More Steam Woe's...

[Militant]

Ok I just downloaded LFD1 and 2 because of the great deal at steam. Downloads went slow, but finally got LFD2 installed, and paused 1 part-way so I could play it. After the 2nd intro screen, where it says powered by source, the entire game freezes, and I have to end task to close it. Since that occured (2ish hours ago), and I rebooted, steam wont even open. I've tried deleting the .blob file and steam.dll. I tried reinstalling/repairing steam and after the update completes, it too just hangs (open in task manager, but nothing loads). Randomly, from time to time, steam will decide to load and log me on. I can play other source powered games no problem, CS:S, TF2, etc. But still LFD2 refuses to load... For shits and gigs I uninstalled all spy-ware/anti virus software, and closed as many things running in the background as possible. All drivers are up to date, the computer is only a week old.

edit: So as I stated steam will randomly open, well since it last opened, I finished DLing and installed LFD1, which opens and runs fine. LFD2 continues to freeze at the 2nd load screen.

[Cheerios]

Have you tried verifying your game data to see if that fixes L4D2?

[Militant]

Tried that, said it was successful. Tried erasing the L4D2 data via steam, then re-installing, same issue.

edit: Tried deleting l4d2 client and l4d2 common in steamapps folder. Steam updated L4D2 and same issue again. It's weird. Most games when I first run them, load in a very low resolution, like 800x600 or w/e and most of them load in 4:3 aspect ratio. All my source based games, including L4D1, I've switched to 1400x900 and 16:9 and they run gorgeously. L4D2 seems to load on a much higher resolution (as the steam pop-up in the lower right is much smaller than normal for a first load.) I almost feel like if I could somehow access my video settings for the game and change them, it might start working, but I have no idea how/if that's possible.

[Cheerios]

You can try going to your game list in Steam, then right clicking on L4D2 and going to properties. Click on "Launch Options" and type in -windowed

Confirm, then try loading the game. It should force the game to run windowed instead of fullscreen so you can maybe configure it from within the game.

If it does work and you set it to full screen in game, delete the launch option.

[Militant]

No dice, Freezes just the same. Even adds (Not Responding) within about 5 seconds to its title in the taskmenu.

[Militant]

I've re-installed steam as well, and tried to "repair" steam via windows. I've tried running steamservice.exe through command prompt, all no-dice.

edit: Here's the e-mail I sent steam, maybe someone with some more technical knowledge will figure out whats going on or could reccomend some things to try. I'm basically out of ideas, will probably take steam several days to get back to me and I'll receive some generic automated response about updating my drivers or some bullshit:

L4D2 is refusing to load on my computer. Upon launching, I see the bald guy with the valve on his head, that screen goes away, then the "Powered By Source" screen loads. After another second or two, the information at the bottom about "Havoc" physics and such loads, then the entire screen begins to fade out as if it is going to change the to the next screen. Just before the screen fades out, the entire game locks up, and gets stuck at a black screen no matter how long I let it sit. My only options are to CTRL+ALT+DEL and close L4D2.exe. Now, having said that, here is what I can tell you. I have multiple source based games that run great/flawless. CS:Source, DoD:Source, TF2, even L4D1 loads properly and plays fine.

Things I have tried:
I have tried using steam to uninstall and then re-install the L4D2 game files, no success. I have had steam check the integrity of the files. I have had steam defrag the files. I have tried deleting L4d2 client and common in the steam apps folder. L4D2 gets an update, and then the same crash happens.

Something I noticed that is weird:
I have installed lots of source games recently, and on the first boot, they usually boot up in a low resolution (maybe 800x600?) and then once in the game I edit my video settings to 16;9 widescreen, and 1600x900 and everything looks beautiful (this is the recomended display settings for my moniter). However, when I load L4D2, it is loading in a much higher resolution, I can tell because of the little steam notification that pops up in the lower right on load. It takes up a tiny portion of the screen, and is usually much larger on the first load of a game until I adjust my video settings. That said, I don't know of any way to change my video settings without actually being in the game. This computer is approx 8 days old, has the latest drivers/updates, etc

