How can i increase my performance?! (slow fps)

[pickles1987]

okay so basically i have a laptop that i wouldnt mind doing some small amounts of gaming with (dont laugh its all i have for now)

here are the specs:

1 gig of RAM
160 gig HD
Vista Home premium (lol)
Dual Core 1.6 GHZ on each core
Mobil Intel 965 express chipset family (256 megs of integrated video)


soooooo
i pop in HL2 and its pretty framey.
are there any settings that you think would specifically improve my performance?
i CAN play plenty of other games just fine, but it seems like hl just murders this thing.

thanks for the help guys.

 

[unozero]

you need 2 more gigs of ram that should help a lot.

 

[Vegeta897]

What? The integrated video is what's killing you. One more gb of ram should be fine.

 

[AtomicSpark]

Yes. A dedicated graphics card will help a lot. Get that and then consider upgrading your RAM to 2GB (get the same speed or it will pick the lowest).

 

[pickles1987]

well its only upgradable to 2 gigs of ram.

i have a sony vaio vgn-nr220E
is there any way to get a dedicated graphics card? i assume since its a laptop with integrated that i cant upgrade video at all.

but another gig of ram should help a bit yeah?

 

[hool10]

RAM speeds up loading times, and Windows starting up. You need a better graphics card and I don't know if you can do that with laptops cause they are quickly made, and are meant not to be upgraded but trashed for a better one. Laptops are made for work and stuff on the go. They are not exactly cut out for gaming and there is always that battery supply to look out for. Everything is great, except for a GPU which can't even run HL2. Did you get the newest drivers? Also give us some games that you can play on it. If you can run like COD 4 on it, then something is wrong with HL2.

 

[blahblahblah]

Some things to consider

1) Generally, you can't upgrade your laptop unless you buy a new laptop (the only exception being upgrading your RAM and the harddrive if you are bold)
2) Another GB of RAM could help, but generally, that would help with once you start playing HL2 or loading another level. If you notice that when you start playing HL2 you notice that the framerate is slow for the first 5 to 10 minutes but then stabilizes after that, RAM would help solve that problem. However after a certain point, extra RAM will not help. In your situation, an extra GB of ram would improve your day to day use of your laptop, so it is probably money well spent.
3) The video card in your laptop is essentially a glorified 2D accelerator with limited 3D functions. I'm frankly surprised you can run other games on your laptop with acceptable performance.
4) Laptop/Hardware manufacturers generally do not put out updated driver's for mobile devices. So if it is indeed a problem with HL2, you are officially out of luck. However, if you don't mind being extremely risky, some websites may have an unofficial driver that maybe more current than the version you are using. Just beware that using those drivers can have an adverse affect on your system.
5) Try lowering the resolution and graphics features in HL2 all the way and hope that helps.

 

[VirusType2]

-Installing XP would help some.

but I wouldn't mess with that unless you completely know what you are doing.


-On my laptop I can hold F12 when I first turn on my PC to allocate more RAM for video memory through my BIOS. You could try that.


-You can mess with Half Life 2's configurations. Seek the technical forum and dig up very old posts to find out how.

 

[Saturos]

RAM speeds up loading times, and Windows starting up. You need a better graphics card and I don't know if you can do that with laptops cause they are quickly made, and are meant not to be upgraded but trashed for a better one. Laptops are made for work and stuff on the go. They are not exactly cut out for gaming and there is always that battery supply to look out for. Everything is great, except for a GPU which can't even run HL2. Did you get the newest drivers? Also give us some games that you can play on it. If you can run like COD 4 on it, then something is wrong with HL2.

1 GB of RAM for Vista Home is not sufficient for gaming. Period.

Take into account also the amount of RAM the OS needs (a hefty requirement for Vista), plus memory needed for online processes (if he wanted to do some online gaming), and you have little system RAM left for a 512MB (or greater) video card.

Without enough system RAM, the video card's VRAM will be bottlenecked to the maximum amount of system RAM.

Sucks too that the OP only has a laptop. Not exactly upgrade friendly at all. Especially Sony Vaios.

 

[Hectic Glenn]

Your integrated graphics are a huge bottleneck which is going to prevent you getting much out your laptop to play Half-life 2 nicely. You mention you play plenty of other games on your machine, I would be interested to know what games and at what settings, so we have some kind of comparison.

 

[Saturos]

Your integrated graphics are a huge bottleneck which is going to prevent you getting much out your laptop to play Half-life 2 nicely. You mention you play plenty of other games on your machine, I would be interested to know what games and at what settings, so we have some kind of comparison.

Surely integrated graphics is also a no-no for gaming, but like I said, a new dedicated video card with greater than 512MB VRAM is not enough for a 1GB machine running on Vista.

The card's VRAM is dependent on the maximum amount of system RAM.

