What's wrong with my setup?

[Preti9cboi]

I'm playing Half Life2 and it lags. It's hard for me to expain.

The lag normally occurs when i turn in a circle or face a specific direction. Best example i can give is, as I was standing still, I was facing a train that was heading my direction and my PC started to lag. I wasn't moving the mouse. I noticed when i turned in the opposite direction, still looking at the train roll down the rail away from me, it did not lag at all.

So my question is, do i need more ram or just quality ram?
I'm thinking i have cheap ram.


AMD Athlon 64 3000+
MSI K8n Neo2 939
512 corsair value select
ATI 9600 xt
Thermaltake case and 400W PSU

 

[UsandThem]

Originally posted by: Preti9cboi
I'm playing Half Life2 and it lags. It's hard for me to expain.

The lag normally occurs when i turn in a circle or face a specific direction. Best example i can give is, as I was standing still, I was facing a train that was heading my direction and my PC started to lag. I wasn't moving the mouse. I noticed when i turned in the opposite direction, still looking at the train roll down the rail away from me, it did not lag at all.

So my question is, do i need more ram or just quality ram?
I'm thinking i have cheap ram.


AMD Athlon 64 3000+
MSI K8n Neo2 939
512 corsair value select
ATI 9600 xt
Thermaltake case and 400W PSU

That setup should be fine to run the game. What resolution are you running at? Is AA on? What are your textures set at?

You need to give more info.

 

[nick1985]

well you could use a gig of RAM, and your video card isnt stellar.

 

[Appledrop]

for smooth hl2, you need 1gig of ram and CL_SMOOTH 0 set in console ( its set to 1 by default, strangely )

 

[meltdown75]

I don't think anything is wrong with your setup for HL2. It is either one or a combination of the following...

- drivers
- game settings
- hardware setup

I would start by listing what settings you are playing at, and also make sure you have the most updated drivers for your video card. Just for kicks, turn down all the eye candy and go to maybe 800x600 or 1024x768 and see how it runs. If it is smooth then you know you need to turn the settings down from what you have normally been playing it at. The 9600xt is a good card but like some have said, starting to show its age with newer titles. Also duly noted is HL2's backwards compatibility in that it plays very well even on PCs that you needed to blow the dust off of just to push the power button.

 

[UsandThem]

Originally posted by: nick1985
well you could use a gig of RAM, and your video card isnt stellar.

The 9600xt runs circles around my FX5900 in Half Life 2. I can still run it at 1024 X 768 with high details...at Direct X 8.1 however.

I also have slower P4 2.6 CPU. I do have 1 Gb of ram though.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: Azzy64
for smooth hl2, you need 1gig of ram and CL_SMOOTH 0 set in console ( its set to 1 by default, strangely )

what the mup does that do?

 

[Preti9cboi]

Thank you all for your responses.
As for in the game;

Resolution 1024X768
Aspect Ratio 4:3
Model Detail High
Antialasing 4x
Texture Detail High
Filtering Mode Trilinean
Water Detail Reflect World
Shader Detail High
Shadow Detail High
Wait for vertical sync enabled
Directx v9.0


Also, what would the normal load time for the game be? It normally takes me 30 seconds on average to load from my Hard Drive.
It's a western digital harddrive 7200 rpm set as my slave. I gotta try the 1 gig of ram.

 

[RussianSensation]

No wonder your game stutters. 9600xt probably cannot handle 1024x768 4AA. 1 gig of ram should help with loading times but I doubt this is what is causing your problems. I have 512mb of ram, a slower processor and 8500 videocard (old!) and the game runs SMOOTH at 800x600 medium detail (hitting 70-80 frames in places). So reduce some of that AA. I personally find that AF is better if i had to choose between AA and AF so see if running 4AF and 4AA gives you a better picture and less choppiness. Otherwise disable both.

 

[meltdown75]

You know what's funny about this thread... I asked in another thread (yesterday) what benefit Dual Channel would have in running 3D applications (I used 3dmark and HL2 as examples)... perhaps I should have rephrased that question and eliminated the Dual Channel aspect. Because apparently 1gb is much better for HL2 than 512 - dual channel aside?

 

[Preti9cboi]

Thanks for the advice. So you dont believe the ram is causing the loading problems? i guess i'll lower the resolution. =[

 

[worthless085]

dont need to lower resolution... lower the AA, thats asking alot of that card.

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: meltdown75
You know what's funny about this thread... I asked in another thread (yesterday) what benefit Dual Channel would have in running 3D applications (I used 3dmark and HL2 as examples)... perhaps I should have rephrased that question and eliminated the Dual Channel aspect. Because apparently 1gb is much better for HL2 than 512 - dual channel aside?

Half-Life 2 RAM Performance Tests

It doesnt seem like 1 gig of ram does much for HL2 from their tests.

Oh, ram could definately speed up your loading times. But I dont believe it's causing the stuttering.

 

[boyRacer]

It's RAM.

I have a 9500 Pro... 1280x960 no AA/AF everything on high and i get no lag. It used to stutter at the beginning of every stage in CS:S when i had 512MB... after adding another 512 i rarely see any HD activity anymore. Adding RAM will not give your more FPS... it will just make gameplay smoother if your system is caching your HD a lot.

EDIT: The stutter was only at the beginning of the stage when all the textures were loading... after I've gone around the map at least once... it was fine with just 512MB of ram. But it was definitely stuttering.

 

[dc5]

adding memory will only help load times. it will have little or no effect during gameplay. reduce your AA, your 9600xt is not a x800 pro