Quick CS: Source Tweak

[sage]

goto "Play Games"
right click "Counter-Strike: Source"
click "Properties"
then click "Launch Options"
now enter "-heapsize "
then enter the amount of kilo-bytes of ram you have minus say... ~10000

so: 512mb of ram = "-heapsize 502000" note: without quotes
or 256mb of ram = "-heapsize 246000" etc..

Effects:
More ram available to the game overall performance goes up. Physics have more memory to work with.

note: I got a 20fps boost on the video stress test.

 

[Bait]

What kind of gain do we get while using this tweak?

 

[Chris D]

Won't having it that high have a detramental effect if you like to have things like IRC, Thunderbird, MSN and RSS Bandit in the background while playing?

 

[sage]

chris_d: I assume it uses available ram ei. It used 409mb instead of the user defined 502mb

 

[Reaktor4]

Why not just set it to the amount of ram you have then?
Anyone know what the defaults are for 512mb ram?

 

[sage]

CS: Source set my heapsize to 64mb as default even tho I have 512mb

Note: I had a MAJOR boost in the regular cs maps... Im now getting 90FPS instead of the 30-40FPS!!!!

 

[brink's]

What should you put if you have 1024mb of ram?

 

[Chris D]

CS: Source set my heapsize to 64mb as default even tho I have 512mb

Note: I had a MAJOR boost in the regular cs maps... Im now getting 90FPS instead of the 30-40FPS!!!!

I keep getting an error message when I run saying that the "memory couldn't be read"

 

[adamkelt]

Just did that with my box.

Before the tweak: 88.12 fps

After the tweak: 86.95 fps

Thnink I'll stick with no options.

 

[sage]

For those who dont believe...

1200x800 resolution
all maxed except the af/af

on a dell insperion laptop
3.2gh p4 ht
9700 ati radeon mobile
512mb ram

 

[SubKamran]

Is there a way to put this into a config file instead of the shortcut?

 

[sage]

Yes, right click your shortcut then where it says "Target"
type the line in like you would with the launcher

 

[adamkelt]

I'm new to this - how do you display the frame rate in-game? I did the stress test. I'd like to try it out in-game.

 

[brink's]

net_graph 1

 

[mstrum]

I wouldn't set it to the size of your memory, but maybe 1/2. Use your system and all the regular programs and background apps and see how much free memory there is in task manager, then set the heapsize to be a little smaller. I set mine to 256 mb even though I have 728 ram, since more than that just seems like overkill.

 

[brink's]

How do you set it back to what it was before? Doing this has really screwed up my comp.

 

[sage]

I agree with mstrum. Half should be good.

 

[sage]

How do you set it back to what it was before? Doing this has really screwed up my comp.

Just remove the line from the launcher/shortcut.

 

[SubKamran]

Yes, right click your shortcut then where it says "Target"
type the line in like you would with the launcher

instead of a shortcut

 

[Aaron Lee]

Doesn't work for me using this method. The game loads up where I can see the CS:S background, but then it crashes to desktop before the "play game, stress test, etc.." options appear. No error message or anything, just a clean and quick crash as though nothing happened.

 

[Hazar]

that made cs:s be more glitchy and run slower on mine.

 

[sage]

instead of a shortcut

Refer to my pic on post# 17

 

[sage]

aaron: try setting it to half of your available ram size

ei. note: without quotes
256mb of ram = 128000 or "-heapsize 128000"
512mb of ram = 256000 or "-heapsize 256000"
1024mb of ram = 512000 or "-heapsize 512000"

hazar: im not sure if you did something wrong but i have no problems.. infact by doing this tweak I got rid of those pesky physics-slow downs. I would try decreasing your heapsize till it clears up. Maby try using the above settings...

 

[Hazar]

I already changed it back

 

[ButtHoleMcGee]

Bleh, doesn't work for me.

 

[Warbie]

Made the game slower

 

[Aaron Lee]

Ok, here are my results. My specs are:
1.16 Ghz Athalon
896 RAM
ATI Radeon 9600xt
Everything Maxed except AA and AF @ 1200x1024

Before
35.54 fps in stress test

With Tweak
35.03 fps in stress test

After tweak removed
35.30

Result is it doesn't seem to help me at all.

 

[bizzy420]

uh sage that pic u posted looks like theres no aa af. and the texture quality looks really low. maybe u got a boost because of your low settings?

 

[sage]

uh sage that pic u posted looks like theres no aa af. and the texture quality looks really low. maybe u got a boost because of your low settings?

i said i didnt have aa or af on...

 

[poseyjmac]

that tweak does not work at all on 3 computers i tried. and it didn't work for you either, you must have changed several things and blamed it on the heapsize.

think about it, if it really would make as big of a difference as you claimed, why wouldn't valve put the setting in automatically after it detects how much ram you have? placebo

 

[Llyranor]

Didn't help at all.

I *did* notice a fps of about 150 (and I have a crap comp too) at exactly that place where you took the screenshot (the stairs). And that was regardless of whether I used this heapsize thingie or not, so no help.

 

[smsKONG]

Well I tried it out -

I have 768MB PC2100DDR

I started out with a heapsize of 512(x1024)

Got really bad LOSS in game so decided to drop it

Went to 256(x1024)

Was still getting bad LOSS but not as bad so decided to reduce it again

Dropped it to 128(x1024)

This has sorted the LOSS issue out but I can't see any benefits beyond setting it to the default...

 

[rammstein]

without 'tweak':
36.50
with 'tweak':
36.04


I imagine there maybe a noticable differance in game.. but I really CBF

 

[Wraith]

just about the only thing valve is good at is optimizing their games to work well on a wide range of system, trust them and dont **** with settings other than those in the options menu

 

[brink's]

I uninstalled steam today, when I re-install it will that tweak come back?

 

[bizzy420]

MY BAD i thought u said you had everything on max.

 

[Black-Falcon]

Okay heres a break down for people:
People with 1024 - Use 512 - or 524288
People with 768 - Use 384 - or 393216
People with 512 - Use 256 - or 262144
People with 256 - Use 128 - or 131072

 

[AgentSmith]

I have 1 gig of RAm and tried this setting the heapsize to 512 of my RAM. I have everything on high, 1280x960 resolution, AA on 6X, and AF on 6X.

Stress Test FPS before - 146.1; 143.2; 145.5
Stress Test FPS after - 145.2; 145.8; 146.4

So I am thinking this is a placebo effect as the numbers do not bear out any measurable improvement. Besides that, the game has a minimum RAM requirement of well over 64M so even if Valve was setting this to a conservative number to make it work with all users 64 would be well below what is required to play the game so it is unlikely that this has any effect.

 

[sublidieminal]

I have 1 gig of RAm and tried this setting the heapsize to 512 of my RAM. I have everything on high, 1280x960 resolution, AA on 6X, and AF on 6X.

6x af???

 

[sublidieminal]

No performance increase, but it decreased 3 fps... I doubt its because of -heapsize 512000 because the comp has been on allll day.