Seroiusly Weird issue with HL2

[Wester547]

Okay firstly I'm running a P4 2.2 Ghz, WinXP Pro and 512MB of RDRAM / ATi Radeon 9500 Pro setup, with all the latest drivers. Secondly, I'm running HL2 at 1024x768 with no FSAA, 16x AF, and all other details turned up to the maximum. HL2, aside from the stuttering and long loading times, was running fine. But something weird happened all the sudden.

You guys know that G-Man intro scene right? I used to get 50-60FPS in that scene in the settings / config I listed up above. All the sudden, I boot up HL2, and that 50-60FPS record, which I've tested multiple times and works, drops to 10-20FPS. Oh s***.

So immediately in panic..... I switch to DX7 mode and test it out, forcing it via the command line.... and I am pleased to find out I'm getting sky high 80-100+ FPS rates then. So I try DX80 mode... and I'm getting 60FPS average. Great, so up to DX81.... and then I'm plummeting at 14-22 FPS. So I'm like, WTF? I switch back to DX9, to find my performance back at 10-20FPS. Then I try DX80 mode again.... and in that particular scene I'm down to 15-23FPS. No matter what now. Could this be a sign of system instability? This is very confusing and annoying..... I haven't done anything to my system to cause this within the last several days since I've gotten and installed HL2..... perhaps the latest patch caused this issue? Is anyone else experiencing this? If my CPU is the problem, then why didn't this occur low-frame-rate when I first ran the game at those specific settings?

Please help.

Thanks a whole bunch people!

 

[Ebenol]

Does it only happen in HL2? Test some other games that use pixel shaders and see if the FPS is low there as well.

 

[Wester547]

Only in HL2 AFAIK. Very weird. By resetting the game's settings to default then back to maximum, I seem to have sorted out the issue - at the expense of more stuttering and jitteryness, for now.

And I have plenty of other games utilizing programmable pixel shaders and vertex shaders on my PC - a la DOOM 3 (or by OpenGL junkie terms, "fragment shaders") , Halo, Far Cry, Deus Ex II, Thief 3 Deadly Shadows, Morrowind, etc, etc, etc....