Video settings

[Dan]

Archived from groups: alt.games.half-life (More info?)

Many thanks to all those who helped me choose a new graphics card a few
weeks back, I eventually went for a Sapphire 9600XT 256Mb (couldn't quite
stretch to a 9800 Pro :-/ ). Anyway, after a couple of hours arsing around
with drivers, it's finally all working, although using the CD drivers that
came with the card (probably a bad idea, I know, but they work). I tried
using the latest 30Mb ATI drivers at first, but something went badly wrong
and they wouldn't install. