benchmarking video performance?

[bagggi]

alienware/dell fall in the higher price range.
am looking at hp with same specs and almost one third times cheaper.

anyway we are looking at something like 20-40% price drop in laptops within a year. probably the time vista comes out. till that time we will have to max out on the ones we have.

reducing more res, i reached 63.94fps

found two things through google
1) ati and nvidia, both have some beta drivers for half life 2
2) there is a patch available from counter strike and half life people for smoother online games

maybe this might help

[The Duck]

Yeah if you got a laptop your kind of out of luck... You can change a bunch of settings but you won't be able to fully enjoy the graphics CS:S is capable of...

these games are designed to work with the min spesc printed on the cover because they target the larger market.

While that may have been the case not to long ago (year or 2 ago), that's no longer the case. Yes they may work but not satisfactorily... I read somewhere that now game development companies are aiming for the folks with the 2 thousand dollar gaming machines... This could be for a number of reasons. For one, the PC gaming community was complaining that the games weren't fully taking advantage of their PC's hardware (vid cards, cpu's, etc).

Anyway, the pc gaming scene is now seeing that they have to upgrade some part of their PC every 6 months or so just to keep up with the new games...

[phishphreek]

I guess we can't change your mind about the laptop. But, why not keep your current laptop for everything else and build a desktop for your gaming? You can build 2-3x better desktop for the same price as the laptop.

It makes NO sense to me to try to play games on a laptop. You're going to have the same problems over and over. The only games I try to play on my laptop are internet games like texas holdem other misc. online java/flash games.

Anyway, the pc gaming scene is now seeing that they have to upgrade some part of their PC every 6 months or so just to keep up with the new games...

Exactly. Right now, my vid. card is top of the line. It retails for $600-700 depending on where you look. 6 months from now... it's going to be the cookie cutter card. (well, maybe not that bad.) It will surely drop in price big time. I'm willing to bet it'll at least reduce by 50% in price.

I guess it just depends on how "serious" you are about gaming. It's one of my biggest hobbies at the moment. I've missed out on a lot of games when I was in school and now I need to make up for it. I'm sure it'll die down in the near future when I get back into school.

[J_K9]

As the others have said, it is probably the graphics card giving you problems. I have a laptop with a 128MB ATi X700XL, and that just about copes with the larger, more detailed maps (eg. dust, dust2, italy, cbble, etc) - I get rates of about 35 up, when the settings are as low as they go (but native resolution). Luckily, the human eye can only see at around 30 FPS

If you want to see how many FPS you're getting in-game, do the following:

1) Load up the game. When you're there, go to Options -> "Keyboard" tab -> "Advanced" button -> Enable developer console. Then, click "Ok" to close those windows, and press the ` or ~ key (it depends on your keyboard - I think it's ` for UK and ~ for US) - it's directly below the Esc key. Once the console is up, type in the following commands:

net_graph 3
net_graphpos 2
net_graphheight 120

That'll tell you the FPS and data speed in real-time. Join a server, and watch the FPS - if it goes under 30, that's pretty much a sign that you shouldn't play it on your laptop.

IIRC there is a startup setting you can use to make CS:Source run with DirectX 8 or 7 instead of 9 (this will greatly improve the speed). I'm not sure of the exact location, but I think you can do it by bringing up the Steam window (NOT in the game, but the main Steam window), go to the "Games" tab, right-click on Counter-Strike:Source, hit "Properties" and add the following parameter (as is): -dxlevel 8
If it doesn't work, just take it off

Lowering your resolution isn't the perfect solution, as you can't experience the game as it should be played. Neither is lowering the settings. But, if that is what you have to do, then so be it - you can't miss out on CS:Source, no matter how low the settings are


[edit] Just realised there's just one point in my ordered list! lol

[bagggi]

its coool....lovely

the frame rate changes all the time and you can see it all.

had me scared for a minute.

