my pc not fast enough for HL2-EP1

[jealouse]

i thought my pc is pretty much up to the lastest. but while it plays HL2-EP1 okay, it constantly stutters and even momentarily freezes(no more than maybe .3 seconds) when i move my mouse around. my graphic option is left at game-recommended default, including 2AA and 4AF... screen resolution is 1284X1024

my pc is

a64 3700+ at 2.53 (230*11)
gigabyte 7900gtx
2gb memory
raptor 74X2 at raid 0
enermax 620w PSU

what are my options? if i get something like fx-57 and slightly overclock to 3ghz, would it help? or is it more dependend on graphic card? but there isn't really anything substentially faster than 7900gtx so there's a problem...

any comment/suggestion would be appreciated.

 

[stardrek]

Your system should be able to play that game fine. I have a 4400 X2, X850XT PE, 2GB of memory and I play HL2 at 1280x1024 almost maxed out on AA and AF and have no problems.

BTW: Your sound system sounds great...I have have some LSi9's and a wonderful old Technics reciver for my computer system.

 

[Kromis]

Wow...that's really funny...

For some reason, sometimes my system does that too. Maybe theres something in your background hogging up the CPU!

Also, what motherboard do you have? I think it is contributing to your problem. Or maybe it only happens in Episode One?

I have a sh!tty motherboard (ECS! Yeah, I know, I was a stupid buyer at Fry's like four years ago) and whenever I play games, I get a lot of stuttering with my X850PRO (currently borrowing)! I have a 2.4GHz Intel P4 Northwood core, 1536 MB of PC2700 RAM, A Seagate 250GB and 160GB, and onboard sound!!! BUT! The culprit maybe a problem in your system! I used to have MAJOR STUTTERING problems whenever I played CSS or BF2 when my computer was jacked up. My windows was corrupted and some things didn't work and it would occasionally cause a three-second stutter or lag.

No need for upgrading, just repair your windows. Do an repair installation to fix your corrupted files (if any) or just defragment!

 

[Phili]

my pc:
Athlon 64 Venice 3000+
1GB OCZ RAM
PNY Geforce 6800 GT

HL2-EP1 runs fine at 1280*1024 plus AA, AF and HDR.

Try to update the video driver, do a disc defragmentation, disable HDR (just to try if it fixes your problem). Repair windows. If this doesn't help you have many possibilities to solve it, mainly with BIOS settings like apperture size and stuff...

 

[Sforsyth]

Just a thought I have a nForce 2 MOBO and when I tried to play BF2 and HL2 it would stuuter bad with the on-board sound, I stuck in a old PCI sound card I had laying around and turn the on-board off and my stuttering troubles went away.

 

[BassBomb]

u definatley have somthing hogging your ram or cpu, not sure

i have (sig) rig ... im running it at 1280x1024 0xAA 4xAF everything else full NO vsync
and it runs very well (small slowdowns to 20 FPS in high physics scenarios, average is 34FPS)

it runs very well for my liking with decent eye candy (considering my rig)

 

[Avalon]

That shouldn't be happening. I had no lag troubles playing at 1280x960 with 2xAA/8xAF on a 7600GT, 1GB of mem, and an Opteron 144 @ 2.5...

Check to make sure you don't have graphical options force enabled in your graphics control panel. Sometimes I leave 8xAA/16xAF forced on in my control panel when I play some Natural Selection, and I forget to turn it back to Application preference when I'm done...so when I go to play something demanding like Oblivion, it will slideshow.

If that's already on application preference, I'd recommend uninstalling your drivers and reinstalling them.

If that doesn't work...are you sure that your overclock is stable?

 

[mancunian]

That definitely shouldn't be happening.

My rig:

A64 939 Venice @ 2.6Ghz
Asrock Dual Sata mobo
1 Gig cheapass RAM
X800GTO AGP 256mb @ 16pipes + 425/550mhz
Thermaltake 560W PSU (crap)


Currently playing HL2 @ 1074 x 768 but with settings of:
6 x aa and 16 x af
everything else set to max
no vsynch

about 50 fps, drops to 35 in heavy action.

Something definitely amiss with your set up. Defragging certainly gave a noticeable increase in smoothness for me.

I used a program called powerdefrag, much better than the windows utility. Pick it up here: http://www.powerdefrag.com/

 

[Sforsyth]

Let us know if you get it fixed !

Did you try turning the on-board sound off yet?

 

[jealouse]

Originally posted by: stardrek
Your system should be able to play that game fine. I have a 4400 X2, X850XT PE, 2GB of memory and I play HL2 at 1280x1024 almost maxed out on AA and AF and have no problems.

BTW: Your sound system sounds great...I have have some LSi9's and a wonderful old Technics reciver for my computer system.

thanks. i used to change components in my sound system every other months. speaking of expensive hobby! glad i spend more time on my pc these days, although even that's becoming hard due to my work schedule...

