counterstrike source + 26'' + low res = choppy

D

domis

n00b
Joined
Jul 4, 2009
Messages
19
Hi good ppl,

I like to play at low res like 800x600/1024x768 in css which makes it easier to hit.
Now the problem is that on the 4:3 format (fom res 1280 and down) the game is choppy (stuttering?) and feels like its fps lag even thought my fps is constant at 150.
Compared to the higher res up to 1900x1200 the game runs smooth and sweet.

I had a 22'' a while ago and had the same problem, exept i found a solutions which i dont remember.

Any ideas?
 
It's hard to tell for sure whats causing it, but fast changes in the frame rate, even when the frame rate is very high, can cause a game to appear to stutter or just seem less smooth in general.

At low res your CPU may start to become the bottleneck when you're getting very high frame rates, it might be worth setting a max fps setting of only 100 fps so when things get CPU heavy its not as noticeable.

Some people cant tell the differnece, it depends how sensitive you are to it. it could be something else but It's hard to think of any problem that gives you stutter but where your frame rate remains high.
 
I used to notice with my old setup that looking at nothing my fps would be a 100, but at times like spawn where you have 5-8 people in you screen it would drop to below 30.
 
PrincessFrosty said:
It's hard to tell for sure whats causing it, but fast changes in the frame rate, even when the frame rate is very high, can cause a game to appear to stutter or just seem less smooth in general.

At low res your CPU may start to become the bottleneck when you're getting very high frame rates, it might be worth setting a max fps setting of only 100 fps so when things get CPU heavy its not as noticeable.

Some people cant tell the differnece, it depends how sensitive you are to it. it could be something else but It's hard to think of any problem that gives you stutter but where your frame rate remains high.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply.
The fps is locked to 101 now, and that didnt make any difference.
I find it weird that even 1280x1024 have this stuttering, and up from there its smooth as silk, dosnt make any sense!
 
sounds like you have the horsepower to spare at low res, try vsync maybe?
 
I've tried vsync on, and that didnt help unfortunatly.

Just a sidenote; I had no problem with these res with my syncmaster 19inch, but i guess that is quite logic i guess.
 
Is the display stretched? Cant quite recall, but you may be doing the upscaling through your driver and that may be causing it. Some monitors also have a little bit of lag when doing upscaling too (if the monitor is handling the task), so its hard to determine which is the culprit.
 
inotocracy said:
Is the display stretched? Cant quite recall, but you may be doing the upscaling through your driver and that may be causing it. Some monitors also have a little bit of lag when doing upscaling too (if the monitor is handling the task), so its hard to determine which is the culprit.
Click to expand...

Interesting, that might be the problem, the screen is indeed stetched.
The minitor have a feature which can make the screen in aspect mode (which makes it proportionally correct). I tried to engage that feature, but it didnt help mutch, can it be the videocard that have a upscalingproblem?
 
Any problem effecting rendering time would give you a low fps, a problem with your monitor should be apparant in all games in the same resolution.

What are you using to measure frame rate, it might not have a fast enough sample rate to see very quick dips in actual fps.
 
Domis, see if there is an option in the monitor to disable scaling/stretching. If there is, disable it and see if the problem goes away. If there is an option and you disable it and the screen is still stretched/scaled then its being done in the drivers.
 
Any problem effecting rendering time would give you a low fps, a problem with your monitor should be apparant in all games in the same resolution.

What are you using to measure frame rate, it might not have a fast enough sample rate to see very quick dips in actual fps.
Click to expand...

Counterstrike source have a built-in fpscounter and should be accurate, well thats what i'm using anyways. I also tried a external fpsprogram that showed the same result.
Tbh if i take a closer look at the stuttering, its more closer to tearing than a fpsdip.
If it happens to be tearing, it hvae to be hell alot of it :rolleyes:

Domis, see if there is an option in the monitor to disable scaling/stretching. If there is, disable it and see if the problem goes away. If there is an option and you disable it and the screen is still stretched/scaled then its being done in the drivers.
Click to expand...

There is an option to disable the stretching, i can even do a custom scaling with it, and it works perfect, but unfortunately the stuttering is still there.
 
