Spot the problem and win the prize......

[madster26]

System Spec:
mother board: Intel D865GBF
processor: Intel Pentium 4 1.8 Ghz
Graphics Card: Sapphire radeon X1950 Pro 512MB AGP Card
Hard Disk: WD 500GB SATA II @ 7200 rpm running at SATA 1.5Gbps
1 GB (512MB x 2) DDR400 RAM
PSU: Cooler Master 390W
1 LG DVD RW
1 Liteon CD RW
1 FDD
Samsung 40Bn CRT monitor( Archaic I kno.... )
Operating System: Windows XP professional Edition

Standby Hardware:
Geforce4 mx440 AGP 8x card
ATi Radeon 9800 pro 256MB AGP card
Powersource 300W psu
40gb ATA Hard disk from seagate

Now here is the problem. I play 98% of the time Counter -strike 1.6 which was a game released way back in the 90's i guess. The problem is even with the above spec which i believe is an overkill for running cs i still dont get 100 fps. The fps varies continously between 30-80. I have noticed the drops especially when i play with bots or encounter a lot of players, or in small maps, especially during Death Matches! other times the fps drops during times of heavy fire or smoke or nades The FPS also drops when i play 5 on 5 or 4 on 4 and somtimes even during 1 on 1 randomly during the game . Initially whn i was using my Geforce4 mx 400 card i thought that the card was a bottleneck and so i got myself the sapphire x1950 pro card which ran on the 300W psu. still no improvement then i figured that my psu not able to provide enuf jjuice so i got the 390W cooler master psu. The problem persisted. So i got my friends 9800 which is a very good card for cs and tried it on my system and still the same problem. The funny thing was my old geforce card gave a 100fps on his system which is an athlon 2400+ system with a 380W psu running on an ASUS motherboard. Now the athlon is more like 2.2Ghz processor and with 400 mhz diff i am assuming that the processor differnce is nt the answer. Even if it was the proc is a overkill fr the game i play for which the min spec is like a p3 or p2 i think. I have tried all possible combos of the above hardware and my prob is not yet solved. I have all the latest drivers. Turned off vsync. Tried setting minimum quality. I have similar fps drops in all games i play. including FEAR, Splinter Cell Double Agent etc. One game i didnt notice any problem was Prince of persia warrior within. I have reinstalled my os a dozen times to make sure it is not bcuz of som background program taking up the resources . I am bamboozled by the problem. I could as well get a new mobo and proc bt still i am curious with this prob. Plz som1 help me....

 

[Illidan]

An Athlon XP 2400 is probably a third faster then your current processor or more. Athlon xp = faster per mhz then pentium 4. At low resolutions, CPU is the most important thing. Your graphics card far outpaces your CPU. I don't know what the reqs are for extremely high frame rates in counterstrike. Faster CPU couldn't hurt, though. Good luck.

 

[oynaz]

First off, the PSU does not affect FPS. Rule that out.

Second, the X1950 Pro card is the best of your video cards, but that is not the bottleneck anyway.

It seems like your CPU is to blame somehow. An Athlon 2400+ is much better than a P4 1.8. It does sound a bit strange, though. I ran CS on a Celeron 375 Mhz with a Riva TnT card without any trouble.

 

[madster26]

hmmm....all my problem does point to my cpu or motherboard....but i can understnd the faster cpu part...bt wat i dont understand is how can the cpu be the cause for fps drop for a game like Counter strike which has so low specs!! A 1.8 should be more than enuf to play CS considerin the fact that when i run fear i get a more than good fps....The thing that bothers is the sporadic fps drops I am tearing my hair out to figure this one out!

 

[oynaz]

Are you playing on online or offline?

 

[madster26]

it happens both online and offline...

 

[oynaz]

Try poking around in the BIOS. Some them has some default settings which can be loaded, like Optimal, Safe and Turbo. Sometimes, Safe modes can be very slow.

BTW, are you runnig CS in OpenGL or Direct3D mode? I recall some problems when running Direct3D.

 

[Captante]

I suggest you try rolling back to a much older ATI video driver & see if that helps performance ... I've had similar issues trying to run old games with low system requirements on new PC's & the reason id the the video card companies seem to put zero effort into backwards compatability.

 

[madster26]

well but i had the same fps problem with my geforce4 mx card...but then i thought it was the problem with the graphics card. But the same gcard gave a 100 fps with my friends athlon!

 

[robisbell]

either a power issue or the motherboard is defective or not configured correctly.