An annoying Steam issue

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erehwon6811

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 5, 2004
Messages
493
I did a complete reinstall of my computer a month ago and I'm just getting back to playing on some of my games on Steam, but I have a problem. Some of the games I cannot play. I click on their icon in steam, prepares to load the game, and then the screen goes black. They don't go too much farther than that. They then minimize to the system tray. I can't get them to go to the title screen. It's weird. HL2: Ep1 works but HL2 and dystopia don't. Those are a few of the ones that I've tried.

I've tried looking through valve's support site but I find it to be a pain to use. I think Directx and my motherboard drivers are up to date. I just got ATI's new drivers today. I don't think it is the firewall since I turned that off and it didn't have any effect. Do you guys have any advice?
 
What operating system are you using? Is it legit? Are you overclocking? If so, specs and voltages. Give us the system info, man. For DirectX info, Start>run>dxdiag. Tell us the version. We'd be glad to help.
 
OS: XP SP2 college disk
Overclocking: Not really
System Info: AMD 3500+ at 2.2 Ghz, 1024 GB of ram, 9800 Pro, on a GA-K8NSC-939 motherboard
Directx: 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
Display drivers: ati2dvag.dll, version 6.14.0010.6666

My computer's always had problems with steam. My main problem before the reinstall was it just locking up. I did also have this same starting up problem before the reinstall, but it wasn't everytime like it is now. I just had to try opening the program again and it only seemed to happen with dystopia. None of the other programs did this before.
 
Hmm, which Cat drivers version are you using? the 7.2s came out today I believe.
 
Very odd. Have you tried verifying your gcf files for each game? Preferably hl2, and make sure you have the latest version of Dystopia downloaded. Are you getting any error messages or is just a straight crash to desktop?
 
It has something to do with the refresh rate. Try setting the directx refresh rate override or in the command line.
 
I'm using the Cat 7.2 drivers. Fromage, could you explain alittle more about the refresh rate thing you were talking about. I tried upping the refresh rate to 70hz on my monitor. I don't think you need to know this, but my monitor is a 19" Samsung SyncMaster 930B.
 
I don't have any other games installed at the moment. I've been working on my backlog of my console games and wanted to get back to a few of my favorite pc games.

I've always had problems with steam, but not like this. Before, the only real problem I'd have was it locking up a lot. My brother games on a socket A 2800, 1 gig of ram, and 9800 AIW and never this many problems with steam.
 
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