Decreasing load time to main menu of HL2

[American Zombie]

Go to SteamApps\account name\half-life 2\hl2\cfg

There is a file named Valve.rc in there so open it and comment out this line:
startupmenu

It looks like this now:
// display the startup level
startupmenu

Make it look like this:
// display the startup level
//startupmenu

What does it do?

This prevents the game from spawning a server to load the background and establishing a TCP/UDP listenport on port 27015.

Since I did this I can load to the main menu within 10 seconds after the Valve logo (I bypass logo anyway by pushing tilde).

 

[ElementalDragon]

damn........ gonna have to try that..... thx for the info American Zombie. was always wondering what on earth took so long for the menu to appear. then was always wondering why they had a stupid scene going on in the background of the menu (though it is an awesome touch, and the most creative one at that). didn't think it actually created a network game in a sense just to do so.

edit: just tried it. for me, don't think it was quite an "under 10 seconds" kinda deal, but it was a drastic improvement in the loading speed.

 

[Steevo]

It worked for me.


The other file in the folder lets you select how many chapters you have completed.