question about my new graphics card!

eber

eber

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my old graphics card was a gforce4 TI 4200 with 64 mb. it could run hl2 on 800x600 with medium graphics, at least thats what hl2 automatically put as perfect settings for my pc. well it didnt work so fluently but it was enjoyable. i think theres no problem so far.
now listen , my new graphics card is a Radeon x800 with 256 mb and 400 mhz. in comparism to my old card it is 4 times better. so far so good. i thought i would be able to play hl2 on highest graphics with absolutely everything on highest , but hl2 put almost the same settings as for my old card just that it puts textures and characters on high now. but the rest is like before. and it runs not very fluently with it.
a guy told me he could run hl2 on absolutly highest graphics WITHOUT ANY PROBLEMS, but he has just a Radeon with 128mb.
hm call me crazy now but i think my card is way better than his , but who knows.

do you guys think theres something wrong with my graphics card? well i must say its odd imo. maybe i should give it ack and demans a new 1.
what do u guys think ?
(btw, fear also only runs on medium and its also not fluently) :\

PLEASE HELP ME :( :( :( :( :( :(
 
What processor do you have? If you've got something below 2GHz, even buying a X1900XTX wouldn't give you better performance.
This may sound silly, but try incresing the graphic details in HL2. It's odd, but on my hardware (in signature) the game performs better with anti-aliasing 4x on (everything on high, 1024x768).
 
hmm i got an athlon64 3500+ with 2,2ghz and 1gb ram and 160gb hard drive!!! and i dont even use anti-aliasing 4x . hl2 automatically put my settings , and i use them but it runs shitty and doesnt look much better than with my old pc.
 
what i want to know is just this : isit normal that my new good graphics card (Radeonx800 256mb) cannot run hl2 on best graphics and even laggs with medium graphics.
 
eber said:
what i want to know is just this : isit normal that my new good graphics card (Radeonx800 256mb) cannot run hl2 on best graphics and even laggs with medium graphics.
Click to expand...
No, it is not. Are you actually 100% sure it's an X800?

Oh, and what power supply do you have? (300W or more?)
 
eber said:
what does this program do to boost my pc performance.
Click to expand...
I'll try to keep the explanation short:

Your hard drive keeps bits and bytes (the data). The data is written where the reader 'heads' are currently positioned (unless that location is already used by other data). On a new hard drive, all the information is put nicely in front and next to each other.

After some time, a hard drive will fill up. You will inevitably delete some things. This will cause 'holes' in the hard drive data 'line', which in short means that one piece of data (for instance an image) is spread out over two physical locations. This means your hard drive has to spin around 2 or more times to get all the data needed. This slows it down. Your hard drive is then fragmented. Big files (like movie files, or game files) can be on more than 20 different physical locations due to their size. This significantly slows down loading.

Defragmenting means putting all the data back in a nice line, so the hard drive can have all the data in as less spins as possible. Big files will then be put in a nice line so it will read much faster.

You need at least 10% free space to efficiently defragment a hard drive, because the data is relocated and put together again. This means you sometimes free up additional hard drive space. This also means you should run defragmentation programs a few times in a row.


It's not the best explanation, but meh :p
 
wow thx for explaining , i understand now. well i dont have to worry about space , ive still 130gb free space :p! anyway i analyzed my hard drive and it tells me its heavily fragmented :p. anyway how often shall i run it in a row and , shall i run it at least once every day now ?
 
Beerdude26 said:
No, it is not. Are you actually 100% sure it's an X800?

Oh, and what power supply do you have? (300W or more?)
Click to expand...

ok im gonna tell u what system i have:
AMD 64 3500+(2,2ghz), 1024MB DDR-RAM, 160GB Hitachi S-ATA hard drive, Radeon X800XL 256MB Pci-E graphicscard, NEC DVD+RW, thermaltake Shark Midi-Tower,Tagan 380W power supply unit !!!!!!!!!

IMO THIS SYSTEM SHOULD ROCK ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!
and yes , im 100% sure i got all that.
 
Well, the best would be just to run it once or twice every week, but three times in a row at the end of each month shall suffice more than enough ;)
 
ok thx , but do u think my graphics card is broken ? :(
 
Did you install the card yourself?

If you did then make sure you uninstalled the NVIDIA drivers, then rebooted your system. After that install the latest ATI Catalyst 5.13 drivers (found at ATI.com).
 
already did all that - well my cousin did :)
i just wonder if my card is broken .
 
oups , i can play hl2 on the highest graphics :p , hmm but its a little tiny bit laggy sometimes.
 
It's pretty unlikely the card is broken. It would be good if you'd have a chance to test it in someone else's computer, though.

Reinstalling Windows may be a way out :/ Do not format the drive! Just remove "Program files" and "Windows" folders from another operating system (BartPE is a nice boot-from-cd Windows).

Before you do that (that's the last thing to do if nothing else helps), try these steps:

1) get Driver Cleaner from http://www.drivercleaner.net/
2) uninstall any graphic drivers you find in Add/Remove Programs (nVidia, ATi)
3) restart the computer and hold the F8 key during startup. A menu will appear. Select "Safe-mode"
4) run driver cleaner
5) reboot, this time start the system normally
6) install new graphic drivers
7) reboot :p (thank God, you'll be able to do that in Windows Vista without restarts).