A 512MB card will do the OP no good unless he upgrades to at least 2GBs first and even 2GBs is pushing it for Vista if he wants to play games on it. (I still don't understand the benefits for gaming on a Vista system btw other than DX10. A bit detrimental even.)

 

[AiM]

To be honest, I think the OP is pretty screwed. 2 GB's of ram won't do enough to overcome his Integrated Graphics and he can't change that without going through hell in taking apart his system and spending a lot of money to replace his vital parts.

 

[Saturos]

2 GB's of ram won't do enough to overcome his Integrated Graphics

Jesus, there must be more people who have me on their ignore list than I though. Aren't some of you guys even reading what I'm trying say to the OP? Even with a high-end mobile video card, if the OP only has 1GB of system RAM, his video card VRAM will be bottlenecked due to Vista's high memory requirements unless he invested in more RAM too.

10GBs of RAM won't overcome poor graphical performance if the OP uses integrated graphics. RAM is the lowest common denominator for graphical performance. It doesn't matter as long as there's enough of it for the OS's critical services/processes. VRAM shares system RAM.

For example:XP recommended memory requirements are around 256MBs. If someone only had 512MBs of system RAM, a 512MB video card, or a 256MB card even, will be bottlenecked. severely

But in his case though, it'd be best for him to just invest a new PC (or build) better equipped for gaming as laptops aren't upgrade friendly and just continue to use that current laptop for whatever it is he uses it for other than gaming.

 

[AiM]

Jesus, there must be more people who have me on their ignore list than I though. Aren't some of you guys even reading what I'm trying say to the OP? Even with a high-end mobile video card, if the OP only has 1GB of system RAM, his video card VRAM will be bottlenecked due to Vista's high memory requirements unless he invested in more RAM too.

10GBs of RAM won't overcome poor graphical performance if the OP uses integrated graphics. RAM is the lowest common denominator for graphical performance. It doesn't matter as long as there's enough of it for the OS's critical services/processes. VRAM shares system RAM.

For example:XP recommended memory requirements are around 256MBs. If someone only had 512MBs of system RAM, a 512MB video card, or a 256MB card even, will be bottlenecked. severely

But in his case though, it'd be best for him to just invest a new PC (or build) better equipped for gaming as laptops aren't upgrade friendly and just continue to use that current laptop for whatever it is he uses it for other than gaming.

?

I don't have you on ignore list. Moving on, the lowest common denominator for him in his case isn't the lack of RAM but lack of a dedicated graphics card. His bottleneck right now is his Integrated Graphics, and more Ram won't do shit to fix that.

Your point is moot since he doesn't even have a video card in the first place.

 

[Saturos]

?

I don't have you on ignore list. Moving on, the lowest common denominator for him in his case isn't the lack of RAM but lack of a dedicated graphics card. His bottleneck right now is his Integrated Graphics, and more Ram won't do shit to fix that.

Your point is moot since he doesn't even have a video card in the first place.

I mean when people say, "you'd be good to go with only 1GB of RAM on a Vista system as long as you get a new video card." In this case, the lack of RAM would bottleneck the new video card.

I wasn't arguing the obvious, but rather pointing out something many people may not know since some suggested to just get a new card and not another 1GB stick of RAM as well. Capice?

Systen RAM is the lowest denominator too regardless if it's integrated or dedicated. It just so happens that you'll probably never find any system whose integrated graphics has more VRAM than the total system RAM. They probably exist somewhere though, albeit either very very old, or extremely proprietary.

My point != moot.

 

[Bakurei]

With that GPU you can't pretty much do anything to increase performance. Since It's an intel GPU I don't believe the mobo would have MXM which would allow you to change the GPU :/

 

[Saturos]

With that GPU you can't pretty much do anything to increase performance. Since It's an intel GPU I don't believe the mobo would have MXM which would allow you to change the GPU :/

Intel chipset MBs suck.

 

[pickles1987]

okay. so i had to bump this cause about 2 months ago i bought 2 new gigs of ram, and obviously my laptop runs a shit ton faster.

basically:
now that i have 2 gigs, is it even worth TRYING to play any source based game?

 

[unozero]

yes I think so

 

[pickles1987]

well the game i REALLY wanna play is cstrike and i also really wanna hop on some gmod too.

im hoping it will play good enough though lol

 

[Saturos]

What? The integrated video is what's killing you. One more gb of ram should be fine.

^This

Although I would prefer a faster CPU too. Some games are almost as CPU intensive as it is with the GPU due to AI and physics. Those two upgrades would be fine for HL2 though.

Although if you had XP, you'd only really need to buy one stick of 1GB RAM and not 2. (again though, 1 more stick is fine for HL2.)
I'm not sure how much RAM prices have dropped lately though as I haven't been in the market for RAM lately.