New computer - same problem! Driving me insane

[AirNewZealand15]

Hey Guys

I would really appreciate your help with this problem. I have just built a computer for the following specs:

AMD AM2 Athlon X2 Dual Core 4200
Asus nForce4 SLI M2N4-SLI
2gig DDR2 533 Adata / Hynix
Seagate 250gb Sata2 3gb 7200.9rpm
Leadtek 7950GT 512mb PCI-E
Win XP pro

Ok so this is a brand new system which, IMO, be a pretty freaking fast system. But alas I am having the same HL2/DOOM 3 problem that I had with my last system.

The problem is that I getting major FPS drops in random areas of maps. For the most part the HL2 will run between 80-100fps on full graphics and 1280x1024 resolution. Of course in a tunnel etc it will be like 150-200FPS but when it comes to an outside map, like say the airboat at the start of HL2 I will only get low 40s for those maps.... surely this is not acceptable with my kind of specs??? what is going on?

My last computer had the same problem.... it's specs were:

AthlonXP 2400+
1gig DDR400 ram
Geforce 6800GT 256
7200rpm 120 gig HD

I mean, that pc was two years ago, and when HL2 first came out it would run the game almost the same as this PC.

What the hell is going on? SURELY my PC should be smoking fast in any area of HL2???

Also, doom 3 will do much the same. All throughout doom3 there are rooms with moving machinary and lights etc, well periodically and somewhat randomly the frames will drop to like 40fps from say around 80 or 90 and it seems like nothing in the scene I am looking at is really different from previous rooms with the same sort of stuff? so it's nothing obviously causing the drop...

The final example of this that bothers me greatly is in lost coast, right at the end of the map when you blow up the chopper, well I walk to the edge of the platform and look straight down to the water and chopper carnage below... it drops down to 27FPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have the graphics at max and res at 1280x1024... my computer should be all over that right???

There must be somthing, to fix this, someone out there in the community that has had this same problem?? I thought it was just my old computer. I got so pissed at it that I sold the old beast and gave up gaming for 2 years... but I thought since I had the money to build a new beast that my HL2/DM3 problems would be long gone...


please guys I need a saviour!

 

[Link]

Only thing I can think of is to make sure all your drivers are up to date. Also, if its on, try turning down the AA, as that tends to have a big effect in large areas.

 

[giant384]

yes check your drivers for sure. also AA with a 7950gt should not be a problem at all. im able to have the graphics maxed with my 7600gt and i get around 60fps average.

 

[AirNewZealand15]

hey guys thanks for that but I've got all the latest drivers for my card etc

So even in big open areas your fps doesn't drop below 60?! and even in lost coast your systems have no problem?

 

[AirNewZealand15]

hey I've attached two screen shots from lost coast. The first is on high quality with no AA or AF and I only get 27fps...

the second is on the lowest quality with no aa or af and I get 26FPS!!! by lowering the quality totally I have lost a frame?! now how does that work!?

 

[The Brick]

Then it's probably the cpu that's lagging you in those situations.

 

[AirNewZealand15]

Then it's probably the cpu that's lagging you in those situations.

Hmm... how does a dual core 4200+ lag?? it's like one of the fastest available? :|

 

[Shasta]

I have a similar problem on a similar system to yours. I have just built a new system with an AMD DualCore 3600+, and have a EN7600GS 512MB card, 1GB Corsair Ram, etc etc. On Quake 4 (doom 3 engine) I get absolutely pathetic framerates - even as low as 16fps - in any areas with lots going on ie machinery etc. And this is with the settings merely on high, 2x AA, 1024x768 res. I already have a replacement Graphics card coming, as I suspect it must be faulty. This machine should eat anything the Doom 3 engine can throw at it. And poop it out all over most peoples PC's. Add to that the fact that I have overclocked the CPU from 2000MHz to 2400MHz. It now far outperforms a stock DualCore 4400+, as per benchmark testing. So I'm hopeing it's just a faulty card...

Have you put all of the DualCore patches on from Microsoft, AMD, and for your games? My system was slow before I did all that. Have you de-fragged lately? That can do wonders.

 

[Warbie]

I agree with mr Brick, it's probably the cpu holding performance back. Your gfx card is easily up to the job, but HL2 can be a real cpu hog. It's the same for some parts in Quake 4 - it doesn't matter what rig you have, on high settings/res your frame rate will drop into the 30-40's.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

It may be the power supply you're using, cuz I have the rig listed in my sig. and I upgraded from a 300w psu to a 550w which made all the difference in framerates in all games, including HL2 and Doom3.

