1 frame every one and a half seconds in EPISODE ONE!

[Midnight Cowboy]

Okay here's the context and the problem.

I bought Episode One off steam (in case that effects any speculation to what this problem might be) and started it up, hit new game and everything is going fine (except for a longer load time than all my other source games)... I notice a little bit of stuttering, and as soon as G-man is gone...

...STUTTER CLUSTER ****- my first reaction is it'll pass... (getting digged out of the rubble by dog) it'll still pass... (got gravity gun) uh... not passing (look at corner) ah... passed, finally... (turns view around back to Alyx and Dog) hmm... not passed.

So what's the deal I thought; All the settings are turned up (to my knowledge) when I looked more closely and see that it detects my 9800Pro as being directx 8.1. So I can't turn HDR on (only Bloom), and the game runs at a frame per second at best with sound to match, "OV-OV-OV-OV-OV-ER-ER-ER-ER-ER..."

So I get desperate and turn the rez down to 800X600... and it's the same suttering/frame rate.

So then I turn down all the options and finally I have a playable game, which I finished, and I must say, is ****ing amazing.

But here's my specs,

Pentium 4, 2.8Ghz
512mb
Radeon 9800Pro 128mb
YES LATEST DRIVERS (Catalyst 6.5)

I can run Half-Life 2 at 1024X728 at full settings and 4XAA at a high fps.
I can run Lost Coast at 800X600 with HDR at a high fps.
Why can't Episode One even try to meet me halfway? I mean I have to play it at 800x600 with almost everything turned off or down.

What's worse is that on starting up HL2 to try to see if this is just a problem with EPONE or all my source games... the menu stutters... then thinking I should just see if it runs fine ingame it did... I was relieved, untill I went into the video options to see that the game ALSO recognized my card as being DX8.1! and had turned down most of the video settings to medium where previously they were on high.

Please help me for super happy feelings!

 

[Beerdude26]

I have absolutely no idea :|
Try turning up your heapsize:
* 512MB System Memory: -heapsize 262144
* 1GB System Memory: -heapsize 524288
* 2GB System Memory: -heapsize 1048576

Also, have you tried downgrading drivers? I still have my outdated drivers, but the game runs okay with me. (9600 XT)

 

[Midnight Cowboy]

Tried adding that line about heapsize, also I just tried -dxlevel 90 in Episode One's launch options and for a few seconds I was hopeful as it now recognized I had a dx9 card in my computer in the video options, so I plunged into a new game whereupon the stuttering was not only in full force but I realized that upon rechecking the video options, my card is apparently now dx7 (a downgrade from the already incorrect dx8.1)

So I tried the same -dxlevel 90 line with Half-Life 2 and loaded up a save near the bridge in Highway 17, the game stuttered and it's video settings also recognized my card as being dx7, upon trying to turn up the settings, I was unable to (the water remained the dx7 ugly animated texture).

As for the driver downgrade, I'm not sure if rolling back would do much as I was experiencing the same stuttering with Catalyst 6.4 (which I installed for Hitman: Blood Money). The driver that I used before this was the Doom III fix beta drivers... yeah, really outdated.

 

[Beerdude26]

Try -dxlevel 90c
Also, is your hard drive fragmented?

 

[Kyorisu]

The whole stuttering thing for me atleast is only in episode 1 and fixed only by going down to dxlevel 70.

 

[Midnight Cowboy]

The -dxlevel 90c didn't do anything different than putting -dxlevel 90 (as soon as I tried to boost the video settings to high and clicking 'apply', they stayed limited at dx7 level).

As for the fragmentation, I haven't defragged my hard drive in a while, but even then, HL2 and Episode One have 0% fragmentation according to steam.

 

[Kyorisu]

Steam lies, it's hard to beleive all those big files have no fragmentation after so many updates. That and I only rarley defrag the drives Steams on.

 

[Beerdude26]

Have you tried playing with the -nosound parameter?

 

[Midnight Cowboy]

I'll try to defrag my whole harddrive tomorrow, defragging Episode One and HL2 through steam didn't seem to do anything. As for -nosound, it also didn't work... same piss-poor framerate, my card still detects as 8.1 and well the stuttering is at least silent.

To help further in diagnosing the problem, this is the order of events which leads to my card being detected at 8.1.

1. I Start Episode One (or HL2 for that matter, haven't tried Lost Coast or HL: DM, but I assume it would be the same problem) with no additional launch options.
2. Menu comes up and it's evident settings aren't set on high (i.e. No HDR and medium texures), but not suttering.
3.I go to video options and hardware is detected at dx9.0.
4.I set everything to high and click apply... really long pause/load.
5.I Return to menu and the background stays the same if I hadn't of set the video options to high, and there is 1 frame per second stuttering.
6.I go back to video options and see that now my card is detected as dx8.1 and I can't turn up dx9.0 settings like HDR.
7. I sit back and ponder what to do next