-HL2 and ATI RADEON X800 PRO: Anyone else experiencing massive hiccups?!?!

[Konfucius]

Like everyone else here, I've waited for HL2 a long time and I even picked
up a X800 PRO last week to prepare myself.

So after wrestling Steam into letting me play the game I purchased this
morning (my CD-key still isn't authenticated yet), I'm finding myself
staring at a slideshow every few minutes of gameplay. It just chokes,
hiccups and slows down to a crawl intermittently. I just don't get it. I've
tried both 800x600, 1024x768 and a variety of video options from the
suggested to high and down to medium.

This is what I've got:

INTEL P4 2.53
INTEL 845 MOBO
ATI RADEON X800 PRO 256MB AGP (CATALYST 4.11)
SAMSUNG 512MB DDR333 SDRAM
HITACHI 160GB SATA HDD
SB AUDIGY LS
PLEXTOR 8X DVD+/-RW
WINXP PRO SP2

I have a feeling it has something to do with the SB AUDIGY LS because it is
a software-based sound card but DOOM3 runs like a charm and the only other
game I'm having similar issues with is Medal of Honor Pacific Assault. Then
again is it because I don't have a 1GB of RAM?

Is anyone else having this problem? All I want is to play HL2 at 60fps
without hiccups. HELP!!!


[[[Konfucius]]]

 

[Visceral_Syn]

you don't 1gb of ram, but what you do have is a cpu thats running at 533mhz
on it's FSB and memory chokin it at 333mhz. anytime u run cpu/mobo/memory in
a non-optimal configuration funky stuff is gunna happen!


...Syn...

 

[Paul]

Visceral_Syn wrote in message ...

you don't 1gb of ram, but what you do have is a cpu thats running at 533mhz
on it's FSB and memory chokin it at 333mhz. anytime u run cpu/mobo/memory in
a non-optimal configuration funky stuff is gunna happen!


...Syn...

don't listen to any of this bullshit. your pc should be fine to run the
game. try completely removing your drivers and then reinstall them. perhaps
grab the cat 4.12 beta drivers (goto the forums at rage3d.com -> catalyst
discussion)

when you say slideshow, how bad is it? the x800pro should be running the
game really well, it benches at around 60-70fps in most tests.

make sure you don't have any other prog sucking up your cpu /memory in the
background too.

this is probably just a driver issue I reckon.

 

[Conor]

you don't 1gb of ram, but what you do have is a cpu thats running at 533mhz
on it's FSB and memory chokin it at 333mhz.

ROFLMAO you clueless gimp.

P4 is QUAD PUMPED, i.e it runs at FOUR TIMES the FSB. The RAM is DDR so
it runs at TWICE the FSB. THe FSB for both is 166MHz so the RAM runs at
333MHz and the CPU at ~ 533MHz.

 

[Sleepy]

Like everyone else here, I've waited for HL2 a long time and I even picked
up a X800 PRO last week to prepare myself.

So after wrestling Steam into letting me play the game I purchased this
morning (my CD-key still isn't authenticated yet), I'm finding myself
staring at a slideshow every few minutes of gameplay. It just chokes,
hiccups and slows down to a crawl intermittently. I just don't get it.
I've tried both 800x600, 1024x768 and a variety of video options from the
suggested to high and down to medium.

This is what I've got:

INTEL P4 2.53
INTEL 845 MOBO
ATI RADEON X800 PRO 256MB AGP (CATALYST 4.11)
SAMSUNG 512MB DDR333 SDRAM
HITACHI 160GB SATA HDD
SB AUDIGY LS
PLEXTOR 8X DVD+/-RW
WINXP PRO SP2

I have a feeling it has something to do with the SB AUDIGY LS because it
is a software-based sound card but DOOM3 runs like a charm and the only
other game I'm having similar issues with is Medal of Honor Pacific
Assault. Then again is it because I don't have a 1GB of RAM?

Is anyone else having this problem? All I want is to play HL2 at 60fps
without hiccups. HELP!!!


[[[Konfucius]]]

On my setup (XP2400, 768mb Sdram and 9700 NP) HL2 defaults to
1024x768 all high settings. It doesnt play smoothly on that tho. HL2 needs
a lot of RAM - 256mb minimum is utter bollocks. Secondly after you've
installed
all 3.5 gb you need to defrag it before playing. I've opted to force dx8
shaders to
boost performance by adding -dxlevel 81 to the command line.

 

[HU]

If Your HD is really chugging even after it loads a level, a defrag
might be what you need. But find a third party utility like Norton
(oh man I know someone is going to say "Are you F*cked!!? Not
Notron!!") but thier defrag works well on large drives.

