Alright, before I explain the problem, here are the system specs - Videocard - ATI ASUS A9250 Windows XP hand-built machine, 1Gb ram, 2.53ghz P4, forgot the mobo info, let me know if you need that info. Alright, so I've googled and googled, and although there are alot of problems with "freezing" none are like this. After about 10-20 minutes of play, the game freezes, usually unrepairably. I have to restart my PC, ctrl-alt-delete won't minimize or take focus from the game, and 2x doesn't restart. If I do manage to remove control from the game and end it, I have to restart anyway, because when I start it again, it freezes on the menu loading. This is a perminant freeze. I tried waiting it out for 2 hours once, it does not end. It's extremely agrivating, and I love this game. I want to finish it. I've gotten pretty damn far, too. Any troubleshooting you could provide would be excellent, if you need more info I will quickly provide it. Help me out! Thanks!
this might be and probably is your problem. Your using onboard video to play HL2. the problem with this is that your basically using the RAM in your system to run these games which is taxing. while your playing try drop down the console and type cl_showfps 1. your frames per second will appear in the top right corner of the screen. i bet that your fps is probably around 30 or lower. to me is sounds like your game and system are locking up because your computer cant run HL2 or anything higher off the onboard graphics. if this really is the case look at your motherboard, see which kind of slots it has( AGP or PCI-E are the big ones) and grab yourself a videocard that supports at least 256MB on memory.
sounds to me like your system is overheating, I had the same problem with a system I built...the case was just great for collecting heat in the middle. After getting better fans I stopped having so many problems, but it still doesnt run very good on games. or it could just be the graphics card itself overheating, does your A9250 even have a fan on the card?
