Application failed to initialize properly (0xc000012d)

I keep having crash issues in game. I run an ATI Xpress 200 series graphics card but it does have the updated driver as of yesterday. All my settings are low just to keep the FPS higher than it normally would be.

Lastnight I ran the "Source SDK Base" video test to try out the new driver. Everything worked properly and no crashes. No temporary lockups either. At first I tried with default settings and I had an average FPS result of around 14.
I lowered the settings to lowest possible shading/models/etc. and ran the test again. FPS improved very slightly up to around 17 or 18 fps. Still under 20.

My system is an emachine W3410
3200+ AMD Athlon 64 processor
512MB RAM (only one stick..Other slot empty)
100GB Hard drive (almost full. Has about 7 gigs left)
Onboard video card is a Radeon ATI Xpress 200 Series..
(But the motherboard does have 1PCI Express and 2open AGB slots for upgrades).

Today I created a dustbowl server to test some new binds and everything ran pretty good. FPS leaves something to be desired but no lockups and no crashes until I captured Command Point 1.
Suddenly the female capture voice looped a few hundred times and everything became unresponsive. After a few minutes of hitting ctrl+alt+delete and trying to get back to windows i was finally able to see the error messages.

The first one was an error box with the HL2 logo. After I closed that box I receieved a windows error box saying:

Application failed to initialize properly (0xc000012d)

this is the 3rd time this has happened. I'm really unsure about what to do..I can test trying to reinstall drivers until my eyes fall out but I don't know that it will help. Since there seems to be a sound-related cause I am going to try and reinstall my sound driver. I don't have a separate soundcard but rather onboard sound. Anyway, the sound in the game is fine until something triggers the lockup.

-ChriS

I reinstalled my sound driver and this time it didn't lock up when I captured CP 1 on dustbowl. after i captured CP2 I was in spawn runnin around and it locked up. Starting to think something ain't jivin with the vidcard driver.. Only thing that makes sense anyway. I'm gonna try lowering resolution and see if it helps at all..

I also have a emachine, and am having the same problem.

[Deadly Furby]

Originally Posted by blaster

My system is an emachine W3410
512MB RAM (only one stick..Other slot empty)
Onboard video card is a Radeon ATI Xpress 200 Series.

You are in SERIOUS need of additional memory especially since your system has onboard video and is utilizing part of the 512MB that you already have installed. Go pick up another stick of 512MB DDR400 and see if that doesn't make a huge difference in your performance.

My supervisor(wifer) agreed to let me put up 1400 bucks to get a new computer. Got it all picked out. Some of these older comps just don't have what it takes to run these newer games.

I tried lowering the resolution to 800x600 and had 0 lockups or issues. The FPS still leaves something to be desired..

There is another thread that sais you can try disabling friends from running when steam starts. Some guys have had 30fps and now have 90fps because the friends system is such a memory hog for whatever reason. Has helped out alot of people so far i guess. That's one way to help out the FPS anyway.

Someone else said to try running video filtering with anatropic 2x (not bilinear or trilinear filtering). I made both changes and am going to test it out..I'll let u know what happens.

-ChriS