1. Introduction [xIntrox]
2. Tweaking Guide [xGuidex]
3. Version History [xVHistx]
4. Sites allowed to post the guide [xSitesx]
5. Contact Info [xEmailx]
6. Credits and Copyright [xCreditx]
-------------------------------------------------
1. Introduction [xIntrox]
Half-Life 2 is already out, probably finished by some of you reading this
and as far as I know, it's made a great impact on Action gaming. Still
complaints can be heard about the way Steam works and Valve requiring
on-line activation for the game. In the end for those who can follow the
rule it is all good and the game is on, so no more complaints.
Just some days after its release on Steam, tweaking guides by well-respected
sites have been released. I've read them all, trust me, and some of them
can be hard too follow, or have too much unneeded information. This guide
is just a complete guide, containing only the needed information for the
average to advanced gamer to tweak the game. I am not, in any way, trying
to steal other people's findings, and credit shall go to the people over
at http://www.tweak-guides.com as well as the people participating actively
in the HL2 and GameSpot forums. If any of them believes that their findings
have been stolen, shall contact me and if for a good reason I will remove
this guide.
This tweaking guide, has been proved to work great and can get your FPS
up to 2 times higher as well as reduce loading times greatly WITHOUT reducing
Image Quality noticeably, especially if you have a NVIDIA graphics card
installed.
Just for a little bit of a motive for you to read on, under a 2700+ CPU
and a NVIDIA 6800 card, I got the game to 1024x768, everything at Maximum,
and the game is on a constant 50 to 120 FPS.
2. Tweaking Guide [xGuidex]
---
Step 1: The main tweaking
---
NOTE 1: A word before we start; Valve releases updates quite regularly, so I suggest
that even if you're used to offline mode, you should go online now and then
with Steam loaded, just to make sure you get the latest updates for the game.
A recent update (15 Dec 2004) has some fixes that have been known to decrease
in-level loading speeds to half. So, besides this guide, make sure you update
your game regularly.
NOTE 2: Another thing you'd like to make sure, is that you have the latest drivers
for your Graphics and Sound card. You can find out what your graphics card
is by going to Start > Run, entering "dxdiag", and clicking on the Display
tab. As for your sound card, the same steps shall be done, except that you
should click on the Sound tab (or Sound 1, if more than one appear.) Note
those names down, and go to Google, entering the name of your card with the
word "drivers" after it, and doing a search. This way you should find the
latest drivers for your card.
So, for this step, you will have to go to
http://www.3dfxzone.it/dir/tools/emutnl.htm and download the latest version
of 3DAnalyze, which is the program that will allow us to do the most of the
tweaking. It doesn't really matter where you install it. After the
installation is over, run it.
Well, at first all those options may confuse you, but you shall not worry,
as we'll need only a few of them.
Notice how on the upper left corner of the screen are the numbers 2, 1 and
3 and next to each one a button named "SELECT"? What you will have to do
here, is select the respecting files for each number:
(2) Click on the Select button, browse to your
Valve\Steam\SteamApps\Your-Account-Name\Half-Life 2\bin folder
and select [Engine.dll]
(1) Click on the Select button, browse to your
Valve\Steam\SteamApps\Your-Account-Name\Half-Life 2 folder
and select [hl2.exe]
(3) Click on the Select button, browse to your
Valve\Steam folder
and select [steam.exe]
You will notice that all options are now available for you to select. As
I said, we'll need only a few of them.
First of all, in the middle of the screen, under the Pixel and Shader
Settings, select the "Force Low Precision Shaders" option. After that, under
the Remove Stuttering (bottom of the screen), select the "Performance Mode".
Then, on the bottom-left corner, select "Force Hook.dll". Finally (only do
this if you have a NVIDIA Graphics Card), on the DeviceID and VendorID
somewhere below the middle of the screen, enter the ATi Radeon 9800 Pro
numbers providedto the right of the boxes, or the Radeon 8500 numbers if
you don't have a high-end graphics card.
After you've done all of the above, click on Save Batch File (bottom of the
screen), save the file with any name in any folder and then click on Run
(left side of the screen). The 3DAnalyze program should close with a
"CREATEPROCESS failed" error, but this is anything but bad news. It shall
mean it all went good. You can try and run the game now, and the difference
on performance shall be noticeable, although I recommend reading the rest
of the tweaking guide.
***
Explanation of Step 1 (for Power Users)
***
The above step fools the game, making it think you have an ATI Radeon card
installed, removing artifacts and graphic glitches. However, this has a
huge performance drop. But, by forcing low precision shaders, we're gaining
all the performance back double. Why is that? Valve made the game force the
FP24 shader model all the time, while that model is required in very few areas.