HU

Like everyone else here, I've waited for HL2 a long time and I even picked
up a X800 PRO last week to prepare myself.

So after wrestling Steam into letting me play the game I purchased this
morning (my CD-key still isn't authenticated yet), I'm finding myself
staring at a slideshow every few minutes of gameplay. It just chokes,
hiccups and slows down to a crawl intermittently. I just don't get it.
I've tried both 800x600, 1024x768 and a variety of video options from the
suggested to high and down to medium.

This is what I've got:

INTEL P4 2.53
INTEL 845 MOBO
ATI RADEON X800 PRO 256MB AGP (CATALYST 4.11)
SAMSUNG 512MB DDR333 SDRAM
HITACHI 160GB SATA HDD
SB AUDIGY LS
PLEXTOR 8X DVD+/-RW
WINXP PRO SP2

I have a feeling it has something to do with the SB AUDIGY LS because it
is a software-based sound card but DOOM3 runs like a charm and the only
other game I'm having similar issues with is Medal of Honor Pacific
Assault. Then again is it because I don't have a 1GB of RAM?

Is anyone else having this problem? All I want is to play HL2 at 60fps
without hiccups. HELP!!!


[[[Konfucius]]]

On my setup (XP2400, 768mb Sdram and 9700 NP) HL2 defaults to
1024x768 all high settings. It doesnt play smoothly on that tho. HL2 needs
a lot of RAM - 256mb minimum is utter bollocks. Secondly after you've
installed
all 3.5 gb you need to defrag it before playing. I've opted to force dx8
shaders to
boost performance by adding -dxlevel 81 to the command line.

 

[Tanstaafl]

I was having this same problem on an AMD 3200 with a 9700 Pro and 1 gig of
ram. I thought it might be a sound issue, so I turned off sound. No help.
I cured the problem by using EndItAll to shut down all the superfluous crap
and running the game on highpriority.

 

[Mike]

It's not likely a video driver issue, it's more likely some app running in
the background, I'd guess the sound card as per the op, if no other games do
this (I still lean toward a small app that runs in the background). Try
disabling most processes in the task manager, especially ones with dynamic
icons in the taskbar.
And Paul, try learning a bit about computers before you post rude remarks
about other people's post when their theories are just as sound as yours.

Mike

 

[GTD]

ROFLMAO you clueless gimp.

P4 is QUAD PUMPED, i.e it runs at FOUR TIMES the FSB. The RAM is DDR so
it runs at TWICE the FSB. THe FSB for both is 166MHz so the RAM runs at
333MHz and the CPU at ~ 533MHz.

There seems to be a flaw in your math. 166 x 4 is NOT 533, but 664,
166 X 3 is 533. If the CPU runs at 4 x the FSB, and it is running at
533, then his FSB must be 133. Or is there something I'm missing?

 

[me/2]

:>In article <[email protected]>, Visceral_Syn
:>says...
:>> you don't 1gb of ram, but what you do have is a cpu thats running at 533mhz
:>> on it's FSB and memory chokin it at 333mhz.
:>
:>ROFLMAO you clueless gimp.
:>
:>P4 is QUAD PUMPED, i.e it runs at FOUR TIMES the FSB. The RAM is DDR so
:>it runs at TWICE the FSB. THe FSB for both is 166MHz so the RAM runs at
:>333MHz and the CPU at ~ 533MHz.

You want to try that again <grin>. I really don't think his P4 is
really running at ~664MHZ (4x166). However, I would be willing to bet
his FSB is really running at 133MHZ which gives you ~533MHZ for the
CPU chip (4x133). If his motherboard supports it he could be running
asynchronous CPU bus and memory bus speeds. I used to have a setup
like that. I had a 3.06GHZ P4 at 533 MHZ FSB (4x133) and PC2700 RAM
that was correctly id'd as such by the motherboard which ran the
memory bus at 333 MHZ (2x166). Now I'm running a P4-3.2E with a Gig
of PC3200 RAM. 200MHZ FSB all around running everything
synchronously.

me/2

 

[mhicaoidh]

Taking a moment's reflection, Mike mused:
|
| It's not likely a video driver issue, it's more likely some app running in
| the background, I'd guess the sound card as per the op, if no other games
| do this (I still lean toward a small app that runs in the background).

Judging by the threads in the www.steampowered.com forums ("Audio
Stuttering") *many* people are having this, or similar issue. Currently, my
money is on bad coding.