help running counter strike source

4

405volume

New Member
I can play this.. but i was wondering since i have 512mb ram and a nvidia 5200 fx, if i can put the nvidia on high quality for the game, with 1.5 gb ram?

i can do this with 512mb ram but it lags like the fps is like 20 or below.

what if i upgrade my ram? would that be better?
 
and i bought battlefield 2. with 1.5gb ram would it run faster and smoother? i have 512mb ram now..takes 10 mins to get in game... and like 5 mins to settle.
 
You are running into the limits of the processing power of your graphics card. Getting more main memory may help some functions of your computer run faster (like loading BF2), but it will not help shader processing and on-card texture caching. That is why you are getting low frame rates. You would do well to upgrade the graphics card.
 
so the ram upgrade will help the game load faster?

what about the nvidia quality thing for counter strike source? since i get more ram shouldnt that help non lag or something
 
405volume said:
so the ram upgrade will help the game load faster?

what about the nvidia quality thing for counter strike source? since i get more ram shouldnt that help non lag or something
Click to expand...
To an extent, most of the loading time is limited to how fast your hard drive can transfer data to the RAM.

The lagging problem with CSS is mainly caused by your video card, not so much the RAM. Upgrading to 1.5GB of RAM with an FX5200 will most likely not allow you to play CSS any better then you are now. Your best bet is to upgrade your video card.
 
That depends on the kind of lag you mean. It sounds like you are speaking of intermittent loading lag.

With more system memory, your computer doesn't need to use as much virtual memory or use it as often. Textures need to be loaded off the hard drive, and they are usually also cached in system RAM then swapped in and out of your graphics RAM. If you run out of physical memory, parts of that memory space must be written to the hard drive and re-read again into system memory when called upon. This constant swapping can cause a huge performance hit. In this case, a system memory upgrade can help tremendously.

If your current graphics card is struggling to process all the shader/texture/geometry information at an acceptable rate at your specified resolution, then you will need to upgrade the graphics card. When you increase the graphics quality settings you put more of a load on the GPU's processing power as well. The 5200fx is an old card and may play Source games at an acceptable rate, but to get overall higher frame rates you will have to upgrade to a faster GPU.
 
you are guys are not get what i am saying, the nvidia 5200fx has an option since the new driver update came out where you can turn up the quality in game..i can run it fine without the quality option on. with the quality option on it gets a bit slow, not LAGGY just slows things down like FPS rate, is that RAM? cause my card can play just fine without the quality option on...

i dont need a new gpu...because nvidia has the option to turn the quality up itself..
 
Not quite sure what youre refering to.

But Counter Strike actually puts a significant load on the CPU (compared proportionally to newer games). What CPU do you have?
 
405volume said:
you are guys are not get what i am saying, the nvidia 5200fx has an option since the new driver update came out where you can turn up the quality in game..i can run it fine without the quality option on. with the quality option on it gets a bit slow, not LAGGY just slows things down like FPS rate, is that RAM? cause my card can play just fine without the quality option on...

i dont need a new gpu...because nvidia has the option to turn the quality up itself..
Click to expand...

No, that is exactly what I was trying to point out in my last paragraph. If you are increasing the "graphics quality" in the nVidia control panel, you are increasing the processing load on the graphics processor itself. It sounds like you are referring to the "Adjust image settings with preview" page in the nVidia control panel, correct? If you have it set to "Use my preference emphasizin: XXX" and have that set to "Quality," then the driver is enabling a higher anti-aliasing setting among other things.

Using antialiasing on your 5200 at high resolutions is what is causing your frame rate to drop significantly. Adding more system memory will not help this problem. You need to back off the quality settings either in game or in the driver to get a respectable frame rate with that card. Or, like I said, upgrade the card.

Thank you for clarifying what you meant by lag.
 
You should not adjust the quality settings in the nVidia control panel, you should leave them to "application preference" and then adjust the graphics settings from within CSS.
 
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