Get a 120hz monitor, turn off vsync, rate 30000, cl_cmdrate 100, cl_updaterate 100, fps_max 121, net_graph 3
 
rate 25000* ;)

I dont want another monitor, thats why im trying to solve this, and im optimistic finding the answer:cool:

Thanks anyways
 
Try to run the game in windowed mode. There is a setting in your CSS options. just make the window as large as you can to keep it from stretching. I am thinkin it is an issue with the native res of the widescreen scaling it to a 4:3 aspect as well. I had similar issues a while back. Can't remember the specifics. Good luck.
 
med1kl said:
Get a 120hz monitor, turn off vsync, rate 30000, cl_cmdrate 100, cl_updaterate 100, fps_max 121, net_graph 3
Click to expand...

This. It's called a 60Hz LCD monitor and anybody with two functioning eyeballs can immediately identify how blurry, choppy and shitty the picture is in a fast-paced FPS. I mean, my dad could tell the difference between 120Hz and 60Hz, yet most people on this forum don't seem to be able to recognize the problem.
 
krameriffic said:
This. It's called a 60Hz LCD monitor and anybody with two functioning eyeballs can immediately identify how blurry, choppy and shitty the picture is in a fast-paced FPS. I mean, my dad could tell the difference between 120Hz and 60Hz, yet most people on this forum don't seem to be able to recognize the problem.
Click to expand...

Alright, nothing to see here. Go back to the Display forum. *waves police baton*

OP: Is there some way you can provide us with video of the display while it is doing whatever you claim the problem is and slap it on youtube?
 
SpeedBump613 said:
Try to run the game in windowed mode. There is a setting in your CSS options. just make the window as large as you can to keep it from stretching. I am thinkin it is an issue with the native res of the widescreen scaling it to a 4:3 aspect as well. I had similar issues a while back. Can't remember the specifics. Good luck.
Click to expand...

wohaa, that actually worked, it ran smoothly now.
Now that we know that it works in windows mode fluidly, there must be a logic way to get it to work full screen mode!
 
Yossarian22 said:
Alright, nothing to see here. Go back to the Display forum. *waves police baton*

OP: Is there some way you can provide us with video of the display while it is doing whatever you claim the problem is and slap it on youtube?
Click to expand...

I wish i had a camera at this point mister :( I'll see what i can do
 
med1kl said:
Get a 120hz monitor, turn off vsync, rate 30000, cl_cmdrate 100, cl_updaterate 100, fps_max 121, net_graph 3
Click to expand...

True, best way to game on PC period, but CRT is out sorry. I have my G520 for lans but that's that.

krameriffic said:
This. It's called a 60Hz LCD monitor and anybody with two functioning eyeballs can immediately identify how blurry, choppy and shitty the picture is in a fast-paced FPS. I mean, my dad could tell the difference between 120Hz and 60Hz, yet most people on this forum don't seem to be able to recognize the problem.
Click to expand...


And good for your dad, why don't you say hi to him for me?



And to the OP, it's definitely a drivers issue if it's doing this at only those low resolution but works in windows mode. Maybe you need to reinstall the drivers? maybe even the monitor drivers. I remember having this problem 2 years ago, same game and everything lol.

If you have an ATi card, try disabling Catalyst AI and see if that helps.

Good luck!
 
I have that same problem, if I run it at 800x600 or lower it gets choppy but anything higher it's smooth as silk. I read somewhere that these next gen graphic cards aren't designed to run at the lower resolutions.
 
SouLXIV said:
I have that same problem, if I run it at 800x600 or lower it gets choppy but anything higher it's smooth as silk. I read somewhere that these next gen graphic cards aren't designed to run at the lower resolutions.
Click to expand...

Thats not true. This is more than likely a driver issue if the game runs fine windowed. Try an older or a beta set of drivers to see if it fixes the issue in fullscreen.
 
And to the OP, it's definitely a drivers issue if it's doing this at only those low resolution but works in windows mode. Maybe you need to reinstall the drivers? maybe even the monitor drivers. I remember having this problem 2 years ago, same game and everything lol.

If you have an ATi card, try disabling Catalyst AI and see if that helps.
Click to expand...

I have a nvidia 8800GT, but ill try to reinstall driver or find a old driver like inotocracy said (even thought i think its weird if nvidia dont make their card support lower res)
 
you may wish to play the game normally, instead of cheesing it, so you can have an advantage over people who like their games to look decent.
 
I'm not sure i understood that sentence, sorry :confused:

Normally for me is low res, so yes then i would have the advantage :)

I got a more 'competative' screen which is a 19 incher, but i would like to stick to one screen and do the best out of the 26'' that i can possible, even though that got lower responsetime and lil more inputlag. Its the friggin stuttering that is the problem, but playing in windows did the trick for me sorta.
 