Also try scanning the computer for viruses and spyware.
 
no i guess i overreacted abit :p i thought i should be able to use the highest graphics for every existing games without any problems.

oh i have a question , you got a Radeon 9800pro right ? is that one better than a RadeonX800 ? and if not which graphics can u use in new games.
 
No, the 9800 pro is not better than the X800. The X800 should be able to handle HL2 on high settings.
 
yea mine does , but its still abit laggy. a little bit. ermm should it also be able to run 1280x960 plus highest settings ?

should the x800 also be able to handle high graphics on F.E.A.R ?
 
eber said:
yea mine does , but its still abit laggy. a little bit. ermm should it also be able to run 1280x960 plus highest settings ?

should the x800 also be able to handle high graphics on F.E.A.R ?
Click to expand...
Well F.E.A.R. is quite intensive, but it should be able to handle it (just don't expect very high FPS :p)
 
what is FPS :p , FEAR laggs With high settings .
 
omg shit i got another problem in half-life now.
1.theres no ammo display in game. and the flashlight is only half.
2.theres no binding for the turbo modus for the car, and i dunno where to bind it.
 
fps = frames per second, the more the better (usually anything above 30fps is smooth, but when a game runs at 85fps, you'll notice it and love it ;)).

Radeon X800 should run HL2 at highest possible settings at high resolutions and anti-aliasing.

FEAR is a very demanding game, try playing with the settings. Make sure you have "smooth shadows" set to off. I play FEAR with medium textures, rest set to maximum (except shadows and volumetric light set to low) at... 800x600. It's unplayable with these settings at 1024x768.
Anyway, X800 is a lot more powerful than 9800, so I guess you should be able to play smoothly at 1024x768. You may also try reducing the texture details to medium - it will still look great ;)
 
i just put everything to medium and use 1024x768 and it runs very good , it even ran ok with everything on high and 1240x960 .
 
right click the HL2 icon in STEAM, then goto properties, set launch option, the put the following in..applaunch 220 -heapsize 1/2 of ur RAM here +map_background none -dxlevel 90 -refresh maximum supported refresh rate here. So mine reads this...

applaunch 220 -heapsize 512000 +map_background none -dxlevel 90 -refresh 75

By doing this it will speed up the load time of the game & also improve performance.
 
Beerdude26 said:
I'll try to keep the explanation short:

Your hard drive keeps bits and bytes (the data). The data is written where the reader 'heads' are currently positioned (unless that location is already used by other data). On a new hard drive, all the information is put nicely in front and next to each other.

After some time, a hard drive will fill up. You will inevitably delete some things. This will cause 'holes' in the hard drive data 'line', which in short means that one piece of data (for instance an image) is spread out over two physical locations. This means your hard drive has to spin around 2 or more times to get all the data needed. This slows it down. Your hard drive is then fragmented. Big files (like movie files, or game files) can be on more than 20 different physical locations due to their size. This significantly slows down loading.

Defragmenting means putting all the data back in a nice line, so the hard drive can have all the data in as less spins as possible. Big files will then be put in a nice line so it will read much faster.

You need at least 10% free space to efficiently defragment a hard drive, because the data is relocated and put together again. This means you sometimes free up additional hard drive space. This also means you should run defragmentation programs a few times in a row.

It's not the best explanation, but meh :p
Click to expand...

Nah! No one could explain it better....That's the best explanation he could get for free.;)

eber said:
ok im gonna tell u what system i have:
AMD 64 3500+(2,2ghz), 1024MB DDR-RAM, 160GB Hitachi S-ATA hard drive, Radeon X800XL 256MB Pci-E graphicscard, NEC DVD+RW, thermaltake Shark Midi-Tower,Tagan 380W power supply unit !!!!!!!!!

IMO THIS SYSTEM SHOULD ROCK ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!
and yes , im 100% sure i got all that.
Click to expand...

Your PSU 380Watts is little inferior for that type of card. Someone correct me please.
 
what you mean ? u mean i need a better power supply ?
well anyway , i know now where the lag comes from . all other games run just fine - just half-life2 not. so i went to steam support site and there i read something like this : AMD processors suck for hl2 :)
 
lister said:
right click the HL2 icon in STEAM, then goto properties, set launch option, the put the following in..applaunch 220 -heapsize 1/2 of ur RAM here +map_background none -dxlevel 90 -refresh maximum supported refresh rate here. So mine reads this...

applaunch 220 -heapsize 512000 +map_background none -dxlevel 90 -refresh 75

By doing this it will speed up the load time of the game & also improve performance.
Click to expand...

THX can u tell my why it will run better with it ? will the game look shittier with it ? oh and where can i look up my maximum refresh rate ?
 
eber said:
what you mean ? u mean i need a better power supply ?
well anyway , i know now where the lag comes from . all other games run just fine - just half-life2 not. so i went to steam support site and there i read something like this : AMD processors suck for hl2 :)
Click to expand...

I think those X800 cards need minimum of 450W PSU I will double check.
Well I got Athlon 64 3200+ 2.0GHz and HL2 runs great, finished twice in ultra settings and no problem so wherever you read that isn't accurate.
 
but my athlon is better than urs and it lags .
 
eww , is it true now that the x800 needs at least 480W ????? please answer this question.
 
Not true. Tagans are very good PSU's and 380W is enough.

Symptoms of not-good-enough-power-supply are:
* games and other applications crash (might be due to other issues)
* you often see Blue Screens Of Death (as above)
* your computer reboots randomly while playing a game (99% the PSU's fault)
 
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