Trying to run Half-Life/CS/DoD on an ancient box

Alan Bolte · Post by **Alan Bolte** » 2004-10-02 02:55am

So I've got this real old computer, and I want to see if it will run a program that's about as old as it is. But I can't tell you how much trouble I've been having. I changed the video driver twice, the sound driver once, I've fiddled with a bunch of settings, and I'm still getting shitty performance with pleny of graphical and sound oddities. I can't do anything online either because either I time out or I get some sort of error. It's almost as if I don't have the greatest possible internet connection normal amounts of money can buy.

The specs:
AMD K6 350 MHz processor
64 MB RAM
ESS AudioDrive sound card
8 MB ATI RAGE LT PRO video card

Do I keep trying at all? Does anyone have any experience with optimizing such machines to run this game?

IRG CommandoJoe · Post by **IRG CommandoJoe** » 2004-10-02 01:29pm

Uh...why are you attemping to run it on your old computer? Is it the only one you have?

Alan Bolte · Post by **Alan Bolte** » 2004-10-02 05:08pm

At the moment, at this location, yes. Also, it's only really out of curiousity. I'll get around to getting a better one eventually.

Hmm, tried CounterStrike, and it keeps timing out.

And what on earth could be causing that buzzing/hissing noise in the background when I'm playing HL?

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2004-10-02 05:20pm

well, what OS is it running, also the soundcard could be a problem, if you got an intergrated sound try it.

Alan Bolte · Post by **Alan Bolte** » 2004-10-02 06:26pm

I'm on Windows 98 and have updated all I can.
I don't really know anything about sound setup, other than that I have an integrated chip, not a card as I misposted.

Device Manager lists:
blank space
ES1869 Control Interface
ES1869 Plug and Play AudioDrive

I must say, I'm feeling rather unknowledgable right now. And I'm definitely curious as to why there's a blank space in my Device Manager. Although in looking around I've seen some people quite irritated with this sound chip so perhaps it's just shitty.

Gah, wait, I turned off hardware acceleration at some point, im not even sure what's causing what or what problems are going to occur when I turn the hardware back on. Gah. I'm just no good at this.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2004-10-02 06:44pm

That computer has more then enough processing power to run Half Life. Back in 1998 when I bought Half Life I ran it on my Pentium 2 300 Mhz machine. Did that for three years.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2004-10-02 06:48pm

Alan Bolte wrote:I'm on Windows 98 and have updated all I can.
I don't really know anything about sound setup, other than that I have an integrated chip, not a card as I misposted.

Device Manager lists:
blank space
ES1869 Control Interface
ES1869 Plug and Play AudioDrive

I must say, I'm feeling rather unknowledgable right now. And I'm definitely curious as to why there's a blank space in my Device Manager. Although in looking around I've seen some people quite irritated with this sound chip so perhaps it's just shitty.

Gah, wait, I turned off hardware acceleration at some point, im not even sure what's causing what or what problems are going to occur when I turn the hardware back on. Gah. I'm just no good at this.

Okey, definitly the sound, try disabling it in windows\BIOS and telling CS to run no sound, not anywhere near an optimal solution but it works.

you got USB headphones with an intergrated chip? mine appear to bypass the intergrated audio chip (AC97') so might work for you.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-10-02 06:52pm

I had worlds of trouble with my sound on Win 98, and that was the sound driver the comp had on it. It was just random.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2004-10-02 08:01pm

I've run it on (almost) worse:

PII-266
Intel i740 GPU with 8 Megs
96MB RAM
SB16 ISA

Alan Bolte · Post by **Alan Bolte** » 2004-10-03 03:42am

Well, turning off the ESS POS did help a little, but I'm testing HL on the first area of Office Complex - with the flashing lights and the electrified wire sparking and headcraps getting gibbed - and it's running like total shit. 'bout 0 fps and some weirdass physics results on the gibs and such. I'm thinking it might have something to do with the lighting, but I'm not sure how closely related it is because I can turn on my flashlight and wave it around in a dark tunnel with no noticable slowdown. And I think memory is a little bit of a problem with CS, seeing as I once got a Cache_TryAlloc error. I did what all the FAQs suggested and upped my Hunksize, but I'm not sure if that did anything becuase my CS connection attempt results are inconsistent, except in the fact that they always fail.

