radeon 9600xt probs!!!!

[kestrel_daos]

I have a

P4 1.8Ghz
512mb rdram
40gb hard drive
sapphire atlantis radeon 9600xt 128mb
512kb broadband.
Windows ME
Latest Me catalyst drivers

However, whenever i play Halflife 2 or Cs:S i get lag/low framerate every so often, even when i'm running it in 800x600
with all options turned down to low. When playing CS:s my ping is only about 80, and i still lag when people are shooting.

What should my Pc be able to run this on (I can run far cry on 1024x768 with everyting on medium no probs), and can u suggest anything to improve it.

 

[Chris D]

There's a possibility that your processor is slightly under-powered. CS:Source and HL2 rely heavily on physics. Your processor calculates all the physic movements and animations and it's pretty heavy on the processor.

It's the only thing I can think of that might be causing you a problem as the other aspects of your computer seem fine.

What some people have done too is to ensure that there's no background processes running.

Pressing Ctrl + Alt + Del on your keyboard will bring up the Task Manager and a list of processes. Go down and end the ones that aren't needed. If you're unsure what each are, go to www.google.com and type in and search for the process name. This 99% of the time will come up with what the process is used for.

Naturally if you do this, ensure you leave your virus scan, firewall, Steam and broadband (if you're playing online) active. Most other things can be closed.

If you find there's lots of stuff in there that you don't need, you might find that it's a good idea to stop them from loading up when Windows does. To do this click on Start > Run and then type in MSCONFIG. Go through the Start up section on here and untick anything that isn't 100% required. Again, if you're unsure, then Google is great for that kinda thing.

I only have four start up items in my list. My virus scan, firewall, something that gives all my card reader drives a little picture icon in My Computer and MSN Messenger

 

[TEDR]

P4 1.6Ghz willemette
1.25gb rdram
120gb hard drive
medeon radeon 9600tx 128mb
512kb broadband.
Windows xp home
Latest catalyst drivers 5.1

running a very simular system to kestrel_daos and i dont have that problem running high settings 1024x768
but i tend to connect to pings around 50 for good connection