 

[AirNewZealand15]

I have a similar problem on a similar system to yours. I have just built a new system with an AMD DualCore 3600+, and have a EN7600GS 512MB card, 1GB Corsair Ram, etc etc. On Quake 4 (doom 3 engine) I get absolutely pathetic framerates - even as low as 16fps - in any areas with lots going on ie machinery etc. And this is with the settings merely on high, 2x AA, 1024x768 res. I already have a replacement Graphics card coming, as I suspect it must be faulty. This machine should eat anything the Doom 3 engine can throw at it. And poop it out all over most peoples PC's. Add to that the fact that I have overclocked the CPU from 2000MHz to 2400MHz. It now far outperforms a stock DualCore 4400+, as per benchmark testing. So I'm hopeing it's just a faulty card...

Have you put all of the DualCore patches on from Microsoft, AMD, and for your games? My system was slow before I did all that. Have you de-fragged lately? That can do wonders.

Hey shasta and others - thanks for your input! Well you sound like you are indeed having the same troubles! I just can't accept that it's the vid card doing this... I mean, it has to be either CPU or vid card coz in those lost coast screens I posted I am not moving the mouse or anything, just looking straight down, so there is no loading of new textures etc... it must be either the vid card or cpu that is sucking ass... it couldn't be anything else right?

I just find it extremely difficult to accept a: it runs that crap on this kind of setup b: it's a brand new video card causing this (again, coz the last system did the same) c: it's a brand new CPU doing this (and a damn fast one) d: the whole fricking computer is new! Everything is only two weeks old...

Honestly, someone must have solved this? figured it out?

I agree with mr Brick, it's probably the cpu holding performance back. Your gfx card is easily up to the job, but HL2 can be a real cpu hog. It's the same for some parts in Quake 4 - it doesn't matter what rig you have, on high settings/res your frame rate will drop into the 30-40's.

Warbie - I realise that any computer running quake 4/DM3/HL2:LC is gonna struggle a little playing at the max possible settings... but the thing is that when I took those Lost Coast screens I had turned everything, except the resolution, down to the lowest possible... and I didn't gain a thing, not one frame per second...

It may be the power supply you're using, cuz I have the rig listed in my sig. and I upgraded from a 300w psu to a 550w which made all the difference in framerates in all games, including HL2 and Doom3.

DEATHMASTER - hmm this could be it? My power supply is a thermal take 430watt... I thought this would be just fine?? What do you guys think?

 

[kacation_man]

considering to days tech, i have a poor excuse for a rig and compared to the mentioned gpus i dont really know where mine stands among nvidia, i have an ATI X1600 pro, my cpu and the rest is pretty pathetic as well however i rarely ever see any drops in my games, Its usually a constant crap! ha... no, but 16fps on doom 3 is pretty sad for that rig, some thing is obviously wrong.

 

[The Brick]

Warbie - I realise that any computer running quake 4/DM3/HL2:LC is gonna struggle a little playing at the max possible settings... but the thing is that when I took those Lost Coast screens I had turned everything, except the resolution, down to the lowest possible... and I didn't gain a thing, not one frame per second...

Then I say it's certainly your cpu holding you back. The 4200+ is not one of the fastest available (actually it's low/mid-end dual core solution). You could try overclocking a bit if it really bothers you and if you know exactly how to do that.

 

[AirNewZealand15]

Then I say it's certainly your cpu holding you back. The 4200+ is not one of the fastest available (actually it's low/mid-end dual core solution). You could try overclocking a bit if it really bothers you and if you know exactly how to do that.

Hmm I understand it's not the top of the line dual core solution... but it is certainly up to the 2-year old task of running Half Life 2 well - consistantly.

This is a two year old game, running on the latest hardware, I should not be having these problems at all.

It's not cricket mate! :x

 

[The Brick]

No, but 'because it's old' isn't magically gonna make the game run faster if your hardware isn't fast enough. And it's only in specific situations, when you look down towards a large area or when you look somewhere so that the game is rendering multiple areas at once.. It's perfectly normal.

And if the minimum is 30fps, I'd say it's running HL2 really well.

