Help Me! L4D2 issue

Richard O'Mally

Richard O'Mally

Uncharitable Spy
Hello, I have been having trouble with L4d2.

I installed it yesterday, launched it, and everything was working perfectly.
I then went to a chapter (Dead center, Dark Carnival etc.) and adjusted the settings in-game and was running smoothly. The next day I went to play it, it wouldn't let me join any of the sub-chapters even though it was 100% loaded. When i should of been in the chapter sequence, it was instead a black screen, then a BSOD and my computer froze and crashed, and restarts my computer all over again and brings me to the user log-in page.

Symptoms/problems in chronological order:
-A black screen appears instead of the normal terrain after I logged into the sub chapter to play it
-Audio is staggered into stop and go chunks with the black screen
-BSOD appears after the black screen
-Computer completely restarts

Diagnosis:
-I went to my Steam local files/verified integrity of game cache: all the files are completely installed.
-Re-launched L4d2 and changed everything to its recommended settings.
-Shutdown/restarted computer several times.
-Went to task manager and set L4d2 as a high CPU priority.

Note:
-I have had this same problem with my old Toshiba laptop awhile ago, and now it has happened to my HP Elite-book laptop.

-Other games ( e.g. Tf2 ) works perfectly fine, but not l4d2.

I haven't had any Luck!
Any help is greatly appreciated, Thanks!
 
Genocide

Genocide

Legendary Skial King
Contributor
BSOD followed by system restart is usually a sign of hardware or driver problems.

What error code does your BSOD display before the reboot?
 
Richard O'Mally

Richard O'Mally

Uncharitable Spy
Genocide said:
BSOD followed by system restart is usually a sign of hardware or driver problems.

What error code does your BSOD display before the reboot?
Click to expand...
Hello
The blue screen lasts for about 4 seconds max before my computer completely crashes, I'll keep re-launching L4d until I can find the error code and will report back.
 
Genocide

Genocide

Legendary Skial King
Contributor
Richard Matthias said:
Hello
The blue screen lasts for about 4 seconds max before my computer completely crashes, I'll keep re-launching L4d until I can find the error code and will report back.
Click to expand...
Considering you said this started after fiddling with your video settings, you could try the following.

1) In your Steam Library, Right Click Left 4 Dead 2 and goto Properties
2) In Launch options enter "-autoconfig" without the quotes
3) Launch the game

Or if you possibly set an incompatible resolution, you could try this (Although theoretically autoconfig should do this by itself)

1) In your Steam Library, Right Click Left 4 Dead 2 and goto Properties
2) In Launch options enter "-w 1920 -h 1080" without quotes (If you use 1080p)
3) Launch Game

If none of these work we can try other things and further investigate the BSOD code your computer is throwing.
 
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Richard O'Mally

Richard O'Mally

Uncharitable Spy
Genocide said:
Considering you said this started after fiddling with your video settings, you could try the following.

1) In your Steam Library, Right Click Left 4 Dead 2 and goto Properties
2) In Launch options enter "-autoconfig" without the quotes
3) Launch the game
Click to expand...

I tried this and re-launched the game and adjusted my video settings, it worked! However, when I exited out and re-launched the game it went back to having the black screen. If I can't edit the video settings, then my game starts to become laggy and choppy. Is there a video setting that is interfering with me logging into the sub-chapter?

Genocide said:
1) In your Steam Library, Right Click Left 4 Dead 2 and goto Properties
2) In Launch options enter "-w 1920 -h 1080" without quotes (If you use 1080p)
3) Launch Game
Click to expand...

I tried this, it came up with a black screen.
 
Genocide

Genocide

Legendary Skial King
Contributor
Richard Matthias said:
I tried this and re-launched the game and adjusted my video settings, it worked! However, when I exited out and re-launched the game it went back to having the black screen. If I can't edit the video settings, then my game starts to become laggy and choppy. Is there a video setting that is interfering with me logging into the sub-chapter?



I tried this, it came up with a black screen.
Click to expand...
At this point, i can only speculate what setting you are changing that your computer doesn't like. Could you provide a screenshot of the settings that auto config sets and then another with your changes? Also, would be helpful to know what video card you are using and your native screen resolution.

You should be using the same settings that you use for Tf2. They both run on the Source Engine.
 
