bricksterr

Right click on "My Computer" and go to "properties". Hardware>Device Manager and click on the + sign and tell us what your Graphics card is. Although your card may not be capable of all that Directx 9.0c can do, it has to at least be compatible with it. It is possible that you may need a new card. But at the very least, you will want to make sure you have the latest drivers available for your card! Use that infoprmation to track down the appropriate driver. If you are still unsure of your hardware you should get Sisoft Sandra. It will give you a detailed description of everything in your computer. Important stuff to know. http://download.guru3d.com/sandra/ Good luck!

This is either hardware or disc related. I'm fairly certain you can play HL2 from more than one computer since you can only be logged into Steam once. Theoretically you can play it from a hundred different computers but obviously not at the same time. Besides, the disc or, for that matter, your computer has no way of knowing you've installed it elsewhere! Valve ain't that smart... yet. Having a program like DVD Decrypter open may cause this so first off, reboot your computer! Make sure the disc is clean. If you have to clean it, make sure you wipe it straight across and not in a circular motion. If that still doesn't work than try another CD. You may need a new drive.

I feel your pain. I just put together an Asus Sli Premium W\ AMD 4000+ and an Asus 7800GTX. I am running a single card at present. I was really chopfallen to see the sluggish frame rates in HL2 (especially split second freezes just prior to explosions, it reminded me of Half Life on my P166 ). The fix? Asus A8N motherboards are still coming with the 1008 bios. Update to the 1009 bios (if you're really feeling brave you can try the beta, but I would wait). All I can say is this is what made a big difference for me. Damn smooth now. I'm not finished messing with this thing though. I think there's alot to be found yet but I want everything to be running smooth and stable at "stock" settings before I start messing 'inside' the bios or with the graphics card (still looking for the VGA bios). So far I'm not that impressed with the nvidia NF4 chipset but I have hope. Use the Asus Update tool. Download the appropriate motherboard bios to a folder and direct the update tool to there to flash. Don't bother trying to get the tool to download the bios itself. Other than that it's fool proof. Don't be intimidated by it. Once again, I think it's very important that you have all the latest drivers from Asus or nVidia (chipset, graphics etc...) and an updated bios before you start messing with anything else. You shouldn't have to be resorting to tweaks to get HL2, definitely HL2, to run smooth at it's default settings. Now a game like F.E.A.R. is antoher matter, that could bog down the best of rigs. Good luck!