Half life 2 - orange box datacache.dll crash

I played halflife 2 when it first came out. Nice game but I got tired of its bugs (Sound stutters - crashes with no errors - game play stutters) Eventually I made it through the game and took it off because of its problems.

Now comes the orange box. A few years later and I thought all the bugs would be worked out. This is even on the same system. Now I still get game stutters but this time I can get an eror. The game crashes and the "(application" caused a problem and needs to shut down" error. Well I click on the more info button and it always has to do with the datacache.dll file. Sending the report gives no help.

Portal plays without problems. Only the halflife 2, episode 1 and episode 2 games give me this problem. Have not tried team fortress yet.

I have been all over the net for an answere and have yet to find one. Even tried the mentioned things on the valve support site short of flashing the bios. That is a last resort.

A bit outdated but this is my system
Asus K8N-E Delux
Ati built radeon x800
1 gig kingston hyper-x (400 ddr 2x512)

I am looking to upgrade but money is tight. There is one report in the valve fourums that asus boards can cause problems in the game and the recomendation for that is to flash the bios. I don't see how that would really help since bios flashing does little in improvements.

If upgrading what is a good brand under $100 USD AM2 gaming MB?

Thanks
-Del

 

Maybe re-installing it..?

Nah, just kidding. Probably wouldn't work.

Anyways, I read on something similar to this with the datacache.dll. It appears to be the engine, not your system AFAIC, and Valve states that this problem is "under investigation".

However I've never experienced this with an ATI Radeon XPress 200M on my system, and I have a 1.7ghz with 640 MB of RAM and a AMD Turion 64 on my laptop, dunno if that's inferior to your system though, though it can run HDR pretty good as long as the texture settings are down a bit.

 

Well I have another problem with the game. It will crash and bring down the entire system. Once rebooted it says windows recovered from serious error. When I click on more info it has something to do with a mini dump.

-Del

 

There is nothing I can help you with there. Although I do know what the Mini-Dumps are for. They emulate your desktop and try to reproduce what happens. Mostly, you're usually supposed to send them to a developer somehow, mainly in this case, Valve, and see if they can pursue this error and fix it.

 

Half Life 2 ran fine for me on my old XP install, but after having reinstalled windows, despite the game reading 100%, I can't run it, for this error.

 

Ok I got the game to play. I forced it to load in directX 8 by adding the switch -dxlevel 8 to the game.

Right click episode 1 chose properties select launch game options and type the switch in there. DO this in the steam "My games" list.

-Del

 

Nope that doesn't solve the problem for me...

 

Ok then I guess I left something out. I did do another thing but thought it had nothing to do with the problem but I guess it did. I was using a third party program to manage my wireless connection. I noticed errors with my network card everytime the dll file error occured. that is why I tried that. I really don't see how that could be a cause of the problem but then again you never know when it comes to computers.

After switching it to let windows manage my wireless the dll errors stopped. Instead I began to get directX errors. Switching to directx 8 mode fixed that problem if the settings where not at thier highest. SO here is a list to break down the exact things I did to fix the game.

1) let windows manage my wireless instead of third party software.

2) Forced game to run in directX 8 mode. (very little difference in game play. The onything I noticed is that boxes and stuff are not displayed in areas with great distance. Walking that direction would make them appear.)

3) tweaked settings for maximum graphics without causing crash. (Turned everything up to the level just below MAX. One item was already set to max and I left it there. Im running it at 1280x1024.

4) In the BIOS set apeture size to 256M for the video. (Also disable any shadowing that may be an option. Some BIOS do not even use shadowing and you wont see any mention of it in the advanced setup options.) My system does not even have shadowing.

After all that I have absolutly no problems with that game.
I have not played the original Halflife2 in this package so I don't know if it also has these problems. Halflife2 episode 2 plays without problem and requirs no tweaking. I did not have to force that one into DX8. Portal and Team fortress also play fine without need to tweak.

What has worked for me may not work for others but this was my sulution on my system.

Hope this helps or starts you on the right path.

-Del

 

OK, all games except for Half Life 2 work for me, and HL2 works on any setting, as long as I use the -nosound switch. If I enable sound, I get the crash. What's more, I get the 'missing texture' symbol all over the place, suggesting my game files are corrupt. I've run Steam's check for them and it says they're fine, but it's obvious they aren't. I'll redownload the game at some point and see what happens.

 

Try updating your sound drivers. If it is built in sound and the MB is only offering very old drivers then search for the drivers by the sound manufacturer. may be AC'97 audio or something. You you find the newest drivers that way and they will work on your MB. Just go to device manager to see who made your onboard sound card (assuming your using the onboard)

-Del

 

Well that's the thing. Initially I was using my onboard sound, but now I'm back to using my Creative USB sound card and I've not only uninstalled the onboard, but disabled it in the BIOS. That's had no effect.

 

I have the same problem. If -nosound is enabled, I get no crashes at all, so I play and save every 10 seconds until I crash, turn nosound on, get through the crashing part, then reload with sound. Now, I'm only in East Black Mesa, there's still alot of game left.

IS THERE A FIX FOR THIS DAMN ERROR YET!?

 

redownloaded all my steam games with a newly installed client and haven't had this problem since. Solution - find your save files, back them up, then wipe HL2 completely from your PC and get Steam to re-download it. Worked for me.

 

I did that already, and I can't back anything up so no reformatting!

 

Which sound device do you use?

 

Realtek HD Audio. I know lots of others who use this and they don't crash. Latest drivers.

 

I too have used Realtek HD Audio with HL2 and not had any issues.Are you sure your cleanout of steam was correct, and have you tried a DirectX update?

 

Yes, What I did was:

- Deleted all games via Steam.
- Uninstalled Steam
- Deleted everything within (and the folder itself) C:\Program Files\Steam
- Restarted
- Used CCleaner and registry cleaner within it
- Defragmented HDD with Auslogics defrag
- Restart
- Reinstalled games

I doubt I missed ANY file.

While I'm here, please don't give up on my error, I'll give you all and any info you want that can help fix this.

Underclocking doesn't fix anything, it worked while OCed too.

Self-built PC
Motherboard P35-DS3L
CPU: E2160 1.8Ghz overclocked to 3.01Ghz
GPU: HD3850 driver v. 8.471.0.0(latest,overclocked 705/970 64% fan)
HDD: Wester Digital Caviar SE 250GB
DVD-Drive: Samsung 20x PATA (I thought it said SATA >_>)
RAM: 2x1GB G. Skill 800 5-5-5-15 RAM (Not overclocked currently. I ran memtest+ for 9 passes, no errors)


I also get another error, "The instruction at "0x000000000" referenced memory at "0x00000000". The memory could not be "read". " ( https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?p_faqid=278 doesn't work)

I don't remember the exact address, either, but this one seems to occur less now, but still does, here's a video of me getting it. http://youtube.com/watch?v=5O281uz1oLY

But please focus on the datacache.dll one!

 

BUMP!

 

The Source Engine has a huge list of incompatibilities. Firstly, don't overclock your GPU, and secondly use only Catalyst 8.2 or before.