By forcing low precision shaders, we're making the game use the FP16 model,
which is the one used in most areas of the game anyway, thus gaining a very
big performance boost, with a very slight image quality cost only in the
areas designed for the FP24 shader model.
***
Troubleshooting: Undoing Step 1
***
Although I only got one incident about crashing the game after doing this
step, I shall tell you that if you want to undo this step, you should look
inside the 3DAnalyzer's folder for the help.html, and scroll-down to the
bottom, where you'll find info on how to undo 3DAnalyzer's changes.
Just before you start undoing anything, try loading a different savegame.
I've heard people that had problems with my guide, resolved them just
by using a different savegame to start their game.
For your convenience, I'm copy-pasting the info there:
1. If there is a directory called 3DA_BACKUP in one (or more) directories,
please copy the content from the 3DA_BACKUP directory to the directory,
where the 3DA_BACKUP directory is in.
2. Go to the applications directory (EXE path / DLL path / PRE-RUN EXE
path) and delete the following files:
* d3d8.dl
* d3df.dll
* d3d9.dll
* d3dg.dll
* opengl32.dll
I shall tell you again that I got only one e-mail about problems with
this guide. I'm adding this anyway, since some of you may want to
compare the results with and without the forced shader version.
In this step, we shall force some graphics options that provide realism to
the game, as well as some other tweaks which shall improve the in-game
loading speed. Note that through these steps, we shall disable the AutoSave
feature, so remember to save frequently, either through the save option in
the Main Menu, or by pressing your assigned QuickSave key (by default F6.)
Through Windows Explorer, browse to your
Valve\Steam\SteamApps\Your-Account-Name\Half-Life 2\hl2\cfg folder
and check for an autoexec.cfg file. If it does exist, open it via Notepad,
otherwise open the config.cfg file via Notepad as well. Scroll to the
bottom of each file and paste the following lines as are:
Now browse to your
Valve\Steam\SteamApps\Your-Account-Name\Half-Life 2\hl2\SAVE folder
and select ALL files starting with "autosave" in their names. Right-click
on one of them and click on Properties. From the screen that has just
opened select Read-Only, press Apply and then OK.
This step is over now, you should notice faster loading times in-game
and added realism to the game. However, remember to save often as the
AutoSave function is now disabled.
***
Explanation of Step 2 (for Power Users)
***
The above step adds some lines to one of the configuration files of
the game that add realism (such as the sv_footsteps and violence ones)
and enables enhanced stereo support for more realism if your computer
is on a 2.0 or 2.1 speaker system.
After that, by adding the "sv_autosave 0" line and making the auto-save
files read-only, we do not allow the game to auto-save wherever it wants,
thus removing in-level stuttering and unwanted pauses.
***
Troubleshooting: Undoing Step 2
***
For all of you that want to undo this Step too, here goes:
Through Windows Explorer, browse to your
Valve\Steam\SteamApps\Your-Account-Name\Half-Life 2\hl2\cfg folder
and check for an autoexec.cfg file.
Now browse to your
Valve\Steam\SteamApps\Your-Account-Name\Half-Life 2\hl2\SAVE folder
and select ALL files starting with "autosave" in their names. Right-click
on one of them and click on Properties. From the screen that has just
opened uncheck Read-Only, press Apply and then OK.
---
Step 3: Instant Half-Life 2 loading
---
This step will make the Half-Life 2 main menu loading a matter of seconds.
You will notice that the game will start instantly instead of having to
wait for about 30 seconds or more for it to load just the main menu.
Close all open Windows Explorer windows, and start Notepad. Leaving
the file blank, go to File > Save As... and browse to your
Valve\Steam\SteamApps\Your-Account-Name\Half-Life 2\hl2\media folder.
Type "valve.avi" (with the quotes) in the Save As... box and click on Save.
Click Yes when asked if you want to overwrite.
Now close Notepad, and open your Command Prompt (easily done in XP by going
to Start > Run and typing "cmd".) Browse to your
Valve\Steam\SteamApps\Your-Account-Name\Half-Life 2\hl2\media folder
using the cd command. Use the ATTRIB command to set "Valve.avi" to Read-Only.
If you're unfamiliar with the command line environment, then follow the
below instructions (or e-mail me to give you a link to a tutorial video I
have created):
1. Make sure the prompt points to the hard disk drive the game is installed
(i.e. if it says C:\Windows> and Half-Life 2 is installed in C:\ then it's
all right.) If it's not, then enter the letter of the disk it is installed
followed by ":" (i.e. d:)
2. Use the cd command to browse folder by folder to your media folder.
This can be done easily, for example if the game is installed in
C:\Prorgram Files\Valve\Steam\SteamApps\Your-Account-Name\Half-Life 2\
then, type [cd "c:\program files"], then [cd "valve"], then [cd "steam"],
then [cd "steamapps"], then [cd "Your-Account-Name"], then [cd "Half-Life 2"],
then [cd "hl2"], then [cd "media"] (use quotation for every folder to avoid
errors, but NO brackets.)
