Why cant I play HL2 on higher settings?

[Ace No-Money]

LOL -
Nubius my CPU is not a mobile, therefore to achieve 2.2GHz I have to max out my memory at 200MHz with a 11x multiplier that I can't touch!

That means i'mm runnin' with a 400fsb, - these are the exact specs of a 3200+!

come on man you knew that!

I dont know if i can overclock these super cheap PQI's, maybe just 5~10MHz.

 

[hu_xu]

Man I just bought a radeon 9800pro and 1GB of ram and i still cant play HL2 on higher settings!

I get lag during explosions and extra audio sounds like when people talk in the game. This is with medium settings, and no AA/AF. Urrrr this makes me mad!

What do i upgrade now?

I'm thinkin' about going to Athlon 2600+ Mobile and clocking @ 2.2GHz (11 * 200)

- Thanks!

HL2 is CPU and memory intensive. In fact there was a chart somewhere that basically showed that CPU made the most difference. Also, did you try lowering the sound quality? This will relief the CPU if you are using onboard sound.

Also, the 9800 Pro is fine. People forget that HL2 was designed on a 9800 Pro. I also believe their test machine for critics had a 9800 Pro or 9800 XT can't remember but they also loaded the PC with 2 GB Ram PC3200 and P4 3.2 or 3.4 Extreme I think. You don't need an uber card to play HL2 but obviously having a X800XT will make a significant difference. Try playing with the drivers...most people consider cat 4.12 to be the best in terms of HL2 performance or try Omega drivers. Defrag your PC and turn off ATI AI.

 

[Nubius]

I believe people expect too much out of thier hardware these days.

Too true.

LOL -
Nubius my CPU is not a mobile, therefore to achieve 2.2GHz I have to max out my memory at 200MHz with a 11x multiplier that I can't touch!

That means i'mm runnin' with a 400fsb, - these are the exact specs of a 3200+!

come on man you knew that!

Bah you shoulda said that in the first place instead of just saying 'Its at 2.2GHz', for some reason I was thinking you couldn't even raise the FSB, but you could the multi....wow I gotta take a break from these questions and get my head straight

But yeah, now I don't know what to tell you unless you got a crap load of stuff running in the background.

My friend has a 2400+XP not even overclocked, 712mb of PC2700 RAM, so there's a bottleneck right there. I did however go to his house and lower the RAM to PC2100 with tighter timings, but anyway, he has the 9600XT 256mb card and he played we pretty good settings although I'd have to ask him to get the actual specs, but that's technically way crappier than what you have and he's never had a problem. I'm pretty sure it's higher than medium though.

 

[DJ-CHRIS]

LOL -
Nubius my CPU is not a mobile, therefore to achieve 2.2GHz I have to max out my memory at 200MHz with a 11x multiplier that I can't touch!

That means i'mm runnin' with a 400fsb, - these are the exact specs of a 3200+!

come on man you knew that!

I dont know if i can overclock these super cheap PQI's, maybe just 5~10MHz.

If you have DDR-400 like your sig, putting your FSB up to 200 with a 2:1 ram multiplier will run it at proper

 

[GeckoEcho421]

Try a format and installation of differant ati drivers like DNA or that other type which I can't remember at this time. It made all the difference with my other comps 9800 pro.