the game starts at something like 40-45fps thats the time your player is moving in pauses, like moves-stops-then moves again. does it for something like 5-7 seconds then the frame rate picks up goes to something like 75-80fps even on the almost full servers

and i was like and

all this on the high settings.

this pausing and the moving in the begining is the one i am trying to get rid of as this is the time one gets to choose the weapons and you dont want to miss out on the weapons

got my a** kicked on the asian servers

[bagggi]

counter strike source has this preloading software called "steam"

some survey came up and and it sent the laptops details over to them and they compared it to all the others they already had and sent me this

its a valve (developers of CS: source) survey summary

interesting thing is in the status tab on top

Average unique users per month: 2,812,865
Average player minutes per month: 5.713 billion

thats a lot of people

i found the directx 9 control. if you go option>"video" tab>"advanced" button you will see it at the bottom, its not highlighted for me (i cant change that)

[J_K9]

Originally posted here by bagggi
and i was like and

LOL!

Anyway, back to the topic... Hehe!

What do you have beside "Choke" and "Loss"? Those could be causing the jagged movements. See the definitions here if you don't know what they are: http://cs.wireplay.co.uk/index.php?p...ers&view=faq#6

i found the directx 9 control. if you go option>"video" tab>"advanced" button you will see it at the bottom, its not highlighted for me (i cant change that)

Ah.. Well, I know that there's a way of changing it when loading the app by adding a parameter

About the survey - the stats of three different PCs of mine are on there. Oh, and if you want to play a map or two with/against me, just fire me a PM - we (TAZ) have our own server.


Anyway, I'm glad net_graph is working... Let me know the loss/choke when you start the app, and a few minutes into it, and I'll try to fix what is wrong.

Just a quickie - open up the console again, and enter the following commands:

rate 20000
cl_updaterate 66
cl_cmdrate 66

Let me know if those help at all!

[bagggi]

thanx

that last one really did it. problem solved for good. have printed the commands out and pasted them on the cd case.

also maybe that loss and choke was because of the wireless router

dlink
802.11g/2.4 ghz

ran the commands and connected the cable and guess what...... i am killing more


as for the game together, its a done deal

still getting used to fact that one has to get back into the buying zone to get ammo and there are no heath packs unlike unreal which has them all over the place.

wont give you the pleasure of shooting me all the time

also i have noticed that there is some kind of rating system going on in the game, i mean does it get recorded how many points i have made in killing and abnormal world ranking which keeps changing all the time?

cheers

P.S. got to go.......game's waiting

[J_K9]

Originally posted here by bagggi
thanx

that last one really did it. problem solved for good. have printed the commands out and pasted them on the cd case.

I'm glad they worked!

Oh, and wiring up does make a huge difference... The Lord knows that current wireless standards/protocols aren't very fast

also i have noticed that there is some kind of rating system going on in the game, i mean does it get recorded how many points i have made in killing and abnormal world ranking which keeps changing all the time?

That will depend on the server. If you type 'statsme' you should be able to see what it is. If it is Mani Admin Plugin's stats, a small box on the left will pop up telling you your rank, kills, deaths, and kpd (kills per death ratio). If the server is running HLStatsX, a larger window will pop up, ranking you in a different way - Mani's is by kpd and number of kills, whereas HLStatsX ranks you by the number of points you have. You start on 1000 points. If I have 1500 points and you (with 1000) kill me, you might get about 5 or 6 points. However, if you killed someone with 2500 points, you could get around 14 points for that kill. It's like gambling, but without wasting money


[edit] TAZServer is found at: 81.19.208.38:27015

I'll be around tomorrow, and I always join when there are other people on. If I'm on the PC and you want to play, shoot me a PM and I'll try to meet you in there!

[rcgreen]

my vid. card is top of the line. It retails for $600-700 depending on where you look.

Um, in six months, when you have to replace it, could you, like, send it to me.
I could do "post traumatic stress tests" on it.