 

[jealouse]

Originally posted by: Kromis
Wow...that's really funny...

For some reason, sometimes my system does that too. Maybe theres something in your background hogging up the CPU!

Also, what motherboard do you have? I think it is contributing to your problem. Or maybe it only happens in Episode One?

I have a sh!tty motherboard (ECS! Yeah, I know, I was a stupid buyer at Fry's like four years ago) and whenever I play games, I get a lot of stuttering with my X850PRO (currently borrowing)! I have a 2.4GHz Intel P4 Northwood core, 1536 MB of PC2700 RAM, A Seagate 250GB and 160GB, and onboard sound!!! BUT! The culprit maybe a problem in your system! I used to have MAJOR STUTTERING problems whenever I played CSS or BF2 when my computer was jacked up. My windows was corrupted and some things didn't work and it would occasionally cause a three-second stutter or lag.

No need for upgrading, just repair your windows. Do an repair installation to fix your corrupted files (if any) or just defragment!

i installed fresh copy of winxp few weeks ago. there aren't many software installed either, as it's my gaming machine. other member suggested i try pci soundcard instead of onboard sound and that's what i'm planning to do next

 

[jealouse]

Originally posted by: Avalon
That shouldn't be happening. I had no lag troubles playing at 1280x960 with 2xAA/8xAF on a 7600GT, 1GB of mem, and an Opteron 144 @ 2.5...

Check to make sure you don't have graphical options force enabled in your graphics control panel. Sometimes I leave 8xAA/16xAF forced on in my control panel when I play some Natural Selection, and I forget to turn it back to Application preference when I'm done...so when I go to play something demanding like Oblivion, it will slideshow.

If that's already on application preference, I'd recommend uninstalling your drivers and reinstalling them.

If that doesn't work...are you sure that your overclock is stable?

yes, the drivers are left untouched, and set to application preference. and as for my OC, it passed 25 hours prime95 ( was gonna run for 24 hours but i overslept), as well as memtest86+, superPI, 3dmark, etc...

my MO is MSI K8NG..urg....-FID that's microATX Mo based on nforce 6150. and am currently using onboard sound. will try pci soundcard...

 

[jealouse]

Originally posted by: Sforsyth
Let us know if you get it fixed !

Did you try turning the on-board sound off yet?

well i do have an extra pci sound card. i think it's audigy zs or something that i got few years ago when i had xp barton...

the problem which i just realized is, that there's only one PCI slot available for use. and if i install it, it will block the huge HSF of 7900GTX, as the gap between 7900GTX and PCI sound card is something like 1/12 of an inch. they won't touch each other but pretty close.

do you guys expect problem from this possible setting with pci sound, due to the air flow problem? anyone installed pci card right next to 7900gtx or anything with huge HSF and ran well?

again, comments appreciated. thanks

 

[cvrefugee]

My computer stutters only after loading a new part of a level.

 

[Phili]

yes, stutters shortly after loading a level are normal

 

[Captante]

Originally posted by: jealouse

Originally posted by: Sforsyth
Let us know if you get it fixed !

Did you try turning the on-board sound off yet?

well i do have an extra pci sound card. i think it's audigy zs or something that i got few years ago when i had xp barton...

the problem which i just realized is, that there's only one PCI slot available for use. and if i install it, it will block the huge HSF of 7900GTX, as the gap between 7900GTX and PCI sound card is something like 1/12 of an inch. they won't touch each other but pretty close.

do you guys expect problem from this possible setting with pci sound, due to the air flow problem? anyone installed pci card right next to 7900gtx or anything with huge HSF and ran well?

again, comments appreciated. thanks

Is that 1/2 inch or 1/12th of an inch between the soundcard & the fan?

One half inch should be fine, otherwise you may have airflow problems.

 

[Kougar]

Originally posted by: Sforsyth
Just a thought I have a nForce 2 MOBO and when I tried to play BF2 and HL2 it would stuuter bad with the on-board sound, I stuck in a old PCI sound card I had laying around and turn the on-board off and my stuttering troubles went away.

I am pretty sure it is the on-board sound spiking your CPU resources. This has been a known previous problems for HL2 with integrated sound or other sound-setups where the CPU has had to cover the surges in load.

Unfortunately there isn't much I can do to rectify (Or test) this in my case right now, as I did get the stuttering problem. I changed from 1280by1024 down to a Widescreen 1280by800 resolution and left all the other settings default (maxed, with 4AS no AA) and the stuttering went almost completely away. Pretty sure two gigs of memory would have had a very noticeable improvment as well, although not fixed the stuttering.

Pentium M 2.13ghz
nVidia 6800 GO Ultra
1gig DDR2 533mhz Ram
AC97 Sound