And I think the CPU on that is the only thing worse, plutonium. Not that I shouldn't be able to run this. Although it might be some issue with Steam, seeing as it takes up a bit of memory itself. But I don't think there's any way to run CS without Steam anymore, and I don't have a Half-Life disk here.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2004-10-03 03:54am

Okey...patch it, and try and find CS1.5 if that still exists.

Alan Bolte · Post by **Alan Bolte** » 2004-10-03 11:49am

Ace Pace wrote:Okey...patch it,

What? I'm lost now.

and try and find CS1.5 if that still exists.

I'm sure it exists somewhere, but what am I going to do with it if the only way to play is through Steam, which uses 1.5? Perhaps someone somewhere is hosting something that allows you to play 1.5, I guess I'll go look around at some point, but I'm not sure what the point is. What's so different between 1.5 and 1.6?

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2004-10-03 11:55am

Alan Bolte wrote: I'm sure it exists somewhere, but what am I going to do with it if the only way to play is through Steam, which uses 1.5? Perhaps someone somewhere is hosting something that allows you to play 1.5, I guess I'll go look around at some point, but I'm not sure what the point is. What's so different between 1.5 and 1.6?

Did you path HL to 1.10.xx?

also, 1.5 is independent of steam, and I still think has the master server running, if you can find a copy, try and play you should be able to find servers, and a much better quality of gamers.

1.5 to 1.6, 1.6 added the riot shield, but basicly 1.6 added steam.

Alan Bolte · Post by **Alan Bolte** » 2004-10-08 08:54pm

Um, how can I find servers with 1.5? All I get are messages to update, and that updates aren't available. I imagine that means they only want you playing on Steam. Is there any way to play without Steam that you know of specifically? I don't really know what I'm doing here.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2004-10-09 03:46am

Alan Bolte wrote:Um, how can I find servers with 1.5? All I get are messages to update, and that updates aren't available. I imagine that means they only want you playing on Steam. Is there any way to play without Steam that you know of specifically? I don't really know what I'm doing here.

Ah okey, they took them down, because up untill this summer, you could still play 1.5.

Without the master server, I don't see how, I suppose you should buckle up and download steam

For someone who's pro steam: get this: I am not anti-steam, I love the idea, I'm opposed to the current program, who's memory footprint is massive, and who's connection slows down the rest of my PC.

Alan Bolte · Post by **Alan Bolte** » 2004-10-09 09:53am

Seeing as Steam was what I was trying earlier, and the memory footprint was probably havlf the problem, I'm just gonna quit. No big deal, more incentive to bother going out and getting a decent box to use here.

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2004-10-09 06:26pm

Alyeska wrote:That computer has more then enough processing power to run Half Life. Back in 1998 when I bought Half Life I ran it on my Pentium 2 300 Mhz machine. Did that for three years.

Duude, I've played HL in a 486. A bit slow but it ran perfectly, without acceleration.

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2004-10-10 04:24am

The other thing is that those early ATI 8mb video cards were absolute crap for games. Find an old NVidia Vanta or the like (since it has a K6-2, I assume it has AGP) and use that instead.

Alan Bolte · Post by **Alan Bolte** » 2004-10-10 12:10pm

It's a K6, not a K6-2, and its 2x AGP slot is filled with the soldered-in crap card. Several years ago, when we were looking to upgrade this computer because it was the only one we had, we found quite conclusively that there was abosolutely no way to upgrade it that would be worthwhile compared to shelling out for a new computer, which is what we did. And that was years ago. So I'm gonna pretend I don't care for a little while and eventually go out and get myself something more up-to-date. Preferably something that can play HL2, I'm really looking forward to that. So, yeah, end of thread, though I might come back and ask for purchasing advice in a new thread later.