Left 4 Dead 2 Forum

I have L4D2 on Steam on my Mac through crossover Games 8.1.4.

I'm running an iMac with an Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.16 ghz, 1gb ram.

L4D2 launches and plays the opening video, but then it just loads and loads and never gets to the main menu. My Mac freezes up and I have to restart.

I tried the tips and tricks, but maybe I need to try again? Are my specs too low to run L4D2? Has anybody on a similar system successfully launched?

Update:
I went to winecfg in the control panel for steam, then clicked on Audio. It automatically set up the audio. My computer no longer freezes, but L4D2 simply crashes at the 'loading' screen after the opening 'movie'.

I'll try a few different audio settings to see if something works, but if anyone has a suggestion, I'm all ears.

Well, at this point, you probably need to switch to the beta of CrossOver Games 9, since that's required for compatibility with the new Steam (and hence L4D2).

I suspect your iMac is capable of running L4D2. What graphics chip does it have?

You can try adding "-novid" to the game's launch options through the properties dialog in the Steam GUI. (Right-click on the game and select Properties.) That will skip the opening video, which will either avoid the crash or get to the crash faster. :-/

You might also try passing in "-dxlevel 95" in the launch options for one run, which resets the game's video settings to the default. During that run, if it gets past the crash, set all of the video options to lowest/disabled, then quit the game. Remove "-dxlevel 95" from the launch options and try again. If it works, you can then try experimenting with turning video settings up.

I tried both things you suggested, but the game still quits. For -novid, I get a white screen for a bit, and then it quits. For -dxlevel 95 I get the logo and opening video and then it quits.

I'm curious about the audio settings changing the hangup. I'll try to get a log of the process and see where it hangs.

My chip is an NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT.

My system plays Half-Life 2, plus episodes 1 and 2 and Portal, so I'm a little surprised that it doesn't automatically play L4D2, but I'm assuming there are some critical differences in this one.

Oh, btw, I do have the Crossover Games 9 beta installed.

Sounds like a corrupt L4D2 install (this happened all the time when L4D2 first came out) right-click on the Left 4 Dead 2 icon and select Properties. Click on the LOCAL FILES tab and click on the VERIFY INTEGRITY OF GAME CACHE... button. Next option after that is to DELETE LOCAL GAME CONTENT... so it reinstalls.

If you want to try one more quick hack you could set -dxlevel90 to see if that helps (unless I missed where you already tried that).

Thank you for your help.
Tried both of your suggestions, but still the same problem.

I tried loading the l4d2.exe from the steam folder rather than running it through steam, and put a log on it. Then I tried through steam to get a log. The results are a bit over my head, and I'm not sure what to post.

When I ran the exe directly, I got an error:
"The command "/Users/XXX/Library/Application Support/CrossOver Games/Bottles/steam/drive_c/Program Files/Steam/steamapps/common/left 4 dead 2/left4dead2.exe" returned 100.

StdOut:

StdErr:"

The Log showed a whole long list of "fixme". It also had this line: "GL_INVALID_FRAMEBUFFER_OPERATION (0x506) from glClear @ directx.c / 803" but I'm not sure if that's where the error is. I'll go back and try the dxlevel again. I also got a lot of "d3d:debug_d3dformat Unrecognized" followed by various numbers and "WINED3DFORMAT!".

When I ran through steam, I got pretty much the same messages.

UPDATE:
I tried the VideoMemorySize 'performance tweak' in the tips and tricks ... and now Half-Life is dead too. Portal will still load but the entire half-life series is down.

I'm worried I'm going to have to wait for Steam on Mac, because it looks like Steam on Crossover is messed up now.

UPDATE:
On the off-chance that something is fundamentally wrong with my installation of steam, I decided to be radical and reinstall. I'll let you know how it goes ... though at this point I might simply wait for Steam to come out on Mac and use crossover for my Non-Steam apps.

UPDATE:
Deleted steam and reinstalled. L4D2 still can't get past the opening movie. Didn't try the others. Will likely give up on steam and wait for it to come out on mac.