Problem with Source Ep1 Engine

Technology and Gaming Help and Support
#1

Ok, asking here maybe anyone has an idea about this.

So, I wanted to try out a mod lately (Dear Esther) which is running on the Ep1 build of the Source Engine. But the game wouldn’t load, despite the process still running (“hl2.exe” is listed in the Task-Manager, but seems frozen). At first I thought it was an issue with the mod, as a consequence I tweaked the game files to test it in all possible ways. No luck.
Then tried to fire up the “Source SDK Base” in the Tools Tab. lol Doesn’t work…

And my Half-Life 2: Episode 1 is also affected. The process would just be stuck, frozen, nothing happens.

No trouble with Half-Life 2 or Episode 2, that works nicely. Am I the only affected?

Any hints are welcome.

#2

Have you tried varifying your game cache for Ep 1?

#3

Yep, the first thing I did. I also used defragment option even though there wasn’t any fragmentation.

#4

I’ve had a similar problem before, uninstalling Steam and reinstalling to a different location was the only thing that eventually worked. I have a feeling that HD might be going bad :-/

#5

It’s weird. Lost Coast runs fine, no problem. Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, Episode 1 and Source SDK Base only are affected. I thought Lost Coast used the Ep1 binaries :frowning:

#6

Half-Life 2 aswell?

I just looked at the moddb profile for this mod… it looks quite intriguing.

EDIT: out of interest I’m gonna try this mod out, if I run into a similar problem I’ll let you know.

#7

No, Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Portal work absolutely fine. 5-8 seconds to load HL2. The problem is somehow related to the Ep1 engine only.

EDIT: Additionally mods like Dear Esther or Minerva: Metastasis (mods using Ep1 engine) have this problem. Something bad happened in the last two weeks because before that I could play Minerva. Mods like Missing Information or HL2: Wars (mods using Orange Box Engine) run great.

Thank you for the help :wink:

EDIT2: I’ve tested my Source games and here’s the list of games that aren’t loading anymore: “Counter-Strike: Source”, “Half-Life 2: Episode 1”, “Half-Life 2: Deathmatch”, “Source SDK Base”.

#8

I played Dear Esther today… interesting mod, I quite enjoyed it despite its lack of depth.

Encountered no problems…

Well it’s definitely to do with your Episode 1 files I guess, you might want to try reinstalling one or all of them. It may simply be something wrong in one of the shared gcfs.

Your best bet would be to ask on Steam forums.

#9

It’s definetly something about the Ep1 Engine binaries and an incompability with the running environment of some sort. The process is actually running, I can let it run for hours but there’s just nothing.
Maybe I’ll try redownloading the whole package. I’ve been in contact with Steam Support for some days now and they’re still trying to figure out where lies the problem. Certainly the most fitting moment to port Ep1 and all those games to the Orange Box Engine :stuck_out_tongue: .

Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.