Topic: Computer Help (Read 13753 times)

JcFerggy · « **on:** February 08, 2009, 11:12:48 pm »

Ok, as most people know, I have a crap computer, and I don't have the money to buy a new one at the moment. My solution to this was to partition my hard-drive, and have a clean install of XP just for my games. I've done that and I have noticed that I get more FPS, but it is still slower than I would have wanted it.

I have removed all the bloatware from here, and I only have Steam and my Nvidia drivers installed. No anti-virus, no other browser, no chat client. I even turned off Steam Friends so that won't slow me down any.

-MY QUESTION- is should I let windows do Windows Update? I'm still running Service Pack 2, but I want to know if updating to SP3 will help or hinder my performance.

I'd also like to know some console codes to improve my speed.

VC · « **Reply #1 on:** February 08, 2009, 11:27:37 pm »

You need a firewall. I don't think you need any updates; I use Windows 2000 SP4, so you shouldn't need anything more than that.

For Source, your best bet is overclocking your CPU. However, you need to find out what your bottleneck is. With cheats enabled, because Valve sucks, use +showbudget and learn where your processing time is going so you know what to fix.

PPK · « **Reply #2 on:** February 08, 2009, 11:31:27 pm »

What are your computer specs, by the way? Since you say it's crappy, I'd like to compare it to the shit pile I have near my desk, if you don't mind.

JcFerggy · « **Reply #3 on:** February 08, 2009, 11:53:18 pm »

Intel Celeron
2.66GHz
1GB of RAM
Win XP Home SP2
Nvidia GeForce 7600 GS (Its AGP)
100GB Partition

PPK · « **Reply #4 on:** February 08, 2009, 11:57:26 pm »

Not much better than mine's:

P4 3.2 GHz
2048 MB RAM DDR400
80 GB HD
Sapphire Radeon X1600 Pro AGP

BTW, how the hell does your avatar keep changing?

Sergeant Kelly · « **Reply #5 on:** February 09, 2009, 04:00:07 am »

Either he is online 24/7 and changes his avatar every time you press refresh.

OR

He's using an avatar gallery which randomly chooses from a selection of pre-uploaded images.

JcFerggy · « **Reply #6 on:** February 09, 2009, 04:15:19 am »

Quote from: Sergeant Kelly on February 09, 2009, 04:00:07 am

Either he is online 24/7 and changes his avatar every time you press refresh.

OR

He's using an avatar gallery which randomly chooses from a selection of pre-uploaded images.

What? Who goes offline?

Anyway, thanks VC, but by console commands, I meant ones that would reduce graphics and stuff on screen, to help with the speed.

keefy · « **Reply #7 on:** February 09, 2009, 04:23:34 am »

Those celeron processors are notoriously weak for gaming.
You could try one of the FPS enhancers for TF2, CS:S or hl2dm, here is one from the latter
http://www.hl2dm-university.com/other_resources/FPS_enhancer.rar

I think most if not all the commands will work.

PPK · « **Reply #8 on:** February 09, 2009, 10:04:29 am »

Quote from: Sergeant Kelly on February 09, 2009, 04:00:07 am

He's using an avatar gallery which randomly chooses from a selection of pre-uploaded images.

That's a nice one!

VC · « **Reply #9 on:** February 09, 2009, 10:56:32 am »

"Anyway, thanks VC, but by console commands, I meant ones that would reduce graphics and stuff on screen, to help with the speed. "

What makes you think that graphics is the problem? Celeron is what's kicking your ass in Source, because Source is normally bottlenecked by CPU, not by graphics quality.

But if you are more comfortable using 1998-era PC gaming tips rather than analyizing your problem and finding the optimal solution, knock yourself out.

JcFerggy · « **Reply #10 on:** February 09, 2009, 12:00:55 pm »

Ok, here is what I get on Archives.

keefy · « **Reply #11 on:** February 09, 2009, 12:30:17 pm »

Woa, that looks pretty bad, I think, well in comparison the bars are all towrds the left on my graph.

You could try this orangbox engine tweaking guide its worth a try.
http://whisper.ausgamers.com/wiki/index.php/Fps_problems
Also this to reduce graphics quality.
http://whisper.ausgamers.com/wiki/index.php/Source_Autoexec_Tweaks

VC · « **Reply #12 on:** February 09, 2009, 07:55:29 pm »

You are underpowered across the board; even the sound system is being bogged down.

