Valve releases patch for Half-Life 2 stuttering issue

Since its release last week, Half-Life 2 has been scooped up by many a PC gamer. However, many of those same gamers have encountered recurring problems with the long-awaited shooter. As conveniently summed up on blep.net, many Half-Life 2 players have said that the glitch is "characterized by a sudden massive drop in frame rate when turning corners or moving into new areas of the game." Said frame rate drop is "usually accompanied by looping or stuttering sound."

Given the high quality of the majority of Half-Life 2's graphics, this glitch has many gamers more than a little irked. After dodging the issue for a while, Valve confirmed on numerous forums that it was working to release a patch as quickly as it could, and released an update for the "sound skipping problem" on Thanksgiving morning, which is available via Steam.