Lagging!

the x800GTO is slower than the x800XT

lag spikes = massive fluctiations in ping usually along with packet loss.

so yeah, a connection problem.

Wrong. LAG doesnt always mean connection problems

Lag itself, especially in CS:S can be caused by a couple things

95% of the time, yes it is connection problems due to high latencies.

but it can be caused by hardware. Either server / client. What happens is if the computer isn't fast enough / powerfull enough to hand the ammount of data needed to process the game at "realtime" speeds, it will attempt to cut out some processing power. it will focus on the graphics and pysics first and then the network throoghput second. if the data itself is comming in faster than the system can process it, it effectively funnels it down and tries to stream it better. This is reffered to as Choke in CS. choke will give the skippy appearance as the data is being slowed down and having to go trhough inconcistantly. the other thing CS will do is actually just drop packets. This is loss.

best way to tell what type of lag in particular you're getting, you need to go into CS and connect up to a server.. drop your console and type NET GRAPH 3 to get a chart in the lower right corner. This will outline your ping, FPS, Choke and LOSS.

Mind you though, Not all choke / loss is due to your machine. Soemtimes servers are setup that are underpowered for the task at hand and they're the ones causing it or the net connection is shotty and forcing lost packets

I have 1gb of ram, which is sufficient enough for CS:S. I have been using net graph 3 for a VERY long time. Usually, when the lag spike occurs, my in goes up to hundreds or even thousands all of a SUDDEN and then comes back down...it is very aggravating since when it happens during a fire fight, I get ownt. So...yeah. Choke sometimes goes up as well (but that's probably from the server itself).

Only things running in the background are xfire, and the scan thing the anti-virus does all the time. They've always been running. This lag spike thing has been happening since about 2-3 months ago...it was running very smoothly before.