Info about my computer:
Graphics Software:
Driver Packaging Version 8.771-100825a-104558C-ATI
Catalyst™ Version 10.9
Provider ATI Technologies Inc.
2D Driver Version 8.01.01.1071
2D Driver File Path /REGISTRY/MACHINE/SYSTEM/ControlSet001/Control/CLASS/{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}/0000
Direct3D Version 8.14.10.0779
OpenGL Version 6.14.10.10188
Catalyst™ Control Center Version 2010.0825.2146.37182

Graphics Hardware:

Primary Adapter
Graphics Card Manufacturer Built by ATI
Graphics Chipset ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series
Device ID 68B8
Vendor 1002

Subsystem ID 2543
Subsystem Vendor ID 1002

Graphics Bus Capability PCI Express 2.0
Maximum Bus Setting PCI Express 2.0 x16

BIOS Version 012.019.000.015
BIOS Part Number 113-C01005-101
BIOS Date 2010/04/14

Memory Size 1024 MB
Memory Type GDDR5

Core Clock in MHz 850 MHz
Memory Clock in MHz 1200 MHz
Total Memory Bandwidth in GByte/s 76.8 GByte/s

Random: Intel i7 860, 6GB ram, Windows 7 Home Premium.

edit2: now trying this. Setup an administrator account, even tho my main account has admin. Uninstalled steam completely, ran CCleaner to make sure nothing was left in the registry. Rebooted, logged in as admin, installed steam, copying over steamapps folder now. Will see if that has any effect.

edit: fresh steam install on admin and copy over of steamapps folder yielded nothing. I'm thinking this has to be a driver issue, maybe the resolution the game is auto loading in isin't supported or something and is causing it to crash? Because even when ctrl+alt+del during the freeze, even task manager is much smaller than it is when running at my normal resolution.

[Militant]

Just re-tested all games on fresh install. All work and load properly no problem at all, L4D2 still crashing at the same point. It's just so weird seeing L4D1 getting right past the screen and into the game no problem. Is there an ini file or something I can go into and edit for L4D2 so I can change the default resolution?

edit: so I went into steam/steamapps/common/left 4 dead 2/left4dead2/cfg and there are two text documents at the bottom. under video res it appears to be loading in 1920x1080. I edited both to 1600x900 saved and closed, booted up the game and it continues to load in 1920x1080 and crash =(

edit1324123: just tried copying over both video config files from L4D1 into L4D2, game still boots in 1920x1080, and the files get overwritten right away. Going to rip my hair out, hopefully someone has a suggestion when I get back from work, thanks.

[Kaisha]

Try adding "-w 1600 -h 900" (minus the quotes) to your launch options for L4D2, it should take priority over the config's settings.

[Militant]

Ok, at work now, will be home in about 2 hours to give that a shot. If that doesn't work I'm going to be really fucking mad because I'm about out of ideas/options. Thanks again, will report back later.

[Militant]

Christ on a fucking bicycle, still doesn't fucking work. Any ideas left? I've tried almost all the "solutions" on the web for this, I'm ready to fucking rage.

[Kaisha]

It's probably going to be one of those fucking stupid solutions that no one would have otherwise thought of.

Is there anything stored on Steam Cloud for L4D2? I can't think of any reason why it'd try to open the game as 1920x1080 from the get go, and what priority Steam uses. If it is a problem with the startup config for L4D2, I'd try wiping the Cloud data (right-click game, properties, click Updates, and uncheck the box for syncing with the cloud. Then muck about with your cfg file, and set it to read-only in the file properties.

I'm assuming all your drivers are up to date and other crap given your other games apparently run fine. PCs are too damn quirky. Hope their tech support actually knows a thing or two if you get a reply back.


There's also the -novid command for skipping the startup cinematics, but I doubt that'd help with your problem.

[Militant]

-novid for the fucking win <3333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333 333333333333333333333333

[Militant]

Irony...

It's probably going to be one of those fucking stupid solutions that no one would have otherwise thought of.

There's also the -novid command for skipping the startup cinematics, but I doubt that'd help with your problem.

lol...