20 Fps in CS:Source, reasons?

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Cartz

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I was hoping someone could help me figure out why I'm getting such miserable performance from my system playing CS:S and to a lesser extent NFS:MW

I've noticed that in cs:s as soon as I get people running around on my screen, lots of shooting/physics going off, that my FPS hits the toilet, hovering around 15-25 fps. I have a fairly decent system I think, and I noticed that in another thread on this forum, someone was managing to pull 130fps constant from cs:s on a 6600GT (which pales in comparison to my card), and on a roughly equivilant processor to mine.

I've noticed that I can up the Aniostropic Filtering all the way to 16x and not notice a performance hit, and 4x AA barely impacts my play either. So I'm thinking it's CPU limited. I play @ 1920x1200 resolution, but even if I drop it down to 720x480, I still get the same 20fps when in heavy firefights.

I believe all my relevant system stats are below. Can someone suggest why the heck I'm getting such poor performance from this game (and to a lesser extent, other games as well)

Athlon64 3200 Venice @ 2.13Ghz
X850XTPE (x800Gto2 unlocked) @ 540/590
4x512 Cosair Twinx @ 2.5 3 3 6
A8N-SLI mobo
 
Hey..

What kind of frame rates are you getting with the in game frame rate tester?? If these are bad also.. try restarting your computer in safe mode and run again..just to eliminate background stuff hogging your cpu.. if its still bad, there are a lot of free .. erm i suppose you could call them hacks.. for disabling various lighting effects, ect, which can improve your overall frame rate..

By the sounds of it though your system should run it fine... also run a virus scan.. and a good spyware detector like spybot search and destroy. (its free) and run that too...

Hope this helps!! :)
 
Hey Cartz, have you tried tweaking around with video setting and details? 2.13GHz with AMD should be more than plenty to play CS:S. The video card seems good too. I would just try to rid the details as much as possible. I'm not sure if you have tried RivaTuner, but I would download the latest version at Guru3D. In Direct3D and OpenGL, I'd turn off Vsync as that decreases fps. Anisotropy: put that as level 1(bilinear). I would also turn antialiasing off. Sometimes you got to sacrifice pretty pixels for consistent performance. I'd try 1024x768 or something similar.

Normally when you change settings, you won't notice that much in the fps; the real test is when you're in a firefight where the fps will have a wider range of fluctuation than staring at a blank piece of wall. If nothing else works, maybe try defragmenting hard drive(s) and not have too many programs running in the background. Although you have 2GB RAM, can't hurt to try at this point.
 
Exscind said:
Hey Cartz, have you tried tweaking around with video setting and details? 2.13GHz with AMD should be more than plenty to play CS:S. The video card seems good too. I would just try to rid the details as much as possible. I'm not sure if you have tried RivaTuner, but I would download the latest version at Guru3D. In Direct3D and OpenGL, I'd turn off Vsync as that decreases fps. Anisotropy: put that as level 1(bilinear). I would also turn antialiasing off. Sometimes you got to sacrifice pretty pixels for consistent performance. I'd try 1024x768 or something similar.

Normally when you change settings, you won't notice that much in the fps; the real test is when you're in a firefight where the fps will have a wider range of fluctuation than staring at a blank piece of wall. If nothing else works, maybe try defragmenting hard drive(s) and not have too many programs running in the background. Although you have 2GB RAM, can't hurt to try at this point.
Click to expand...

Thanks!

I've tried all of these suggestions unfortunately, I only run with trilinear filtering, even though as I said, I notice no real hit even when I use 16x AF. I don't use AA, because at 1920x1200, I really don't need it :p.

I know vsync limits your fps to a set maximum, but does it really reduce overall framerates as well? If so, I will try it with that setting off, just to be sure. Interestingly enough, when I played Lost Coast, I never once saw my fps drop below 60, so it makes me wonder...

Could it possibly be an issue with the nforce chipsets handling of my network port (I use the onboard port, but no, I haven't installed the network access manager) Would it be worth it to run out and buy a PCI NIC to offloard the communication responsibilities from my CPU?

As for removing the detail/lighting/other effects, next to no difference was found. Like I said, I ran at 720x480 and noticed no substantial improvement. I turned off the shadows, I turned off HDR and I turned shader detail to low. None of these make a difference, and on my system I find decreasing the detail unacceptable in any case. People with much worse systems can run the game with full detail, there is no reason I should be forced to compromise.

Background Applications running while I play CS? McAfee Virusscan, Logitech Setpoint are the only things found in my systray as far as programs go... I've done virus/spyware scans, I don't have so much as a malicious tracking cookie on my system. Before I load CS, Task manager says I have 1.6Gb of ram free. I tried manually allocating almost a full Gb of RAM to CS:S through the -heapsize 768000 command line argument.

