CS 1.6 Smoke & Flashlight Lag


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Hi, I hope I posted in right place first of all, anyway..

When I play CS 1.6, and someone / or I throw a Smoke grenade it starts to lag me, I have like 99-100 fps and it just goes down to 15-20. And same with flashlight, if I turn it on its still at same fps, but if someone else uses it, my fps gets low again. I've tried other video settings, 16 bit colors and stuff like that but nothing seem to help.

I think my graphics card is broken or something, cause I've noticed weird stuff with the graphics in some games, I'm soon getting a new PC soon, so it isn't a big deal but I just wanted to know if there's anyway to fix this..

My PC Should run CS good, and It have before..

Windows XP Professional SP2

2 Gigabytes of RAM

Intel Core 2 (2.00 Ghz)

nVidia GeForce 8600 GT

I also play in 1920x1200 atm, and there's only lag when someone is using flashlight or when someone throws smoke.

Anyone know what the problem is?

Thanks

Ro0hm3

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Hi, I hope I posted in right place first of all, anyway..

When I play CS 1.6, and someone / or I throw a Smoke grenade it starts to lag me, I have like 99-100 fps and it just goes down to 15-20. And same with flashlight, if I turn it on its still at same fps, but if someone else uses it, my fps gets low again. I've tried other video settings, 16 bit colors and stuff like that but nothing seem to help.

I think my graphics card is broken or something, cause I've noticed weird stuff with the graphics in some games, I'm soon getting a new PC soon, so it isn't a big deal but I just wanted to know if there's anyway to fix this..

My PC Should run CS good, and It have before..

Windows XP Professional SP2

2 Gigabytes of RAM

Intel Core 2 (2.00 Ghz)

nVidia GeForce 8600 GT

I also play in 1920x1200 atm, and there's only lag when someone is using flashlight or when someone throws smoke.

Anyone know what the problem is?

Thanks

Ro0hm3

Sounds like your video card is on the way out if you're getting artifacting. Make sure your OS is fully up-to-date and you have the latest drivers for all your hardware.

Yeah I have done that, tried drivers from nVidias website and the ones on the disc that came with my PC. I got all windows updates, I've formatted my PC about 3 times, same problem.

Definitely a hardware issue, then.

How on earth is it magically a hardware issue?

What AA are you using?

I'm just thinking, smoke lots of little particles, lots of AA = lag? Especially if you have AA on a high setting.

'cause he is running an old game on good hardware, it should be flawless. I'll be AMAZED if it's not a hardware issue, even more so if it's not a GPU-related issue.

Oooh, alright.

Uhm, there's no settings for AA in CS 1.6..Or do you mean in the control panel for my graphics card?

Edit: Checked on the nvidia control panel..

AA - Gamma Correction = On

AA - Mode = Override any application setting

AA - Setting = 2x

AA - Transparency = Off

I used to get this issue when I had an older PC... I can't remember what the exact problem but I remember some cards being able to handle smoke much better than others. Not the most useful of posts I know but I don't think it's a thing that can be fixed by drivers.

What do you mean by 'weird stuff with the graphics'?

How on earth is it magically a hardware issue?

What AA are you using?

I'm just thinking, smoke lots of little particles, lots of AA = lag? Especially if you have AA on a high setting.

In an old game like CS1.6, smoke = a few large particles, it might only be 3 or 4 particles spread around at a large size.

It does sound like an hardware issue (since he's getting graphical corruption in other games), that could cause a slowdown or such in another game.

I've got that same card (and a slower CPU), and I easily hit 300fps at 1680x1050 with 16xCSAA and 16xAF in HL1 (non-Source), I have to cap my FPS to stop it jittering.

Uhm, I haven't cleaned inside the PC for a while, I'll do it later today.

Anyways, I'm downloading new drivers now, and just a thing I wonder..

By default, it installs to C:\NVIDIA\WinXP\181.22\English, but I always change it to C:\Program Files\NVIDIA\WinXP\181.22\English, does that make any difference?

I used to get this issue when I had an older PC... I can't remember what the exact problem but I remember some cards being able to handle smoke much better than others. Not the most useful of posts I know but I don't think it's a thing that can be fixed by drivers.

What do you mean by 'weird stuff with the graphics'?

Like, in some games, the colors have just ****ed up totally, everything turned into green, yellow, pink, red etc and looked like it was made in mspaint, and stuff similar to that in some games, and in Photoshop (not sure if this is caused by the graphics card or whatever) sometimes when a dialog box is SUPPOSED to pop up IN the program, it opens up like, behind the window, so I gotta minimize all programs, and then I find the dialog box behind all windows..which is annoying as hell, cause I can't see what I'm adjusting etc. Kinda hard to explain but I hope you understand what I mean.

Is this issue only there in CS?

Well, like I said in my last post it's also the Photoshop things, and some other games have screwed up. But at the moment I only play CS 1.6 / Source, and I'm gonna go into Source and throw a smoke and see if it lags me.

Uhm, I haven't cleaned inside the PC for a while, I'll do it later today.

Anyways, I'm downloading new drivers now, and just a thing I wonder..

By default, it installs to C:\NVIDIA\WinXP\181.22\English, but I always change it to C:\Program Files\NVIDIA\WinXP\181.22\English, does that make any difference?

No, That is only where the driver will be extracted. I usually delete that folder after getting my drivers installed

Oh, thanks.

Ok so I just smoked myself sometimes in Source, and it was no lag at all, the smokes in 1.6 and Source are very different, but still there wasn't any lag in Source..

Ok so I reinstalled the drivers, turned off all AA Settings, turned of V-Sync and Anisotropic Filtering, and now the most of the lag is gone, it goes down for like half a sec right when the smoke grenade is about to explode, but not when I walk around it etc (like it was before)

Now to check about the flashlight..*starting my old pc*

Edit: The flashlight lag is gone too! :o Thanks everybody, the problem is solved :p

Don't worry about the other games, I don't play any other games atm, so I'll get back to this if it happens again :)

If you guys have any tips to get higher fps, a good config or something that would also be appreciated! ^^,

Edited by Ro0hm3

A game like Counter-Strike 1.6 shouldn't give you any performance issues. Your PC is well beyond what's required for the game to run decently. As others have said, it's definitely a hardware related issue. I'm guessing that your video card went bad. It happens and it really sucks. I had an older GeForce card die on my and the symptoms I noticed were similar to yours.

if you're getting corruptions in multiple games/programs check to see that your card isn't overheating. if it has then it might be causing these issues. but it might not be bad enough to kill the card.

i had a gf 6600GT a few years back where the fan failed and by the time i noticed it had owned itself. card ran fine in windows and stuff but it was a bit of a lollercopter playing any 3d games on it. was like a rainbow version of the matrix lol

CS 1.6 is more CPU dependent than anything... you have a fairly weak chip. Even though CS is old... you're trying to pump out very high res graphics on a mid-range chip with a mid-range GPU. Try playing at a lower res. Smoke will always drop your FPS though, how much depends on your other settings.

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