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Richard O'Mally

Richard O'Mally

Uncharitable Spy
Genocide

Genocide

Legendary Skial King
Contributor
Richard Matthias said:
@Genocide

Video card: Mobile Intel(R) 4 series express chipset family
L4d2 Resolution setting: 640x800

Recommended/default video settings: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=359499122

My intentionally changed video settings: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=359499162

Autoconfig did not seem to change my video settings ( I don't know why that is ), so instead I put the screenshot for the recommended settings above.
Click to expand...
Sorry my reply took so long. Fell asleep.

In most circumstances, you should stick with your native resolution. So try changing back to it, 1280x800. The resolution you set is trying to force a 4:3 resolution onto a 16:10 monitor. Many games will simply letterbox to accomodate (Black bars), but sometimes it will jack things up. Also, sometimes disabling Vertical Sync can improve performance. Most times I leave vertical sync off unless I start seeing tearing on my screen. Try those 2 changes on your own custom config and let me know how it works.
 
Richard O'Mally

Richard O'Mally

Uncharitable Spy
Genocide said:
Sorry my reply took so long. Fell asleep.

In most circumstances, you should stick with your native resolution. So try changing back to it, 1280x800. The resolution you set is trying to force a 4:3 resolution onto a 16:10 monitor. Many games will simply letterbox to accomodate (Black bars), but sometimes it will jack things up. Also, sometimes disabling Vertical Sync can improve performance. Most times I leave vertical sync off unless I start seeing tearing on my screen. Try those 2 changes on your own custom config and let me know how it works.
Click to expand...

I tried all 3, no luck.
 
Genocide

Genocide

Legendary Skial King
Contributor
Richard Matthias said:
I tried all 3, no luck.
Click to expand...
Have you tried reinstalling the game? I know you said you verified files, but sometimes it makes a difference. It is truly hard to say what the issue is. If you are still getting a BSOD, I still think it could be a hardware/driver problem. You could try updating/reinstalling your video drivers and making sure your DirectX is up to date. If you get a chance, that BSOD code could really help to show us what is going on.
 
Genocide

Genocide

Legendary Skial King
Contributor
Richard Matthias said:
I tried all 3, no luck.
Click to expand...
Hey, just to humor me, could you open your Start Menu and type in Dxdiag then hit enter. On the window that opens click Save all Information. Then link that txt file here. That will help me tremendously to know the exact hardware you are running.
 
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Richard O'Mally

Richard O'Mally

Uncharitable Spy
Genocide said:
Hey, just to humor me, could you open your Start Menu and type in Dxdiag then hit enter. On the window that opens click Save all Information. Then link that txt file here. That will help me tremendously to know the exact hardware you are running.
Click to expand...

I am not able to upload a file, but I can copy and paste the info onto here.

Edit: My DirectX version is the same for both my computer and l4d2

------------------
System Information
------------------
Time of this report: 12/21/2014, 23:08:59
Machine name: ****
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.140303-2144)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Hewlett-Packard
System Model: HP EliteBook 6930p
BIOS: Default System BIOS
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P8700 @ 2.53GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.5GHz
Memory: 2048MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 1910MB RAM
Page File: 1725MB used, 2095MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
User DPI Setting: Using System DPI
System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled
DxDiag Version: 6.01.7601.17514 32bit Unicode
 
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Genocide

Genocide

Legendary Skial King
Contributor
Richard Matthias said:
I am not able to upload a file, but I can copy and paste the info onto here.

Edit: My DirectX version is the same for both my computer and l4d2

------------------
System Information
------------------
Time of this report: 12/21/2014, 23:08:59
Machine name: ****
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.140303-2144)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Hewlett-Packard
System Model: HP EliteBook 6930p
BIOS: Default System BIOS
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P8700 @ 2.53GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.5GHz
Memory: 2048MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 1910MB RAM
Page File: 1725MB used, 2095MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
User DPI Setting: Using System DPI
System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled
DxDiag Version: 6.01.7601.17514 32bit Unicode
Click to expand...

You pretty much cut out all the info I was looking for, aside from your basic system specs. Either that or there is a limit to the spoiler box. I wanted to see what video card your laptop uses, what drivers it was running on, and all your 3D settings. Try copy and pasting again, but this time do it on pastebin.com if there was a size limit on the forums. I won't be able to help you much if I have no info to work with.

Edit: I think I have located what video card your computer uses. Your card is ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3450 - 128 M. Thanks to the dxdiag giving me your computer model I was able to pull some info. I will see if I can do some research about that card having issues with the game.
 
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