Part of the trouble is that Archives needs a lot of clean-up. A little was done before release but it's still a beast that needs performance work. That's why Static Prop and Other Model is so large. It beats up my FPS, too.

World Rendering may be your video card, but since Sound is huge, too, I'm thinking these subsystems are really just waiting around on the CPU to attend to them

Before you go hard-core on dropping your video quality, just try dropping to the low options in the menu and run at 640x480, or even 320x240. If the improvement is small, then you know it's your CPU that's at fault.

I hate calling a Celeron a "CPU," doing so is disrepectful to non-hobbled chips.

Beyond that, read your Whisper, he is a quality information source.

keefy · « **Reply #13 on:** February 09, 2009, 08:50:06 pm »

I do not like the whisper rate guide, it gives out the crappy magic 30000 rate number

which is wrong.

Sp1nn3y · « **Reply #14 on:** February 09, 2009, 09:58:21 pm »

Quote from: keefy on February 09, 2009, 08:50:06 pm

I do not like the whisper rate guide, it gives out the crappy magic 30000 rate number which is wrong.

Enlighten us

JcFerggy · « **Reply #15 on:** February 09, 2009, 10:29:15 pm »

I don't exactally want to Overclock due to if I fuck it up, I won't be able to replace it. I did read though that a cooler computer will help, so I downloaded SpeedFan, checked my tempature, then opened my backroom door (Its winter, and it's not heated, so it is as cold as outside), took off the side of my computer, and took a fan and really cooled it down.

Now because of this, I think my FPS have improved greatly. Here is my tempature.

-Edit-

Went down more

And my graph from Achives

keefy · « **Reply #16 on:** February 09, 2009, 10:51:58 pm »

that seems to have helped a little did you clean any dust from the fans?

---------
More players means more data to download.
You want to download this data as fast as possible just like you do when you downloaded GE:S beta3 I bet you would be pretty annoyed if the content servers limited your download RATE to 30KB/sec (30000)
Chances are you will max 30000 pretty easy wth 20+ players.

major · « **Reply #17 on:** February 09, 2009, 11:53:13 pm »

Try loading your computer up and see what the load temps are.

http://www.eocfiles.com/bdc86eb1ed2989c30dcd1902e84939ae/motherboard/utilties/p95v258.zip

^^^ For CPU^^

http://download.softpedia.com/dl/872d6a3959240a21a6dd62f0fe989a20/4990c15b/100102854/software/system/bench/FurMark.exe

^^^ For GPU^^ Just run in windowed mode, stability test, at res lower then your monitor res.

Try to run both at same time, and open Speedfan and take a look at the temps.

And like Keefy said clean the inside of your computer get all the dust out.

VC · « **Reply #18 on:** February 10, 2009, 12:08:47 am »

lol, 30000 rate.

30000 rate is the most Source supports. Thus, using it means the server will always try to send you as much data as fast as possible. Of course, that's only good if 1) your game/mod somehow needs to send that much data in real time, and it doesn't 2) you have that much download bandwidth, which you probably do 3) the server can hit everyone with 30000 and not run out of upload, which it usually will.

10000 is fine. Higher doesn't help except in special cases. But it doesn't hurt you, unless you are a server host who doesn't set your max client rate appropriately according to your server's connection.

For example, a few nights back one of our spare-box-at-home hosts was having sold 400~700 pings for all clients when a fifth man connected. I told him to set sv_maxrate to 5000, and everyone's ping dropped to 40 and gameplay quality was unaffected. He just doesn't have the upload rate to let Source send the low-priority data all the time.

keefy · « **Reply #19 on:** February 10, 2009, 12:27:30 am »

Home connections do not but sure as hell a professional host will have enough bandwidth and if they do not I suggest you switch until you find one that does.
30000 is just a magic number that everyone you included seems to think is the max but it isn't. look at this pic 23KB/sec and that server was capped at 25000 oh yes plenty of spare bandwidth

If you do not want to limit your servers bandwidth you use sv_maxrate 0

VC · « **Reply #20 on:** February 10, 2009, 12:42:09 am »

I've heard 50000 a couple times, but I've never seen/tried it. Maybe for LANs?

keefy · « **Reply #21 on:** February 10, 2009, 11:12:21 pm »

The max is currently 30000 due to a update Valve did a couple of weeks ago, those feckers need to pull their finger out of their ass and fix it.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=793519

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Author Topic: Computer Help (Read 13753 times)