Last edited:
domis said:
Counterstrike source have a built-in fpscounter and should be accurate, well thats what i'm using anyways. I also tried a external fpsprogram that showed the same result.
Tbh if i take a closer look at the stuttering, its more closer to tearing than a fpsdip.
If it happens to be tearing, it hvae to be hell alot of it :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Well the amount of tearing you get (the number of tears per monitor refresh) goes up proportional to your frame rate. Pretty much divide your frame rate by your monitors refresh rate and then add 1 (+1) and you'll get how many seperate imges are being used to compose just 1 frame refresh.

At 150fps and a 60hz monitor that is 3.5 frames on average stitched together to produce 1 image, between every frame is a tear line. Again limiting your frame rate makes it occur less (per refresh) but the only way to completely remove it is to enable vsync, a good option if you can put up with the input lag (I personally cannot)

This isn't stutter it's still perfectly smooth, its just we percieve tearing as a sort of line that appears through our screen, when it happens a lot it appears to flicker up and down the screen really fast.
 
inotocracy said:
Thats not true. This is more than likely a driver issue if the game runs fine windowed. Try an older or a beta set of drivers to see if it fixes the issue in fullscreen.
Click to expand...


its most likely not the drivers at all.. its actually the monitor.. since the resolution he is trying to use is not the native resolution.. its probably screwing up the refresh rates on the monitor.. thus making it choppy..

the reason its running fine in windowed mode is that the display is at its correct resolution 1920x1200 and displaying the window.. how anyone can actually play CSS at 800x600 beats me.. but why even bother playing the game at all if you are going to use a resolution like that..

but the guy that was talking about the next gen cards being the reason.. he is partly right.. most newer cards do worse at resolutions lower then 1024x XXX then they do above that..
 
If your monitor is 1920x1200 native resolution (wide) then I suggest at least running in a wide screen resolution such as 1280x800 to keep the aspect ratio the same.

Just out interest sirmonkey1985 what sources do you have for the performance being better above 1024?
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
its most likely not the drivers at all.. its actually the monitor.. since the resolution he is trying to use is not the native resolution.. its probably screwing up the refresh rates on the monitor.. thus making it choppy..

the reason its running fine in windowed mode is that the display is at its correct resolution 1920x1200 and displaying the window.. how anyone can actually play CSS at 800x600 beats me.. but why even bother playing the game at all if you are going to use a resolution like that..
Click to expand...

You make a good point. To the OP: have you tried explicitly setting the refresh rate in the Nvidia control panel for 800x600 to see if that helps?
 
What are your system specs? The Source engine is CPU limited to start with, so there is a chance that your CPU may be holding you back a bit at those really low resolutions. Are you still on wide screen? Also, if you are a hard core CS player you should check out the CEVO GUI.
 
FighterAce124 said:
No.
Click to expand...

um have you actually done any research or tested it to back up your opinion? Try running CS:S or CS 1.6 at 1680x1050, then running it at 640x480. I have 2 computers and 1 laptop, all with updated drivers, and the 640x480 gets choppy whiles the others are constant 100+fps.
 
Can people be more specific about "choppy" with these sorts of claims, are we talking about an actual drop in min/average/max frame rate?
 
SouLXIV said:
um have you actually done any research or tested it to back up your opinion? Try running CS:S or CS 1.6 at 1680x1050, then running it at 640x480. I have 2 computers and 1 laptop, all with updated drivers, and the 640x480 gets choppy whiles the others are constant 100+fps.
Click to expand...

At those low resolutions, its not the graphics card that is causing issues. You take a large amount of stress off it. It's not hard to understand. A graphics card can do a maximum of (example and very tiny. I hate math) 900 calculations/cycle. At 1920x1200, it takes all 900 calcs to render the screen. When you drop it to 640x480, it only requires 300 to do the whole screen. It now has 600 remaining to do work that arent being used.

Lowering res lowers the demand on the graphics card. Therefore, its not an issue with the card itself.

Just to be completely fair, since I did not do any testing personally, I went and did the video test so that my movement of the mouse wouldnt impact the results. With all video settings at the max @ 640x480, I saw no stutter or slowdown of any kind and the average FPS was 271.41. At 1920x1200, I saw no stutter or slowdown of any kind and the average FPS was 230.89.
Also went in game and saw absolutely no difference (Other than the fact that low resolution was low).
Just for reference, my monitor handles scaling and I have it do 1:1 for lower res.

