The Orange Box Games Crash while Preparing to Launch

Team Fortress 2, Half Life 2: Episode 2, and Portal go to "Preparing to launch..." then quit. How can I fix this?

Newer Source games require SSE in order to function properly. Please ensure that your processor includes SSE support.

Determining SSE support

CPU-Z is a free tool that can be used to determine which SSE instruction sets your CPU is capable of. Click here for more information. 

If you are using a 32-bit operating system (64-bit systems not supported), the following tool can be used to determine which SSE instruction sets are supported: 

1. Download our cputest.exe and save it to your desktop.
2. Open a command prompt.
   • Go to Start > Run.
   • Type in: cmd.
   • Press Enter.

   By default, your command prompt should open to: C:\Documents and Settings\<Windows User Name>.

3. Type in cd desktop to change to your desktop directory and press Enter. Your active directory should now look like this: C:\Documents and Settings\<Windows User Name>\Desktop\.
4. To run the program, type in cputest.exe and press Enter. The cputest will return an analysis of your CPU that will look something like this:

   •  Valve System Analyzer   ver. 0.2  Sep 27 2007
     
      CPU Analysis
      --------------------------------------------
       Vendor : GenuineIntel
      FuncIds : 10
      Stepping:  6
        Model : 15
       Family :  6
        Type  :  0
       XModel :  0
      XFamily :  0
      CacheLn : 64
          PN  :  No
      CLFlush : Yes
         MMX  : Yes
         SSE  : Yes
         SSE2 : Yes
         SSE3 : Yes
         HTT  : Yes
      XVendor :
      XFuncIds:  8
         MMXX :  No
       3DNow! :  No
       3DNow!+:  No
      --------------------------------------------
     

5. Look specifically for the SSE section.

   If you see SSE : No then your processor does not meet the minimum system requirements to run the new Source games. You must upgrade your motherboard and/or processor in order to play these games.

   If you see SSE : Yes then your processor meets the SSE support requirement of new Sources games. Please refer to the following FAQs to troubleshoot your issue:

   Verifying GCF Cache Files

   Troubleshooting Game Crashes