8800GT Lag when playing on Source Engine

[stryoftheyearxx]

Hello there, I just recently purchased a PNY XLR8 8800GT and well the problem is whenever I play on the Source engine for about 10 mins in I start to lag for about 10 secs and then it goes back to normal. I've tried everything to stop this and nothing seems to work. I tried new drivers, checked if it was overheating, and even reformatted with XP to see if it was any better. I have nothing running in the Desktop but it still lags. Anybody know why this happens? Has it happened with anyone else?

P.S. I have 2GB XMS RAM AMD AM2 5000+ Antec 500W PS


Thanks for the help =]

 

[vochtige]

you didn't mention what resolution you play
so the guys can't say how much your cpu will be used while gaming. higher resolutions gives the gpu more work and less work for cpu.

 

[stryoftheyearxx]

sorry lol I usually play FPS games in 800X600

 

[rangers]

there should be no lag with a 8800gt at that resolution

 

[stryoftheyearxx]

yea i know, thats the reason why I am confused with the lag lol

 

[azone]

A Long time ago I had the same Problem with my 5700ultra on the game Joint operations. It turns out NEW drivers were the problem. I used the drivers out of the box and it fixed the problem. Later After a new driver release I tried again to use them, however, the same problem appeared. So try using those old drivers that shipped with your card if you haven't already.

 

[rammar16]

i am for the driver issue. +1

also which source game because if it is TF2 you could be having connection problems which could be Ethernet drivers, router problem, or just you connection is too slow....

hope this helps

 

[stryoftheyearxx]

i already tried new and old drivers even the one from the cd. and the main game I play on the source engine is Counter strike source

 

[vochtige]

may i ask you a question? why do you play fps games at that resolution?

how much is your refreshrate of your screen (crt?)?

 

[stryoftheyearxx]

i play at 800x600 cause that how i've always played them and anything different makes me play really weird

 

[kamkal]

does it happen only in source games?

i have the same problem in TF2, and i have a radeon HD 3870

game will lag for like 10-15 seconds where the fps falls to like 20-30 and then fix it self and keep going fine, this happens once or twice in a week

now for you if it is happening consistently over and over (like every 5 minutes type of thing) then could be your graphics card

try other games, see if it happens there as well

EDIT:

im assuming you mean FPS lag where the fps drops and what not, see post below for connection lag

 

[kamkal]

if you have connection problems in source games (ie counter strike source, tf2) the game does not lag, your character just freezes up with the action freezing up but the FPS stays high

the game then "skips" back into sync when connection trouble is gone.
on average, not including voice chat, source games upload about 5-8k/sec and download anywhere from a 6 to 25k /sec from the server

add some more to those numbers if you have voice chat enabled and what to hear little jimmy whine about getting fragged

 

[kamkal]

one more thing

looking at your system specs, in big maps/heavy firefights, even with your
8800gt, the fps will drop to like 35, regardless of your resolution

this is because source engine likes CPU cache and the 5000+ only has 512k per core, source uses the CPU a lot, this is why it was able to run well on older systems with slower gfx cards when source first came out circa 2004

my old system has a 5000+ black edition and even OCing it to 3GHZ from the stock 2.6ghz didnt make a diff, fps still drops in big maps/heavy firefights, counter strike source ran almost the same as it did on my ahtlon xp 2.4ghz CPU

played the game on a p4 once that had similar gfx card to my old athlon XP but the p4 had like 2mb cpu cache and the game ran well, no fps drops, nothing, go figure

 

[vochtige]

i understand your reasoning about gaming weird on other resolutions. i had that feeling when changing from 1024 to 1280 resolution with my 8600gt.

but i play TF2 on 1280 res. my fps is low, because of my pc. 35 fps i guess, but if i set my res to 1024 the fps is even worse!

online gaming on steam is something special. the more gamers on a server, the lower you fps. even when someone with a bad pc joins, your connection and fps can screw up. this are my findings, so i don't know if there are more people noticing this.

 

[vochtige]

one more thing

looking at your system specs, in big maps/heavy firefights, even with your
8800gt, the fps will drop to like 35, regardless of your resolution

this is because source engine likes CPU cache and the 5000+ only has 512k per core, source uses the CPU a lot, this is why it was able to run well on older systems with slower gfx cards when source first came out circa 2004

my old system has a 5000+ black edition and even OCing it to 3GHZ from the stock 2.6ghz didnt make a diff, fps still drops in big maps/heavy firefights, counter strike source ran almost the same as it did on my ahtlon xp 2.4ghz CPU

played the game on a p4 once that had similar gfx card to my old athlon XP but the p4 had like 2mb cpu cache and the game ran well, no fps drops, nothing, go figure

at home we have a C2D 1.8ghz E4300 , i've tested my 8600gt in that rigg, and i noticed that a dualcore has a much higher lowest fps than my P4. so more stable.

 

[stryoftheyearxx]

does it happen only in source games?

i have the same problem in TF2, and i have a radeon HD 3870

game will lag for like 10-15 seconds where the fps falls to like 20-30 and then fix it self and keep going fine, this happens once or twice in a week

now for you if it is happening consistently over and over (like every 5 minutes type of thing) then could be your graphics card

try other games, see if it happens there as well

EDIT:

im assuming you mean FPS lag where the fps drops and what not, see post below for connection lag

thats EXACTLY what happening to me right now. it just lags for 10-15 secs and the corrects it self like nothing happens. And it doesn't consistently happen like every 5 mins. just randomly. I've tried other games and they run. Ran Crysis and Spore and everything runs fine.

 

[kamkal]

thats EXACTLY what happening to me right now. it just lags for 10-15 secs and the corrects it self like nothing happens. And it doesn't consistently happen like every 5 mins. just randomly. I've tried other games and they run. Ran Crysis and Spore and everything runs fine.

yea i think it's an issue with the source engine, i just kind of hide in a corner until it goes away then get back to fragging

if the card works well in all other games then i wouldnt worry too much about it, just take cover when it happens hehe

 

[kamkal]

at home we have a C2D 1.8ghz E4300 , i've tested my 8600gt in that rigg, and i noticed that a dualcore has a much higher lowest fps than my P4. so more stable.

yah c2d is way better than p4 by far

the p4 i tried the game on was 3.8ghz or something, extreme edition or whatever

valve is also slowly adding multithreading support to the source to make it work better on multicpu systems

right now it's kinda flaky though, you can turn it on and the game will run for like 30 minz before crashing, but fps in some cases is doubled

 

[stryoftheyearxx]

so no fix at this time anyone? its just really annoying lol

 

[vochtige]

try playing in higher resolutions (1280 is better than 800x600) than there will be more stress on the gpu, less on cpu. i notice it with my p4, the higher the res, the better the quality... (source games)

even if i play newer games, ut3, frontlines fuel of war, dirt, tf2... not cod4
i notice better and stable fps.

try to take a distance of your 800 resolution
-

 

[brendano257]

I'll have had my 8800GT from PNY for a year come this winter....I've played CS:S, G-Mod, HL2, and many other games, and the only problem I've had hasn't been with source. My problem was the 178.13 driver compications with BF 2142 while using AA........But the source engine is not known for always working as it should