Source Game's Problem

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Source Game's Problem

Back again with another problem overclockers hopefully you guys can give me some clue to what is happening here. It would seem i'm getting some huge drops due to smoke particles on all source games.

I belive it's a problem with the operating system as it never happend before when I was on vista. I noticed it about two weeks ago when I was playing CSS whenever I was in close range of a nade explosion, smoke grenade or smoke particles coming from wall (when shot at) I would get dips from 120+FPS to 15-20FPS. Game's I have noticed this problem in so far are...Half Life 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Counter Strike Source All of which are effected by smoke particles it would seem.

At first I thought it was my GTX 280 overheating or something but now I have my 5870 it's still happening. Also I updated to 64bit windows 7 ultimate today (was on 32bit before) and the problem still proceeds.

Anyway I've googled for about 2hours and still have no leads.

thanks for reading.
:)
 
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Source games such as CSS are single threaded so only utilize one core at a time, your best bet is to overclock your proccessor as performance is generally based off raw CPU speed. In my experience I had lag under the same circumstances as you when running my i5 750 at stock speeds but once overclocked above 3Ghz it became much better.
 
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Source games such as CSS are single threaded so only utilize one core at a time, your best bet is to overclock your proccessor as performance is generally based off raw CPU speed. In my experience I had lag under the same circumstances as you when running my i5 750 at stock speeds but once overclocked above 3Ghz it became much better.

I'm guessing you've done latest drivers etc...

Yes I have the latest drivers and why do I need to OC? I mean I was going to pretty soon since my 5870 came yesturday but I dont understand why I'd need to OC since my hardware surpasses the game's recommended etc.

Not to mention with the same setup (GTX 280) on vista I had no problems.

In my opinion I think windows 7 sucks, compatability mode never works and programs seem to screw up more than in vista. Never the less thanks to everyone who put in a suggestion. :)
 

Klo

Klo

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Windows 7 works fine for me??

I imagine its not to do with your graphics card drivers if it happened beforehand with the GTX280.

It also wouldn't be your processor, thats more than enough for source games, they aren't that demanding.
 

uv

uv

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Not to mention with the same setup (GTX 280) on vista I had no problems.

In my opinion I think windows 7 sucks, compatability mode never works and programs seem to screw up more than in vista.

You must be the first person in the universe to dote on Vista over Win7.
My first assumption would be the GPU change, not the OS change. Install the latest ATI drivers and make sure driver settings are at default.
 
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In my opinion I think windows 7 sucks, compatability mode never works and programs seem to screw up more than in vista. Never the less thanks to everyone who put in a suggestion. :)

You shouldn't need to run compatability mode on Source games.

Does the FPS only reduce so dramtically when your in smoke, or does it drop elsewhere? What level of AA are you using in game? What do you score on the CSS and HL2 Lost Cost benchmarks?
 
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You shouldn't need to run compatability mode on Source games.

Does the FPS only reduce so dramtically when your in smoke, or does it drop elsewhere? What level of AA are you using in game? What do you score on the CSS and HL2 Lost Cost benchmarks?

Yes its only dramatically changes when smoke particles are involved nothing else.

CSS benchmark I got 272 and the amount of AA it lets me have are:

MSAA 2x
MSAA 4x
MSAA 8x

I was using 8 but now I'm using 4x I've also tried 2x but they all give me the same framerate.
 
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You must be the first person in the universe to dote on Vista over Win7.
My first assumption would be the GPU change, not the OS change. Install the latest ATI drivers and make sure driver settings are at default.

Have done got the 10.2 still happend with the 10.1 and also happend with the nvidia drivers I tired two of them out before I made the switch.
 
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There is something wrong, but it's definitely not his hardware. A 2.6Ghz C2D or i7 is more than enough to handle CSS's smoke particles, or any part of the game in fact. I can crank everything up to max, even AA to 16x with my Q6600 and 8800GTX.
 
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Agreed. A freind of mine on CSS uses a Pentium 4 3.0GHz, 2GB RAM and an ATI X1950...

Until very recently I was running the same setup with an ATI X850gto at 1280*1020 very smoothly. I seem to recall source loves ghz over extra cores, mine loved HL2/TF2 etc at that res. It was happy with Halo2, shame the gfx card always fell apart on larger scripted area's. I guess the P4's had some extra special sauce under the hood
 
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It's a CPU limited game as said before, raw cpu speed is the main performance factor in the game, a 2.67ghz core2duo will get very similar fps to a 2.6ghz i7 920.

I overclocked and it was just the same I'm now at 3.90Ghz

do you use Adaptive Antialiasing?

Turns out Alex74 was correct my drivers were causing it. I needed to set them to quality rather than custom something to do with the AA anyway now its fixed and I'm running the game at a solid 260+ FPS!!! :D
 
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