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[question]9600pro Problem

T

tipharet

Weaksauce
Joined
Jan 3, 2005
Messages
75
ok, I recently got the 9600 pro card more or less because it cost the exact amount of money I had to spend on a card. I use it to mainly play hl2 and I dont think the card is preforming how it should based on what I have read on the internet. I run it on 1024x768 with the recommended settings, with no AA and my fps is good until I get into a wide open area or if there is alot going on. When this happens it drops down to about 16fps and causes the game to semi lag for about a half of second. So I ran it at 800x600 recommended settings and I still get the same problem. I have read tweak guides for ati catalyst, windows xp and half life 2 but still have this same problem. Ive tried everything I know to do, lowered settings, tweaked the bios, flashed the bios, updated my mobo drivers, reinstalled xp, tweaked xp services, mem tweaks and tried the omega drivers but still no help. I close down all progs and processes I do no need when running hl2, even widows explorer. I have not overclocked it yet because I may be returning it and didnt want any problems to come from that. I have plenty amount of ram, HDD space and my system is adequate enough for hl2. My card is and everything else is pretty much at its default now.
The only thing I question is maybe my psu, its only 250 watts and I have read somewhere that ati recommends 300 watts, I may be wrong though. I just dont understand it and I am frustrated. I just feel that this card should be preforming alot better than it is. SO any tips or recommendations from you guys would be greatly appreciated.

After browsing through this forum, I have noticed that the 9800se is about the same price and can be softmodded to be a much better card. Do you think I should RMA and go for this card instead?

I may edit this post or reply to include more information as I think of it.


Thanks.
 
The 9800SE is not really going to be that much of a difference form your 9600 Pro at stock. If you are lucky and get a good 256-bit one, then you may be able to softmod it to a 9800 Pro, and you should see some performance increase.

Back to your problem, please list all the specs of your computer even though you said it was adequite enough. We may see something that is bottlenecking the system. For large scenes, I would say it's both your video card and CPU. Your video card isn't that fast, and even with a strong CPU, the FPS are going to dip. Have you tried overclocking the card? IIRC, 9600 Pros are good overclockers.
 
P4 2.0 gig
Intel 850 Mobo
System Clock 400MHz
250 watt psu
512 RDRAM pc800 (yes :( )
Sound Blaster Audiligy 2 Zs
ati 9600 pro 256mb
120gig Maxtor HDD 7200
80gig Maxtor HDD 7200

No I havent overclocked yet. I know its not the best spec for the game but I have read it running on much less. Considering I use to run it on a geforce 2 mx I guess my expectations were to high? Regardless it should preform better I think.

Yes I do expect a dip but from an average 50-60 fps outside to 16 is a bit drastic I think. I get 70-100+ on inside stages.

Thanks
 
Did you try higher resolutions? (oh and your psu is low, try 350W , its better for your system).
 
More RAM could probably help alleviate the issue, but RDRAM is hard to come by nowadays.
 
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