Need some help with HL2DM & CS:S Created 18 years ago2006-01-01 13:51:10 UTC by Jon

Basically i got a laptop for christmas, installed steam and everything is fine. In CS and HL i play at 100fps unlike my lame pc which gets 60fps max. HL2 Runs with everything set to high and it looks amazing!

HL2DM wont start up, when i get into a server the laptop crashes. In CS:S on the stress test i get 28fps which is shite and when playing online I get 10fps which is unplayable!!! I tried setting all the settings to low, but it still doesnt make a difference. And i dont understand why HL2 will run with everything at high but the other 2 games which also use the source engine lag so bad?

My PC runs all the games:
Pentium 4
2.52 GHz
512mb Ram
64mb graphics card
80gb HD

My Laptop(COMPAQ Presario V40000):
Intel Inside Centrino mobile technology
1gb Ram
128mb graphics card (Mobile Intel 915GM/GMS,910GML Express Chipset Family)
80gb HD

I'm sure it cant be the graphics card because how can hl2 run everything set to high so well with no glitches or lag, even in big battles ?

I would imagine that Source is ignoring most of the "High" settings, where they're not supported by your hardware. I guess some of the settings which do accept "High" on your laptop are used much more in CS:S than HL2.

Are you sure you have everything on low settings? What about anti-aliasing and antriscopic filtering (AA and AF)? What resolution are you using for each game?

HL2 everything high and the anti-aliasing stuff is on the lowest = bilinear ?.

HL2dm joins a server then just freezes.
CS:S joins a server and i can play but very badly, 10fps. Ive tried everything set to high, with my eye i can notice the chnages to textures and models but still the fps doesnt change. When i put all the settings to low, i notice it but still 10fps.

Errm its a widescreen laptop. on cs:s ive tried all the resolutions, but in cs,hl and hl2 i use the 1000 something by 700 something because the other resolutions just look weird.

Yeah, you don't have a choice of resolution on a TFT.

Strange that HL2 runs so much better, though. If the stress test is available in HL2, try it. Could be some strange mod issue.

If you can't find a software/settings problem I would guess it's a combination of these things (for the lag in CSS):

*The clock speeds on the Intel Mobile range (your graphics card ) isn't very high and could explain the lag.

*Especially if you connect wirelessly, does it have 802.11g or b? Check you signal quality too.

My best guess is it's just a combination of things. As for HL2DM crashing immediately, it could be because of the above reasons but it's just wierd.

I wrote that but then I read what you said more closely. It seems like it's more of a software problem. Maybe something using up too much CPU or RAM. Check for background applications. Could be anti-virus or pretty much anything.

That's certainly not a beast of a graphics processor.

I would guess it's the graphics.

That's what I originally thought but downgrading the quality should have done something. Just try all the suggestion we have given so far. If you get no luck, assume it's your graphics card.

Typing "cl_showfps 1" into the console (press ` to get that up ? it's just above Tab) will bring up a little gauge of your framerate at the top-right of the screen. Run around a bit in HL2, get in some fights, and see what framerates you get then.

You might need to tick "enable developer console" in the Advanced section of the Controls tab in Options.