I stand by my previously quoted "No."
 
At 150fps and a 60hz monitor that is 3.5 frames on average stitched together to produce 1 image, between every frame is a tear line. Again limiting your frame rate makes it occur less (per refresh) but the only way to completely remove it is to enable vsync, a good option if you can put up with the input lag (I personally cannot)
Click to expand...

Vsync is off, and it didnt solve the problem with it enabled.
The monitor got some inputlag and for me, and some reason, the inputlag seems smaller on the lower res. If this is a fact or not, i dont know. But i like the feel better, thats for sure!
Native res just makes my aim slow and muddy compared to the lower res.


its most likely not the drivers at all.. its actually the monitor.. since the resolution he is trying to use is not the native resolution.. its probably screwing up the refresh rates on the monitor.. thus making it choppy..

the reason its running fine in windowed mode is that the display is at its correct resolution 1920x1200 and displaying the window.. how anyone can actually play CSS at 800x600 beats me.. but why even bother playing the game at all if you are going to use a resolution like that..

but the guy that was talking about the next gen cards being the reason.. he is partly right.. most newer cards do worse at resolutions lower then 1024x XXX then they do above that..
Click to expand...

You might be right about that, but like i stated in earlier post - i had the same prob with my 22 inch which i solved but cant remember how. :(

I do play in native res from time to time in publics when i want to sit back and enjoy the gfx, but i have to admit i play wars at a high level which requires a low res, that works for me atleast, even how sad that must sound ;)

Why dont i get a faster gaming monitor then? I dont want two screens, and i need the 2690wuxi for my job as an graphic designer/retoucher.

f your monitor is 1920x1200 native resolution (wide) then I suggest at least running in a wide screen resolution such as 1280x800 to keep the aspect ratio the same.
Click to expand...

For some reason i feel the inputlag more with the 16:9 and 16:10 copmared to the 4:3, so yes i can, but if had found a solution to my problem i would love to use that instead.

To the OP: have you tried explicitly setting the refresh rate in the Nvidia control panel for 800x600 to see if that helps?
Click to expand...

yeps, i have. The screen also seem to change these values automaticly when i enter the game.

What are your system specs? The Source engine is CPU limited to start with, so there is a chance that your CPU may be holding you back a bit at those really low resolutions. Are you still on wide screen? Also, if you are a hard core CS player you should check out the CEVO GUI.
Click to expand...

e8400 intel core dual.
2gb RAM
8800GT 256mb

Thanks for the tip, i'm familiar with the CEVO GUI, and it wont help my case unfortunatly.
My display is a 2690wuxi widescreen, not the best screen for gaming i know, but its a crazy good screen and i'll just fine if this problem get solved.

Can people be more specific about "choppy" with these sorts of claims, are we talking about an actual drop in min/average/max frame rate?
Click to expand...

Sorry, i'm from Norway and im doing my best to be understood.
Maybe if i get a camera i can record it and post it on youtube. :)

Thanks for the help so far btw
 
My monitor is a 1920x1200 24" LCD. Dell 2407...one of the best rated 24" panels. I have run the CSS video bench at many diff resolutions and when trying to run it at a 4:3 res...say 1280x1024 it actually scores LOWER than running it at a similar native 16:10...say 1440x900. I think that is his biggest issue...especially if it is fine in windowed mode on a native res. Don't know if its drivers..or hardware. Maybe its a little of both, but end result is the same...choppy at lower resolution WHERE he likes to play. Sorry I can't help anymore. Hopefully you find a fix.
 
FighterAce124 said:
At those low resolutions, its not the graphics card that is causing issues. You take a large amount of stress off it. It's not hard to understand. A graphics card can do a maximum of (example and very tiny. I hate math) 900 calculations/cycle. At 1920x1200, it takes all 900 calcs to render the screen. When you drop it to 640x480, it only requires 300 to do the whole screen. It now has 600 remaining to do work that arent being used.
Click to expand...

Video cards always render as fast as they can, if you drop your resolution your video card will simply render the same scene quicker.

Theres only 2 circumstances where your video card wouldn't simply render as fast as it can.

1) You have some form of artifical limiting in place, Vsync or max frame rate set
2) Your CPU isn't quick enough to produce the information to re-calculate the scene (aka you're CPU limited)

Usualy when you dump your resolution down to 800x600 you're going to be CPU limited, but at this point you're running at 100's of FPS so it doesn't really matter.
 
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