 

[AirNewZealand15]

No, but 'because it's old' isn't magically gonna make the game run faster if your hardware isn't fast enough. And it's only in specific situations, when you look down towards a large area or when you look somewhere so that the game is rendering multiple areas at once.. It's perfectly normal.

And if the minimum is 30fps, I'd say it's running HL2 really well.

ok, you go to the same spot as seen in my screen shots and tell me what frame rate you are getting there? that is an easy way of seeing if my system is normal.

 

[Shasta]

The Brick - What the hell are you on about? Seriously. His system is MORE than fine, certainly capable of playing HL2 etc. "Not a particularly good system"? Get your head checked mate, and do some research. Systems like ours will eat most peoples PC's for breakfast when set up properly, make NO mistake.

Airnewzealand - Check out this thread. It worked wonders for me to get set up properly. I had applied those patches after I was haveing problems, but it seemed it was too late by then, and didn't have any effect. Doing it all in order like it says, immediately after installing windows, seemed to do the trick.

 

[AirNewZealand15]

Hey shasta, thanks for all your help aye I really appreciate it mate.

Hey thanks for the link to that thread - it looks really good. Can I ask you a few questions? what kind of frame rates were you getting before you installed those patches etc and reformatted windows? Also, can you go to the same place I am (in those screen shots) and tell me what FPS you are getting?

I tried doing all of the things I could from that thread but just as you said it made no difference. So tomorrow night I think I shall format windows and go right through it step by step.

If that doesn't work then, sadly but surely I will be making the jump to core 2 duo.

But lets hope it works

PS: Thanks for backing me up on my system - I know it should eat HL2 for breakfast

 

[Bert]

I also think it might be the PSU. NVidia recommends a 400W PSU minimu with 20 amps on the +12V.

 

[Shasta]

Hey shasta, thanks for all your help aye I really appreciate it mate.

Hey thanks for the link to that thread - it looks really good. Can I ask you a few questions? what kind of frame rates were you getting before you installed those patches etc and reformatted windows? Also, can you go to the same place I am (in those screen shots) and tell me what FPS you are getting?

I tried doing all of the things I could from that thread but just as you said it made no difference. So tomorrow night I think I shall format windows and go right through it step by step.

If that doesn't work then, sadly but surely I will be making the jump to core 2 duo.

But lets hope it works

PS: Thanks for backing me up on my system - I know it should eat HL2 for breakfast

No problem. Make sure you follow the guide EXACTLY though.

As for my framerates before I did it, I can't give you an exact number because I didn't bother finding out - it was so crap that it was almost unplayable. But I knew something was wrong because the whole damn PC ran slow, not just the games. Now it's running sweet, but I have a replacement GFX card on the way, because Quake 4 is running much better, but still not close to how it should be. It's more than playable (I even went through and clocked it) but it still gets quite laggy with any AA on, even at 1024x768. Like 12fps with lots of lighting/effects going on.

If you want to test and benchmark it, go to this page, and get the hardwareOC benchmark for Quake 4. Make sure you have the 1.2 patch first. That gives you a good idea of where your system is at with running Q4.

 

[AirNewZealand15]

I also think it might be the PSU. NVidia recommends a 400W PSU minimu with 20 amps on the +12V.

My power supply is 430 watt and has 18 amps to the +12 volt... should be enough?

Cool I will try formatting PC and following that guide exactly tonight and let you know. thanks guys!

 

[AirNewZealand15]

As for my framerates before I did it, I can't give you an exact number because I didn't bother finding out - it was so crap that it was almost unplayable.

Hey could you please do me a favour and go to the place that I took my screen shots and tell me what you are getting now? that would be interesting to know

Also if anyone else could do that and post them here that would be great!

 

[Higlac]

hell if nothing works run virus scan and adware scans, helps my comp a lot.

then again mine is very virus/adware prone, and having 24 viruses and 64 separate adware programs running at once can slow your comp way down.

 

[AirNewZealand15]

hmm nah my puter is clean, I don't visit sites of dodgeness and the system is only like 2 weeks old lol

 

[DEATHMASTER]

I tried the same scene in lost coast as you, I got like 32 fps with no hdr 4x AF and 2x AA and 25 fps with full hdr on, but ironically it looked a lot smoother with hdr on and the 7 less frames.

 

[AirNewZealand15]

I tried the same scene in lost coast as you, I got like 32 fps with no hdr 4x AF and 2x AA and 25 fps with full hdr on, but ironically it looked a lot smoother with hdr on and the 7 less frames.

wow interesting. Would you be able to try it with the following settings - HDR on full, no AA and no AF, no colour correction and no vsync - all other options on full?