Another option in my mind is that, because I'm running my RAM at a few Mhz over spec, maybe I should loosen the timings a bit to lessen the access errors? I don't know much about RAM timing, so I'm not sure if this would make any sort of a difference. Somebody experienced have any ideas on this?

Thanks for your help guys... Keep it coming.
 
I don't know what RAM that particular Corsair model uses, so a bit difficult to suggest timings. What I would do, if you suspect the RAM is the culprit, is to download Memtest86, unsurprisingly at http://www.memtest86.com/. Follow the Windows installation to run the program. In the menu, go into configuration, set the test to test 5 (block move, 64 moves). It's auto-looping so let it run at least 5 successful passes. If there's something wrong with the RAM, there will be red lines highlighted. If you don't know wtf I'm talking about with the red lines when memtest is running, that's good news :). If test 5 shows no error with 5 loops, run default test (which does all the tests). Run that at least 3-4 times, it will take a while so grab a book to read or something. Ironically, you'd want some errors to be shown in memtest, because that suggests you have located the source of your problem! If not, at least you also eliminated the RAM as the problem.
 
Help!! I have the exact same garbage problem... I ran run 800x600 or 1600x1200 and I get the same avrage FPS. However, the problem is if i run 1600x1200 or 800x600 i only get 15-25 FPS in some areas of the maps where there are people and fire fights going on... This is absolutely retarded that I should have to play like this....

I have a A64 3500 @ 2.5 GHZ and 2 GIG DDR3200 ram and a 7800GT video card.

What the hell is going on? I just updated the NFORCE4 mobo drivers, Foceware video drivers, and no help at all... I dont get it... I just dont get it... Why is my performance so bad when I can go to my GF's house use her ****ty sempron and ATI9200 and get consistant 40 FPS? on the same server same map and everything?
 
Errmm. gonna sound stupid but..

Have you updated your steam lately? i know valve introduced new 64 bit updates for cs:s and half life sometime in early january..
I wouldent waste more money on i nic.. i think your processor should handle this game easy..
 
Do you have to go out of your way to pick up the 64 bit updates?

Or could it be that the 64 bit updates are actually the problem? I'll look into that tonight, and I will run memtest as well, its on the UBCD is it not? I have the latest version of that, and I think I have a copy of memtest kicking around somewhere as well...

I really don't think it would be the RAM, because
a. It's brand new as of January 8th
b. I notice no problems in any other games, NFS:MW runs fantastic with every detail maxed, as does Tiger Woods 06 and BF2

It's just CS, the frames drop right into the toilet bowl whenever I get involved in a fight with lots of people... Seems though, that if I stick to smaller engagements, I don't have the problem. 6-10 people in a server is fine, so thankfully I can still scrim with my buddies.
 
Mictlantecuhtli said:
Both of you are using AMD Athlon 64s.. could it have something to do with Cool'n'Quiet or other power settings?
Click to expand...

Cool'n'Quiet is nowhere close to enabled on my system, and my system is nowhere near quiet when I get gaming :) Thankfully I have fairly loud speakers/headphones. I have run CPUZ to ensure that my system is clocked appropriately.

After a long session of gaming in CS, my temps on my CPU hit around 50 on stock cooling.

Thinking about picking up a Zalman when I get a little more coin.
 
I have cool and quite disabled in the bios, aperently someone told me that this is a common problem that people on the valvetech have been talking about... So it's not just me or him, I just ran memtest 19 passes on 2 gig of memory no errors.....

So it can't be that... I get about 400 MARKS less then i did when i first tested my system way back because I turned down the overclock on both the cpu and 7800GT to make it more stable.

Any recommendations would help though... I tried disabling everything to no avail.
 
Cartz said:
I was hoping someone could help me figure out why I'm getting such miserable performance from my system playing CS:S and to a lesser extent NFS:MW

I've noticed that in cs:s as soon as I get people running around on my screen, lots of shooting/physics going off, that my FPS hits the toilet, hovering around 15-25 fps. I have a fairly decent system I think, and I noticed that in another thread on this forum, someone was managing to pull 130fps constant from cs:s on a 6600GT (which pales in comparison to my card), and on a roughly equivilant processor to mine.

I've noticed that I can up the Aniostropic Filtering all the way to 16x and not notice a performance hit, and 4x AA barely impacts my play either. So I'm thinking it's CPU limited. I play @ 1920x1200 resolution, but even if I drop it down to 720x480, I still get the same 20fps when in heavy firefights.

I believe all my relevant system stats are below. Can someone suggest why the heck I'm getting such poor performance from this game (and to a lesser extent, other games as well)

Athlon64 3200 Venice @ 2.13Ghz
X850XTPE (x800Gto2 unlocked) @ 540/590
4x512 Cosair Twinx @ 2.5 3 3 6
A8N-SLI mobo
Click to expand...

