Half Life 2 choppy as hell

[nsafreak]

Ok folks this one has me baffled because I can't figure out any good reason why Half Life 2 would be running slower on a fresh install of Windows XP Pro. Had to do a fresh install recently for a variety of reasons but I never thought it would bring down my game performance. As a matter of fact the Video Stress Test benches the machine at a 83.92 fps. Yet whenever I look around in Half Life 2 it stutters like hell, this is even if I turn down all of the details as low as they'll go. I have the latest video card drivers, sound card drivers, etc. going on my machine. Any ideas? Quick specs:

P4 3.0Ghz HT
1 gig of RAM
120 gig HD (SATA, primary)
80 gig HD (ATA133, secondary)
Radeon 9800 Pro (latest drivers)
SB Audigy 2

 

[Snapster]

Is this a general gaming problem, or a half-life 2 specific problem? Possibly something is different in your config, maybe SATA drivers? Have you got any new software installed, something which may be running in background, like an antivirus on demand scanner (set it to ignore HL2 directory if so).

 

[nbarb99]

Video and/or motherboard chipset drivers are the first thing I'd think of. Do you have the latest versions of both installed?

 

[nsafreak]

This is a general gaming problem not just specific to HL2 (it just happens to be the game I play most) as the same issue appears if I play something like the SWAT 4 demo. Don't have anything running in the background that I didn't have running before. Insofar as drivers I have the latest video, sound, etc. drivers along with chipset although I have a Dell 8300 so I may not actually have the latest motherboard chipset drivers. I'm not sure about SATA drivers as when I look at the controllers none are displayed as SATA. The controller that I have my SATA drive on displays as being in Ultra DMA Mode 5. Are there Serial ATA drivers I should download?

 

[mundane]

Uncle was having the same problem - someone on the forums suggested turning off Fast Write in the BIOS. Couldn't find that option, instead updated to the very most recent ATI drivers, and suddenly the performance was smooth, no stuttering sfx or graphics. Also helped to kill everything running in the background.

 

[nsafreak]

I have the latest drivers from ATi on the machine already I'll try the Fast Write option but I have it down to a bare minimum for programs running in the background.

 

[nsafreak]

Well I found the problem AGP is not enabled in SMARTGART. But every time I try and turn it on to 8x speed it reboots and turns it off again. I can't figure out why this is happening. Ideas?

 

[nsafreak]

Ok I guess I didn't install the latest chipset drivers for my board. After doing so I was able to get AGP enabled at 8X and Fast Write is also enabled but I can't seem to disable it every time I do it re-enables it. Performance is a fair bit better but still not where it should be at for this CPU & video card combo. Are there any better video card drivers than the Catalyst drivers out there that I should give a shot?

 

[sandorski]

Catalyst 4.12, more recent Cats cause performance problems in HL2 for 9800 Pros.

 

[nsafreak]

Where can I get the 4.12 drivers?

 

[sandorski]

Here ya go Catayst downloads