Bad performance with the half life 2 enigine

[fustercluck]

I've always had problems running games on the HL2 engine, and i still do, even though i should have a good enough system to run games on there. Though i turn just about all video settings at the lowest possible level and still have trouble playing CS source or other HL2 engine based games. Runs at about 45 fps average but dips down a lot. Here's a screenshot (copy and paste the link) http://www.freewebs.com/fustercluck/cssfps%201.jpg

Seems like every computer i've ever had has underachieved big time in the graphics department. I think computers just don't like me. My system is in my sig. I don't feel like i should have to upgrade anything to play games like these. Why can't my system just perform how it's supposed to for once?

Anyways, what other stuff should i check out to improve my video performance?

 

[NoStateofMind]

Maybe another GB of RAM? Other than that, I don't know what to tell you.




<jumps up and down for 900th post!>

 

[fustercluck]

Shat i dunno. I don't think another GB of ram will do the trick though, could help a little, but i should really be getting more FPS is seems like.

 

[Acanthus]

Adding ram will NOT help with CS:S...

Your performance seems abysmally low for minimum settings, do you run AA/AF?

Drivers up to date?

Any trouble in any other titles?

 

[fustercluck]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
Adding ram will NOT help with CS:S...

Your performance seems abysmally low for minimum settings, do you run AA/AF?

Drivers up to date?

Any trouble in any other titles?

AA and AF are off (shown in the SS i think)

Drivers are up to date.

I'm not really playing any other titles right now, i try to stay away from newer type games because of the demanding graphics my computer can't handle (although maybe it should be able to). I usually play older games if i can, so i don't have to worry about slowdowns. That's what i hate about PC gaming. A $400 Xbox360 would own my computer graphics wise. Dropping framerates FTL

 

[Stumps]

this is kinda funny....since I replaced my trusty old 9700pro with a 6800GT I seem to get lower Framerates in anything that uses the source engine...I put it down to the fact that I had switched from the prefered ATI setup to a Nvidia card, but even then the 6800GT outperm the old 9700pro....but I'm not sure what I can tell you, even my rig still get a higer frame rate than yours, even though you have the better setup for that engine, my rig is as follows

AMD 3000+@2.67Ghz (skt 754 E6 Venice)
GA-K8NS PRO
ASUS V9999GT 128mb (6800GT)
1GB Sietec DDR400, 7-3-3-2.5 2T
2x WD1200 JB 120gb in Raid 0
Hercule Fortissimo 3

according to your specs, you rig should be capable of wiping the floor with mine

 

[BFG10K]

Have you installed the latest chipset drivers for your system?

 

[fustercluck]

That doesn't surprise me, Stumps. Like i said it seems like my computers never perform the way they should, what am i buying knock off parts here or what? - If i did a 3Dmark test, i'm almost certain the 3Dmark score would look normal, but then when i'm actually playing games, most everything runs much worse than it should.

I remember about a year ago i went from a 9800 pro to a 6800GT and had little to no video performance improvements in CS:Source, i tried many things, but couldn't get any better video performance than i did with my old 9800 pro, i figured maybe my 6800GT was bad or just didn't get along with my system or something, so i ended up selling the 6800GT and getting my X800XL (for about $75 cheaper also) and it also had little to no improvement over my 9800 Pro. I'm pretty tech and gaming savvy, but I've never been able to figure out why my computers in the past (and my current computer) always underachieve big time. I can't think of a word other than underachieve

Also i've tried reformatting and reinstalling windows in the past, and that also didn't seem to solve my problems. I always uninstall my old video drivers correctly, using driver cleaner.

It's always been really aggravating, which is usually why i just forget about it and stick to old games that arent graphically demanding. I wanted to try Oblivion when it first came out, but i tried the demo and i couldn't run that on the lowest video settings either, even when the game looked like a jagged bucket of crap, framerates were dropping a lot.

Not 100% sure i have the most up to date chipset drivers right now, where can i get them again? I'll look for them tomorrow i guess, i think i'm going to try and sleep now.

 

[BassBomb]

somethings definatley wrong as i can play with a 6600GT with much higher settings @1280x1024

 

[hmorphone]

I agree that something's definitely wrong... I'm running the same card in a simular system and have no prob getting good framerates in HL2 with AA and AF

 

[Stumps]

latest ATI drivers are the Catalyst 6.5, availible from www.ati.com, I haven't used anything past the 5.11 as anything new is actually slower on my 9700pro(I still use it on my second rig which is a AXP 3000+, GA-R9700PRO, GA-7N400 PRO, 1GB DDR333), it can run HL2 and CS:S quite good at 1024x768 High quality, but I have found that using anything newer than the 5.11's does incure a 10% performance penalty for some reason...I'm not quite sure why but I have been able to reproduce the results on my other systems, which feature P4's(3.06@3.4ghz and 2.66@3.06ghz) and GA 9600XT's and 9500PRO's....all of them get lower 3Dmark scores and game frame rates with the later drivers...strange stuff, I'm not sure if it has to do with the CCC(which I hated anyway).

I just figured I would use what ever works best for me...maybe you should give the 5.11's a try....it couldn't really perform any crapper than what your system already does(no offence intended)

 

[rstrohkirch]

Originally posted by: jacktackle
That doesn't surprise me, Stumps. Like i said it seems like my computers never perform the way they should, what am i buying knock off parts here or what? - If i did a 3Dmark test, i'm almost certain the 3Dmark score would look normal, but then when i'm actually playing games, most everything runs much worse than it should.