I am of the opinion that your settings are way to high for your card. High res does impact performance.
 
you mentioned you have logitech setpoint running...i too am also running that application because i have the mx5000 laser combo (bluetooth keyboard and mouse)...since we both have the same problem and the same software, do you think there might be an issue there?

i never had a problem before i got the keyboard/mouse combo and i bought it at the same time i bought my nvidia 6200 OC

logitech has openly said they are planning to fix their drivers due to a glitch with keystroke errors so maybe that will fix this problem as well.

cant think of anything else but this as to why there's an issue
 
well if you want to see if setpoint is the problem you can just right click the taskbar icon and tehn exit.. it will just act like a normal keyboard and mouse afterwards, without the extra buttons functions..

alternativly you can just go to run>msconfig then goto startup and disable:
backweb-8something
logitech desktop messenger
logitech setpoint

dont knwo if you've done this already..
video card drivers update
sound card drivers update
display properties (ingame) set minimum no AA/effects etc
sound properties (ingame) again no special effects this time
open the side of the pc case and shove a desk fan next to it (its an amd.. lets see if getting rid of heat solves the problem)
scan the usual 3.. ad/spy/mal-ware + virus/trojan as well.. just in case..

download process explorer from www.sysinternals.com.. that will allow you to see all teh processes running at the current moment including more details than the taskmanager.. see if any is hogging up cpu time.. if unsure what the file is runnign google it..

if that still doesnt prove any results you can try reinstall CS... altho dont forget to save your profile (if you have one) - should be in the ...(cs:s directory)/SAVE or something (i have cs:cz.. abit different) with your name.cfg and some other files..
 
eli said:
I am of the opinion that your settings are way to high for your card. High res does impact performance.
Click to expand...

Heres some food for thought for you.

Ran the Video Stress test multiple times at:
1920x1200 - 68.48 fps
1600x1200 - 69.45 fps
1280x1024 - 70.80 fps
720x480 - 71.45 fps

I'm well aware that high res impacts performance, I definately would not have made a thread if I could have gotten better numbers by simply dropping details.

The problem is, that no matter what I do, I seem to get poor performance when things get hairy... I'll check for running processes and disable what I can tonight.

Edit: Also to attest to the abilities of my system, I played through the first few chapters of HL2 (finished past the part with the airboat) with EVERY detail cranked. 6xAA 16XAF 1920x1200 Water set to Reflect All... Only on parts with heavy water reflections did I see even the slightest bit of slowdown. I'm really quite confused.
 
From those results you would have to think there's a choking point in the system somewhere.I'd go through the BIOS and see if there's anything out of whack.The one thing I can think of (because you've overclocked the CPU) is what's the HTT multiplier set at.
 
HTT was set to auto, set it to 5x, no change... Ram timings are a little conservative, @ 2.5-3-3-7 so I don't think the problem is there, what else could be out of whack??

I'm new to PCI-E are there any settings there that need tweaking?
 
Didn't get home last night to try the HTT thingie (GF Called, Crisis!!! lol)

Did get this response from Valve this morning, (I filed a ticket with them)

me said:
I have an Athlon64 3200, Radeon X800GTO2 all running on an A8N-SLI mobo with 2Gb of Corsair XMS memory (4x512)

I have noticed that, at many times during play of CS:S, mostly during firefights that my FPS will drop in the 15-25 range... I have tried every detail setting at the lowest, and dropped my resolution to 720x480, and I have noticed no net change on my FPS.

I hadn't played until recently, as I had computer problems and was unable to play. The last I played was around August. At that time I actually had better performance on my old Athlon XP and Radeon 9800Pro.

I was wondering if you have any fixes in the works to address this problem, as many of your other customers seem to be experiencing the same sorts of problems.
Click to expand...

valve said:
Hello,
To correct this please click the link below:

steam://validate/240

Then rename the following folder:

c:/program files/valve/steam/steamapps/USERNAME/Counterstrike Source

to

c:/program files/valve/steam/steamapps/USERNAME/~Counterstrike Source

Then restart the game via the link below:

steam://runsafe/240
Click to expand...

So I guess I'll be trying this tonight as well.
 
Tried the valve recommended fix, it helped a bit, running it in safe mode definately makes it run faster, but it removes shadows, which is a kick in the junk, because they sometimes let you 'wallhack' when you see someone elses shadow coming around a corner.

Totally blanked on HT multiplier, so thats what I'll fiddle with tonight.
 
ok i'm going to have to open a ticket with valve too... I tried just about everyting, i've been OCING my computer like crazy and got 2.6 GHZ out of my 3500 and I still drop FPS like crazy in HL.

In BF2 all settings on everything runs great but not on this. crap.

Aperently people on the steam forums are having huge issues as well.
 
I still can't get anything close to reliable running, like I said, safe mode runs better, but looks terrible, and normal mode looks good, but runs terrible.

I'm just more or less giving up on CS:S for now... Oblivion is out in a month anyways.
 
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