Hi everyone I'm new to these forums and I am not incredibly knowledgable with computer terminology and all. Anyway, I just purchased the Orange Box on steam yesterday but I've been steadily running with a very low fps on both TF2 and HL2. Do you guys think these specs really just are that bad? or is there something I could do to make these games run smoother?

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T8300 @ 2.40GHz
Memory (RAM): 4.00 GB
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT
Hard Disk: 109GB Free (286GB Total)

Any input would be appreciated,
Thanks

Hi Eric,
welcome to Techspot
the problem your having is that the 8600M is a weak graphics chipset, gaming on a laptop is just very difficult to get any satisfactory results with modern games. here is a read for you...I hope it helps to explain things.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-...GT.3986.0.html

Thanks for the info Red. I figured my graphics card was a bit outdated since my laptop is now almost a year and a half old..but I decided to try out the orange box games anyway because it said I met the recommended specs.
Anyway, do you think the 8600M is not capable of running these games even on low details? From what I have read online, I was thinking that at least Half-Life 2 would run decently with my specs, seeing as it's an older game, but I've been having trouble with that game as well.

What I would really like to do is upgrade to a new laptop or desktop but I'd like to get at least 2-3 years out of this one before spending that kind of money again.

hey no charge eric let me ask you, when you say "spend that kind of money" how much do you think you need to spend to put together a game machine? because for around $500 USD you can put one together that will run those games and more, if you are willing to put it together yourself. just a thought.

as far as running them on low details, what res are you running? 1024x768?

IMO, HL2 should run fine with those specs. I have played Half Life 2 on a 7300GS and P4 with all settings to max at a resolution of 1152x864 (with AF and AA enabled).

Ensure that your drivers are up to date.

Well I know putting together your own machine is much cheaper but it's kind of out of the question for me at the moment because I'm in college and don't really have room for a desktop, and I also go home a lot so a laptop is just more convenient.

Yes, I am running 1024x768 but I've tried lower resolutions and they only seemed to help a little bit and not very consistently at that.

Just checked to make sure, and my drivers are indeed up to date.

Ritwik might be right, trying updating all ur drivers and it may fix ur game

i had the same problem with bf2 and it fixed the game after updating and patching