3. The prompt should now be something like
"X:\.....\Valve\Steam\SteamApps\Your-Account-Name\Half-Life 2\hl2\media>"
4. Now enter [attrib valve.avi +r] (without the brackets.)
5. You shall now be ready, close the command prompt.
Now close any open windows you may have open and start Steam. When the
Menu appears, click on Play Games, then right-click on Half-Life 2 and click
on Properties. On the opened window click on Launch Options. In the box that
has appeared enter the following:
+map_backround none
-heapsize x (where x, enter the 1/4 of your RAM with 3 zeros following.
That is, if you have 512MB of Ram installed, enter 128000)
The box should look like this now: +map_backround none -heapsize 128000
Click on OK and close all Steam windows. You can start the game now,
noticing that the main-menu appears in a matter of seconds, although it
only shows a faded picture background, instead of a full 3D background.
***
Explanation of Step 3 (for Power Users)
***
In this step we replace the valve.avi file with a blank file, making
the game not show any start-up videos, thus making the main-menu appear
instantly, in combination with the "map_backround none" option, which
makes the game load a faded picture instead of making you wait for it
to load a fully 3D environment. These two steps should make the Main-Menu
loading a matter of seconds.
The reason we're making the new blank valve.avi file read-only, is that
if we didn't, Steam would try and download a full valve.avi from the server
and replace the one we're using.
Why we're setting the read-only attribute through the command line? Well,
Windows XP has automatic thumbnails in any folder it finds files with the
avi, wmv or mpg extension, so it tries to load a thumbnail for the black
file, which results in the Windows Explorer crashing. Doing it through the
command line is the only way in order to set the read-only attribute to it.
Some may wonder what the "heapsize" option has to do with all this. Well
heapsize is the allocated RAM amount the game uses. By default it's on 64MB.
But because I know most gaming systems these days have more than 256MB of RAM,
I think it's a performance boost to allow the game to allocate more memory for
its data.
***
Troubleshooting: Undoing Step 3
***
I shall not add info on how to undo this step, as I think undoing it would
be completely useless. This step cannot in anyway stop the game from loading
as it only disables the starting video, and sets an image as a backround for
the menu instead of a fully-rendered 3D map.
The only reason I could think that this step would cause problems, is a
wrong heapsize. I recommend you undo this step AFTER you've tried playing
the game with the first two steps undone, and then if only you're still
having problems, do the following:
Start Steam. When the Menu appears, click on Play Games, then right-click
on Half-Life 2 and click on Properties. On the opened window click on
Launch Options. In the box that has appeared, delete everything and click
OK.
------
That concludes the tweaking guide. You shall notice the performance boost
right the first time you play the game.
3. Version History [xVHistx]
Version 1.0b3 (9 Jan 2005)
- Happy new year!
- Added a missing note in Part I
- Added sites to the allowed list
Version 1.0b2 (28 Dec 2004)
- Added note about tutorial video
- Added note about driver updating
Version 1.0b (27 Dec 2004)
- Added How to Undo on all steps
- Added sites to the allowed list
Version 1.0a2 (20 Dec 2004)
- Added sites to the allowed list
Version 1.0a (15 Dec 2004)
- Added Contact Info
- Corrected initial release's date
- Added note about game updating
Version 1.0 (11 Dec 2004)
- First initial release
4. Sites allowed to post this guide [xSitesx]
The sites that are allowed to have this or any version of the guide posted are:
GameFaqs [http://gamefaqs.com]
hl2.jolt.co.uk [http://hl2.jolt.co.uk]
CheatsAhoy [http://cheatsahoy.com]
NeoSeeker [http://www.neoseeker.com]
World of Gaming [http://www.wogaming.com]
DLH.net [http://dlh.net]
This may be not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal, private
use. It may not be placed on any other web site or otherwise distributed publicly
without advance written permission. Use of this guide on any other web site or as
a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a violation of copyright.
5. Contact Info
For any suggestions, questions or anything about this guide or Half-Life 2,
contact me through the following e-mail:
leftos10 (at) msn (dot) com
or leftos (at) gmail (dot) com
P.S. The above formation is to avoid spamming. Another thing, please do not add
me to MSN Messenger without asking me first through e-mail. Anybody that tries to
will get instantly rejected and permamently ignored from my list.
6. Credits and Copyright [xCreditx]
Kudos go to:
The people at http://www.tweak-guides.com for their very useful tweaking guides
The people participating in the HL2 and GameSpot forums
The people at Valve for making this great game
Morthy for his support
Copyright info:
NVIDIA is a legal trademark of NVIDIA Corporation.
All other trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by their
respective trademark and copyright holders.