If you could I would really appreciate it! coz those are the settings I am running atm :cheers:

 

[DEATHMASTER]

With those settings I get 35 fps on that spot. (It also reminds me of how much I like AA)

 

[AirNewZealand15]

ah interesting, my system is newer than yours in some areas (no offence ) so I should obviously be seeing more than I am! hmm

What's the big deal with AA anyways? I haven't ever really used it, what does it do?

 

[eraser]

ah interesting, my system is newer than yours in some areas (no offence ) so I should obviously be seeing more than I am! hmm

What's the big deal with AA anyways? I haven't ever really used it, what does it do?

AA is a huge deal. See all those jagged edges everywhere, on models, brush geometry, etc? AA makes those smooth.

BTW dude, everyone's FPS goes down upon looking at areas like that. It's just something you have to deal with.

 

[AirNewZealand15]

AA is a huge deal. See all those jagged edges everywhere, on models, brush geometry, etc? AA makes those smooth.

BTW dude, everyone's FPS goes down upon looking at areas like that. It's just something you have to deal with.

sweet well I better try it then lol

what is your FPS when look at that scene with my settings?

 

[eraser]

Let me just say that AA WILL knock down your FPS some. Not saying it'll make it slow, just that cranking it up high will shave off some fps.

On my system I get 57 fps at that same spot in your pics, with all settings on high and 4x AA/4x ASF.

edit: oops, that's not with your settings, but mine.. sorry. still shows you though.

 

[AirNewZealand15]

Let me just say that AA WILL knock down your FPS some. Not saying it'll make it slow, just that cranking it up high will shave off some fps.

On my system I get 57 fps at that same spot in your pics, with all settings on high and 4x AA/4x ASF.

edit: oops, that's not with your settings, but mine.. sorry. still shows you though.

Damn!! What are your specs mate??

See, that's what I should be getting... frick! so annoying... well I am rebuilding tonight so we shall see if that fixes it all.

 

[eraser]

Damn!! What are your specs mate??

See, that's what I should be getting... frick! so annoying... well I am rebuilding tonight so we shall see if that fixes it all.

Dual Intel x6800 @ 2.93 ghz
2 gb ddr2-sd
dual nvidia 7950 gts

Hope it all goes well.

 

[giant384]

Let me just say that AA WILL knock down your FPS some. Not saying it'll make it slow, just that cranking it up high will shave off some fps.

On my system I get 57 fps at that same spot in your pics, with all settings on high and 4x AA/4x ASF.

edit: oops, that's not with your settings, but mine.. sorry. still shows you though.

AF doesnt take as much a hit as AA does in most games.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html
This should help a lot.
Overclocking the cpu would make a discernable difference apparently (by like 9 fps or so).
But the difference is ignorable in most places so its not something I went for.
The biggest difference will come if you upgraded to a core 2 duo cpu.

Edit: Oh yeah, about the fps's I was reporting earlier, they were all at 1024x768 resolution, at 1280x1024 I get 22 fps with the settings you had in your first post. This probably makes a lot more sense considering my gpu and cpu are lower heh.

 

[AirNewZealand15]

ok...

I followed the dual core install instructions - I'm about to restore my HL2 back up...

will keep you posted! I hope it works lol... actually I don't mind coz getting to build my first intel machine might be kinda fun...

bbs

 

[AirNewZealand15]

no joy... the frame rates were the same. I shall order core 2 duo tomorrow morning.

Thanks for your help everyone. I will let you know here how I get on.

:cheers:

 

[DEATHMASTER]

Which one are you getting btw?

 

[Spoonoop]

if your having an extreme FPS problem uninstall NVIDIA ForceWare, I'm not kidding.

 

[AirNewZealand15]

if your having an extreme FPS problem uninstall NVIDIA ForceWare, I'm not kidding.

ok, how would uninstalling the video drive help me?? :rolling:

DEATHMASTER - I am gonna grab the E6400 2.13GHZ 2M 1066mhz and the Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 motherboard. I may be able to get differend motherboards from my supplier - do you recommend any?

My current board has SLI, but I just don't think I will ever need it considering I am only ever gonna be playing on a 19" screen - most articles I have read about SLI say minium inscrease in FPS on at low resolutions but good gains at high res.