will freeze. move back and wait. in about a minute, DOG comes flying over the cliff and tackles it and kills. so for most of your freeze ups, just wait for the game to do what it has to before you try to rush ahead.

The scene in Ravenholm can be explained with the sheer complexity of the scene. It is one of the most complex scenes in the game, only beaten by the plaza in chapter 1 after leaving the train station. However, the NPC interaction sounds a bit like a game bug, propably race conditions caused by differences of the MacOS scheduler. It wouldn't be the first issue like this, but it is a bit of a comfortable "solution".

Does anyone with an ATI card see this, or any Linux user? We've seen a number of issues with the driver for the Geforce 8 card in the new Macbook Pros. Ken says that a driver update was shipped a few days ago. Can you try to install all available updates and see if the issue goes away?

I've been having the same issues with Half-Life 2 crashing after load points - specifically, after you jump out the window after you meet Barney. It will load fine (though it'll take a while), but once you're walking down the hallway, and the Combine soldier appears from the right, it crashes. I have an ATI graphics card, so I don't think the shader issue is the problem.

However, I did install the Orange Box gmaes as an "unsupported application", so I tried to reinstall it with the Steam profile - but there's on e small problem. There's no Steam option in the "Supported Applications" list. I'm using the Crossover 6.2.1 trial. What's going on?

When you install one of the supported packages, the name of that package in the list changes based on the way the application describes itself. For example, if you install the package that we call "Internet Explorer 6.0" into a bottle, then the software package list for that bottle changes and shows "Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 SP1 and Internet Tools" instead. That's due to the application's self-description in the registry.

It's possible that installing Steam via the Orange Box has caused the name of that software package to appear differently in the list. What is listed with a status of Installed in the list for your bottle?

Ah hah! That's the problem. Steam now shows up as "Peggle Extreme" for some odd reason (even though I installed that after I installed the Orange Box games, and in a different bottle than the Orange Box). I guess I'll just re-install the Orange Box under the "Peggle Extreme" profile. Thanks for your help!

So, I've run into another problem. After deleting my bottles with Steam in them, I've tried re-installing the Orange Box under the Steam profile, with no luck - it fails each time, and the install log is empty (zero Kb). I tried downloading the Steam.msi installer from Valve, but that produces the same results.

I've noticed the random sound-looping hangups as well. By my reckoning, it looks like a sound issue; maybe HL2 is trying to play too many complex sounds at once? Anyway, I set 'Sound Quality' in the options to 'Low' and the problem seems to have disappeared.