Steam Update Created 19 years ago2005-04-04 00:16:49 UTC by satchmo

I recently installed HL2 on my new computer, but I am fairly convinced that Steam did not upload all the patches released since the original version from the CD was installed.

I noticed that after I installed HL2 and ran it for the first time, it only took 5 minutes for Steam to update the files. I know that it should take longer to update all the patches, even with a DSL line.

I am betting that Steam just used the information from my account and only updated the last patch (from March 25th). Consequently, I am missing all the patches from November to most of March.

So how can I get those patches updated manually? I searched the Steam forum, but I didn't find any answer related to this issue.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

No, it's not, I assure you. If you're running it off a new computer, Steam should realise that the updates aren't there and will proceed to update them. This is what happened when I formated.

What happens you run the games? Right click the game in Steam and go to Properties and check: does it say 100%? What about the other games? Do they load fine? Check the Steam monitor as well to see if anything is updating. Otherwise, be glad it was done in 5 minutes.

Thanks, Anthony. It does say 100% from Properties.

I just can't believe it that it only took 5 minutes.

Oh, how I love broadband.

Be glad, it took me hours after I formated. Good 'ol 33k.

Maybe all the patches affecting the same core files are combined for people updating late.

Takes me even less time, I'm on 2Mb ;;)))!1?!$?

Back up the GCFs sometime before you next format, it'll give you a head-start.

Probably a good idea. I'd do a full backup from Steam if I had a DVD burner though.

just play the game and you will know if its been updated right or not

The game plays very well, with rare intermittent jerks. But I think that's just part of the Source engine.

I just found it hard to believe that the Steam update only took five minutes. It helped that I updated when it was 22:00 PDT, when the rest of the world was sleeping, and the Steam server was having the lightest load.

How intermittent?

Very seldom. Perhaps every ten minutes or so. And it's very brief--lasting only 50 milisecond or so. It's hardly noticeable.

Probably just Source engine woes: try lowering the GFX settings a tad.

Hm, perhaps fragmentation or a small swap file? I very highly recommend Diskeeper for defragging and a 2GB pagefile if you have a gig of RAM and HDD space to burn (can't hurt to have a bigger effective disk cache, can it?).

If that doesn't do it, probably just slightly poor coding or a complicated operation in the code.