Ep2 stuttering ahhh!

Technology and Gaming Help and Support
#1

I’m getting dreadful stuttering in Episode 2 and I can’t figure out why. What’s changed is that I got a new hard drive (bigger and faster) and I did a clean vista install and redownloaded my steam games. HL2 and Ep1 load a lot faster now (wich iz nise :3) and run as well as they ever did on my craptop.

Ep2, on the other hand, is unplayable even with my low expectations. It starts with a framerate of about half of what I used to get then drops to 0.5fps until I move my mouse down to look at the ground. I can move along and shoot things fine… I just can’t look up while I’m doing it.

I’ve got the appropriate graphics drivers off the Acer website. I don’t know if those are the best for me to use. I have defragmented from inside steam and I have defragmented and optimized my whole disk.

I can’t think what else to try to get ep2 back to the framerates I used to get…
Any halp plx?

(P.S. My computer has intel integrated Gs and is three years old. I know a lot of people will want to post “get a better computer”. Do that, if you want to, but I will ignore you because I can’t get anything better. I know it is capable of running ep2 well enough to enjoy the experience.)

#2

Upgrade to Windows 7.

#3

^that

#4

Vista sucks for gaming, maybe you didn’t get the memo, WINDOWS VISTA SUCKS FOR GAMING.

#5

Well sorry to say it but the only solution is to get a better computer
haters gon hate

#6

post specs here and then upgrade to windows7. (i was an xp user, now im never gonna go back)

also i remember the fresh format stutter, urgh i forget how i got rid of it. Regardless, I had a similar problem except for me it was with cs;s and it felt like i was running too fast and then it would slingshot me back a few steps.

Either way, post ya specs here

#7

I have a 2Ghz Dual Core from intel and 2GB of mamory. I can’t remember anything else.

I wouldn’t mind using win7 but I’m hesitant to pay for it. I know what the solution for that is but I don’t want to get caught out by ms.

I was surprised how well source games ran on my system, even on vista. I can’t see how win7 can significantly improve on that.

#8

its a processing thing with win7. vista is a monster resource hog, but has a horrible controller for resource allocation. also compatability.

#9

microsoft won’t arrest you for downloading windows, the worst that can happen is WGA tool gets triggered and you have to enter a new CD key but I would get banned if I posted a link.

#10

yeah, just uncheck WGA tool in windows update and you should be fine

#11

I would advise getting Win 7 as well, regardless of the source you use.

But outside of that, you should make sure that Vista is completely up-to-date. That does fix a large amount of the problems it has.

Yeah, and beyond recommending that you get a better computer, you should built your computer yourself rather than getting a prebuilt one. Elsewise you can’t modify it, or update it in any way.

#12

Cool. I think I know what I’m going to do :wink: :wink:

I still don’t know why my problem is happening but we’ll see if it gets better with Win7 :slight_smile:

Edit: I have an idea! The problem happens when I look in the direction of the portal even when there’s something between it and me…
… But why would it render if it’s not actually being displayed on the screen?
hmmm.

#13

Hell.

#14

Not Visible =/= Not Rendered.
Try mat_wireframe with a few values (1, 2, 3 all work, though I forget which shows everything rendered.) as well as mat_visleafs 1 to see if the portal is still being rendered.

#15

I wouldn’t reccomend getting video drivers from your OEMs site. I’m not sure how Intel does it, but for AMD and nVidia the best drivers are always found on their site, so I’d check out Intel.com for drivers.

#16

eh?

Thanks. That’s an interesting articlet although I don’t totally get it. I had figured that the engine wouldn’t spend any calculations on something when Gordon’s not looking at it. I’ll fiddle with the commands and see what happens.

Coolio. I’ll do that.

#17

Older engines used to use a technique called Z-buffering/culling, where it would partially or completely leave objects unrendered if the player couldn’t see them.

…

…

But Source doesn’t do this afaik :smiley:

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