<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->and the chips in the 95-97 arent going to be sufficent for HL2... see hl2 is going to be using DX9, not opengl like the HL you're running now... <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sure they are, for one thing these cards support DX9, for another the 9800 is more or less just a speed bump for the 9700 but the actual GPU architecture is essentially the same. Have you checked any of the HL2 benchmarks released?
<a href='http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1264987,00.asp' target='_blank'>extremetechs HL2 performance preview for example </a>
Apparently nvidia is having massive trouble with HL2, even radeon 9600pros beating their top card. This is speculated to be because they use to little cache on their card so they have trouble keeping pixel shader units busy when in 32-bit mode. They have no 24-bit mode so the next step is 16-bit which may degrade image quality but does increase performance. Ati's code has to be optimized much less to run well on dx9 than the geforceFX cards too.
Besides HL2 is designed to be so scalable as to run on a tnt2(!), of course it does not support dx9 in hardware, nor does it have to. It is questionable if HL2 on a tnt2 will look better than HL1 on a tnt2 though <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo--> as most of that eye candy, the resolution, AA and FSAA will have to be turned to the minimum.
I have this same problem with my 9700 Pro only I get it on lots of different games, not just HL mods. I too have teh latest drivers but havn't tried anythign from a 3rd party yet.
If you get this problem all the time then it might be a hardware/hardware configuration issue. What powersupply have you got(weak powersupplies can cause lots of problems, a generic 300W powersupply would not be ideal for your setup for example), are powersupply voltages stable under load(most motherboards allow you to check it from windows)?, what motherboard(kt400's have had some problems with high end ATI cards, some of them can be fixed by getting the latest 4-in-1 drivers I hear)?
.. Have you tried turning up the AGP voltage a little? setting the card to AGP 4x speed(minimal performance loss)?
Rage3d forums have lots info on that sort of problems.
like this thread <a href='http://rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33664557' target='_blank'> Card Crash? Stutter? bad performance? The first look thread </a>
Also cat. 3.7 allows you to force tripple buffering in openGL which has the effect of being able to render at any framerate while still not getting any frame tearing. If it works for you in HL then use it. When Vsync is on and you are using double buffering your framerate goes as 1/n times the refresh rate. Which means that if you use 100 Hz refresh rate and your card is not able to render 100 fps then the next step is 50 fps, this kinda sucks but ít is probably nicer than vsync of because frame tearing is so darn ugly.
Ok well the only current solution to fix the card atm is to upgrade your processor speed. I have gotten a 2.4mhz processor and I found the Nvidia Chipset Mobo helped out as well.
No offence Sandman, but the problem is with the card. It might have new bells and whistles, but if the game doesnt need it then the card should be able to not ask for it. The technology to have 100 frames constant on a 1.4 ghz processor has been around for ages. New cards like the ATI should be able to switch modes to emulate the same thing if thats what is needed.
I have a net cafe and I have been trying lots of different products, the latest fx 5600 cards do great at running HL right now. HL2 might be a different story. The fact is, a new ATI Video Card should be able to run the 5 year old game just the same if not better then a card made 2 years ago. Touch wood ATI release a fix in their driver sets.
Comments
Sure they are, for one thing these cards support DX9, for another the 9800 is more or less just a speed bump for the 9700 but the actual GPU architecture is essentially the same. Have you checked any of the HL2 benchmarks released?
<a href='http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1264987,00.asp' target='_blank'>extremetechs HL2 performance preview for example </a>
Apparently nvidia is having massive trouble with HL2, even radeon 9600pros beating their top card. This is speculated to be because they use to little cache on their card so they have trouble keeping pixel shader units busy when in 32-bit mode. They have no 24-bit mode so the next step is 16-bit which may degrade image quality but does increase performance. Ati's code has to be optimized much less to run well on dx9 than the geforceFX cards too.
Besides HL2 is designed to be so scalable as to run on a tnt2(!), of course it does not support dx9 in hardware, nor does it have to. It is questionable if HL2 on a tnt2 will look better than HL1 on a tnt2 though <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo--> as most of that eye candy, the resolution, AA and FSAA will have to be turned to the minimum.
SPecs
1.8ghz
512 ram
9700 pro
.. Have you tried turning up the AGP voltage a little?
setting the card to AGP 4x speed(minimal performance loss)?
Rage3d forums have lots info on that sort of problems.
like this thread <a href='http://rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33664557' target='_blank'> Card Crash? Stutter? bad performance? The first look thread </a>
Look for it in the compatibillity settings tab.
No offence Sandman, but the problem is with the card. It might have new bells and whistles, but if the game doesnt need it then the card should be able to not ask for it. The technology to have 100 frames constant on a 1.4 ghz processor has been around for ages. New cards like the ATI should be able to switch modes to emulate the same thing if thats what is needed.
I have a net cafe and I have been trying lots of different products, the latest fx 5600 cards do great at running HL right now. HL2 might be a different story. The fact is, a new ATI Video Card should be able to run the 5 year old game just the same if not better then a card made 2 years ago. Touch wood ATI release a fix in their driver sets.