Eeehhh… I can vouch for Windows 7. It’s not perfect, but it’s not bad. I’m sure it’ll end up being as reliable and tolerable as XP after it’s gotten a couple service packs.
^Yeah, but it uses way more RAM than XP.
True, but that shouldn’t be a problem for the OP’s computer which has plenty. That would only be a problem if the RAM/bus speed was really shitty, but he didn’t give any information on that so I can’t really make any sort of call.
So OP, when you say HL2 runs worse like that but the others don’t, you mean you load up HL2, it runs like dirt, then quit and load up TF2/Portal, and they run fine? Then you can load HL2 back up and it runs like dirt? Is the low framerate consistent, or does it jump around from high to low? If so, does it correllate with what you’re looking at? Don’t ever rule out the problem coming from OUTSIDE of HL2.
Does HL2 also take longer to load up any given save or game or whatever? It may be that HL2 has a lot more resources to load, which may be too much for the ~300MB of video RAM you have, whereas Portal and TF2 have considerably less.
Try right clicking hl2 in the steam game list and hit properties. Then launch options. Enter this into the box -dxlevel 81 . This should help with the framerate with not a huge loss in visual quality.
OP shouldn’t have to resort to that because, as evidenced by his ability to play other OB games without a hitch, his system is completely capable at running HL2 as-is.
Have you tried running a defrag on HL2 through steam?
It seems that I did turn AA off in TF2. I’m not sure what the fps is, though it might be the same considering I didn’t think HL2 was running too badly until I saw the fps.
The frame rate is pretty consistently at 35-40 unless I stare at a wall and it might go up to 50 or so. I do notice every once in awhile it’ll jump up to about 100 for half a second or so, though.
I’ll try deleting it and redownloading it if I have time.
that laptop should run it fine, yeah the video card is somewhat lacking, but from my experience the source engine is more cpu reliant that the gpu. All youve got todo is get it sitting at 60fps and it should feel fine, the flashlight lag is because it will be a dynamic light.
Shit actually, check your cpu temps (laptops get very hot lol)
Eh, it just sounds like you had too much graphics running for the little video card. Just leave AA off, since it really doesn’t make much difference in appearance.
And yea, maybe check temps to make sure the laptop isn’t overheating or something. The newer Macbooks are much better about dispersing heat than the old ones, but it still doesn’t take much to get them hotter than Satan’s sphincter on disco night.
Don’t reinstall them, though, since it really doesn’t sound like there’s any software issues. The jumping to 100fps is probably more of some little hiccup in the benchmarking code in Source, or various stars in the universe occasionally aligning to cause processes to time up just right to give a 1-frame boost in (calculated) performance.
Well, these are my current temps. All I’m doing is using the internet.
Hardware monitor ACPI
Temperature 0 52°C (125°F) [0xCB4] (THRM)
Hardware monitor AMD Turion II Ultra M620
Power 0 26.40 W (Processor)
Temperature 0 53°C (128°F) [0x1AB] (Core #0)
Temperature 1 53°C (127°F) [0x1A9] (Core #1)
Hardware monitor TOSHIBA MK5056GSY
Temperature 2 39°C (102°F) [0x27] (Air Flow)
Hardware monitor Battery 1
Voltage 0 16.69 Volts [0x4134] (Current Voltage)
Capacity 0 73440 mWh [0x11EE0] (Designed Capacity)
Capacity 1 70502 mWh [0x11366] (Full Charge Capacity)
Capacity 2 60826 mWh [0xED9A] (Current Capacity)
Level 0 4 pc [0x5F] (Wear Level)
Level 1 86 pc [0x56] (Charge Level)
Play HL2 for a while, then check.
Hey, don’t knock the old computers. My seven year old backup laptop was able to play TR:Anniversary when it came out. Well. It just hated fov modification, but I hated that too. And my sisters three year old Toshiba is still pretty in-shape. It can handle all source games on medium settings at full fps (75), and high settings at 65-70 (with dips ranging from 50-35), but nothing game-crushingly bad.
And regarding Windows 7 ram usage: It only uses approximately a third more RAM than XP (half as much more as Vista did, that horrid beast). XP used 150 megs of ram. Vista used approximately 300 megs of ram (and if you wanted to do anything with it, much much more). 7 uses 200 megs of ram. And is much better laid out. It runs smoother on the computer (not the user, but it’s architecture and flow are much improved from XP, in a purely code/processing capability standpoint), and it’s only 3 gigs heavier on the hard-drive.
Windows 7 is the FIRST step up from XP Windows has really made. And they did it right. To the guy who knocked it, plz don’t.
I’d wish they stop quoting the memory. Nobody makes a graphics chip access to less than 256 MB of memory. The mobility radeon 4200, as nice as it is, is MUCH less powerful than the ATI Radeon 2600 Pro.
2xxx is the generation
x2xx is the series within the generation
4200 !> 2600
I don’t often read the requirements, though maybe I should start. I use this site for the most part which said that I met the minimum requirements.
Yea, that’s pretty dumb, though I think they may just be trying to give dummies some kind of number that looks familiar. Numbering schemes can be annoying, too, but you just gotta know all the numbers of the generations you’re looking at. The lower numbers in any given generation will be the budget cards that will probably perform on-par with the medium or high-end of the cards 1 or 2 generations back, and MOBIL versions of said cards will probably perform even worse.
Even still, performance increases may not be all that much from generation to generation. According to benchmarks, my new GeForce GTS250 performs only slightly better than my old GeForce 8800GTS. They’re both the GTS (mid-/high range), separated by 2 generations, yet they apparently don’t really perform much different. Probably just better support for certain features and better power efficiency.
That’s also why I like going as long as possible between video card upgrades. It was so awesome to go from an old Radeon 9600 to the GeForce 8800GTS.
It’s still a newer card that should have no trouble running hl2, hl2 runs at 50fps on an intel extreme graphics 900 or 950 that has 0 processing power.