I remember about a year ago i went from a 9800 pro to a 6800GT and had little to no video performance improvements in CS:Source, i tried many things, but couldn't get any better video performance than i did with my old 9800 pro, i figured maybe my 6800GT was bad or just didn't get along with my system or something, so i ended up selling the 6800GT and getting my X800XL (for about $75 cheaper also) and it also had little to no improvement over my 9800 Pro. I'm pretty tech and gaming savvy, but I've never been able to figure out why my computers in the past (and my current computer) always underachieve big time. I can't think of a word other than underachieve

Also i've tried reformatting and reinstalling windows in the past, and that also didn't seem to solve my problems. I always uninstall my old video drivers correctly, using driver cleaner.

It's always been really aggravating, which is usually why i just forget about it and stick to old games that arent graphically demanding. I wanted to try Oblivion when it first came out, but i tried the demo and i couldn't run that on the lowest video settings either, even when the game looked like a jagged bucket of crap, framerates were dropping a lot.

Not 100% sure i have the most up to date chipset drivers right now, where can i get them again? I'll look for them tomorrow i guess, i think i'm going to try and sleep now.

2 things

1.) If you have been using the same settings in source between all your video cards then it won't matter since
10x7 with all low settings in source is FAR more cpu limited then gpu

2.) I have big problems with source if I have both cores enabled, I assume you have one disabled?

 

[fustercluck]

Originally posted by: rstrohkirch
2 things

1.) If you have been using the same settings in source between all your video cards then it won't matter since
10x7 with all low settings in source is FAR more cpu limited then gpu

2.) I have big problems with source if I have both cores enabled, I assume you have one disabled?

I've tried many different video settings with all video cards i've used.

My Opteron 146 is not a dual core CPU.

Anyone have any ideas of something that might help? I'll probably just live with it, like i've always done :disgust:

 

[BFG10K]

Not 100% sure i have the most up to date chipset drivers right now, where can i get them again?

I'd say that's the problem - you've forgotten to install them.

Go to your motherboard manufacturer's site and get them from there.

 

[conlan]

I would definately go back and check all the basics, starting with your chipset drivers.

Also: when you switched VidCards, did you completly uninstall the card, drivers, and run Driver Cleaner, before installing the new drivers?
I have seen more problems caused by not following the above (proper/current chipset drivers, proper uninstall / reinstall of VidCard) than everything alse combined, especially when going from one brand to another (i.e. nVidia > ATI) In either case, I always reinstall my chipset drivers when changing VidCards.

As an example, our back-up rig below runs Source games beautifully:

XP 2700+ (stock speeds)
1 GB PC-2700
9800 Pro (stock speeds)

Try these suggestions and let us know, Good luck

 

[Ika]

i agree with conlan, you should probably check all the little things (drivers, chipset, etc). My PC is a P4 1.8, 512 cheapo ram, and a 6800NU, and I run source games perfectly fine.

 

[dguy6789]

As recommended above, you should do the following things. Install the latest motherboard drivers, which for yours, are right here:

http://www.nvidia.com/page/uli_drivers.html

Download the latest video card drivers, which can be found here:

https://support.ati.com/ics/support/def...deptID=894&task=knowledge&folderID=293

Also, run Windows update and get all of the updates except for something like msn messenger unless you use it.(MANY people neglect to do this)

 

[JBT]

Try actually raising the settings on that stuff I know for some reason when I had my 6800GT it actually performed better with highier settings.

 

[fustercluck]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
As recommended above, you should do the following things. Install the latest motherboard drivers, which for yours, are right here:

http://www.nvidia.com/page/uli_drivers.html

Download the latest video card drivers, which can be found here:

<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="https://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&folderID=293">https://support.ati.com/ics/support/......ID=894&task=knowledge&folderID=293</a>

Also, run Windows update and get all of the updates except for something like msn messenger unless you use it.(MANY people neglect to do this)

How can i check what version my current chipset drivers are?

I have the latest video drivers, got the a couple days ago. Steam told me to install them to play HL2 Episode 1, which unsurprisingly runs badly also, lots of big slowdowns.

Yes i used driver cleaner and got rid of any old bits and pieces from older video drivers the proper way.

 

[nitromullet]

Just grab the newest set for your motherboard...

http://www.asrock.com/support/index_download.asp

 

[dguy6789]

Originally posted by: nitromullet
Just grab the newest set for your motherboard...

http://www.asrock.com/support/index_download.asp

The problem with those is that they are all separate, and issues can be encountered if you install them in the wrong order. I recommend just downloading the newest version of the all in one drivers that I linked to on the nVidia page.

 

[evolucion8]

Quite strange, I can play hl2 at high resolutions with my X800XT PE but I love the Anti Aliasing, so i play it at 1024x768 with 6x Super Sampling Adaptive Anti Aliasing and 16x Aniso and is always above the 80fps and up to 224fps, sometimes it dips arounds the 30s and only once to 23pfs, but is in very rare cases.

 

[fustercluck]

Yeehaw, the chipset drivers really helped a lot. Don't you hate how it's always some little stupid shite like that? I hate computers. Still dropping below 60 FPS fairly often, but not nearly as much as it used to, so i'm happy with it. FPS average is a good deal higher, all because of the stupid chipset drivers. Thanks for the help folks.

Originally posted by: jacktackle
i think i'm going to try and sleep now.

Think i'll try again pretty soon