At Wit's End With TF2

[FragFailure]

I'm at wit's end playing this game. I've messed with sliders, settings, reinstalls and anything else I can think of. This game isn't playable on my system. From the survey from Valve, my system falls in the lower middle of acceptable systems. It was fine for the first few days. Since then it's been utterly horrible on my system. I run at about 45 fps in no traffic. As soon as I hit enemy fire. My fps drops to 15 or less. I've read other forums and no setting or tweak has helped any. I've reinstalled the game twice.

Setup
Mainboard : MSI MS-6540
Chipset : SiS 661FX
Processor : Intel Pentium 4 @ 2800 MHz
Phys Memory : 1536 MB (About 1050 is available)
Video Card : Nvidia Corp GeForce 7600 GS (163 drivers)
OS : Microsoft Windows XP Professionnal 5.01.2600 SP 2
DirectX : Version 9.0c (March 2006)

Res played at: 1024x768, 32 bit color

[Blown65]

I had to put -dxlevel 81 on startup parameters to get mine work work. My PC is prob similar to yours overal

AMD64 3200
1 gig ram
XT850XT PE ATI
XP SP2

1440 x 900 res.

I get terrible stuttering on DX 9

[l3eeron]

I feel for ya Frag..


TF2 demands high end equipment, trying to get it to work on yours will drive you mad.

There are lots of options tho...

Your last ditch effort on boosting fps after reducing all the options is running an fps cfg. google for it if want to look into it

[Gen.Ben]

With my worse than your 7600GT, My x1300pro played TF2 decently at 1200x800

I dont think its a hardware problem.

[l3eeron]

reformat ftw

[FragFailure]

Running off of DX 8.1 has helped. The frame rate isn't great, however it is playable. If it dips to 15fps, I can still have control of my character.

I don't really want reformat. I take care of removing all the junk on a daily basis (don't keep cookies, frag, spyware products and watching for other misc stuff.) It's a pain in the arse with all the stuff I have. If I did, I'd ghost it. I'm waiting until after the wedding in May to build a new box.

The future Mrs. Frag is an AOL user. She gets to butcher the old P5 500 until she repents for her AOL sins.

[mujo]

I'm wondering if you have something running in the background. TF2 is pushing the limits of CPU usage in games. If you can (although I'm sure you've already tried this) eliminate any unnecessary background programs. The only other thing is to keep it in DX 8.1

[l3eeron]

lol @ AOL sins

[FragFailure]

Already eliminated auto start up junk like aol im, msn im, sys mech pro, nero and qt. The highest processes running are sys threads. Could it be nvidia compatibility w drivers?

[Blown65]

maybe its all the screenshots from that server you were playing on cloggin up your pc frag. hehe

[l3eeron]

I know you know this but, going to 800x600 would give a major boost

[Clay Pigeon]

Is there a big difference between GTs and GSs? I've heard people muttering about the performance of their GSs on some hardware boards...

[Simple]

I have the 7800 GS OC and have no issue's with FPS and I'm still running a P4 3.2 Ghz with 2 Gigs of dual channel. I'm also running everything on medium with 45-70 FPS.

Slowly building new system...lol I have most the parts just waiting to have verything all together before I put it all together. I know dedicating a WD sata raptor to just STEAM helped my games out a ton. .

I haven't tweaked a thing on my system since I did a reformay either so I'm sure if I did all the little tweaks I could get more out of mine. I did have a good FPS tweaking guide I'll look for it .


Frag might chack the archives on the old forums in the tech section I think I posted it over there at one time. .

[Clay Pigeon]

Frag have you used spybot/adaware/windowsdefender recently?

[Gen.Ben]

I'd have to say a good ol fasion format would do the trick.

You are only getting 15fps at that res in battle. Should do alot better with your card. I got 30 or so steady frames per second with my worse X1300, but then again I have a Core 2 Duo and 2Gb of memory.