The Half-Life 2 Stuttering Problem

This site is a collection of information on a problem with Half-Life 2 that has plagued many players of this otherwise excellent game. This problem is characterized by a sudden massive drop in frame rate when turning corners or moving into new areas of the game. These drops are usually accompanied by looping or stuttering sound during the frame rate drop which is how most people become aware of the problem. Aside from these isolated drops in frame rate, the game is otherwise perfectly smooth. These sudden drops kill the immersion and lead to a very frustrating experience. Below you will find additional details on this problem, some theories, and all responses from Valve on this problem.

In DougV's post from yesterday he claims, "There are currently less than 200 open tickets in our support incident database for the audio stuttering problem". Apparently my personal correspondence with a Valve engineer confirming the problem, and the hundreds of thousands of forum posts on this topic are not enough to convince Valve that this problem is widespread. This site has been on the front pages of Slashdot, Blue's News, Voodoo Extreme, GameSpot and numerous other enthusiast sites and has received over 600,000 views.

To show Valve the extent of this problem, we need to play by their rules. Anyone experiencing the stuttering or slowdown problem should submit a ticket in Valve's support database by using the following link:

Tell Valve About Your Stuttering Problem

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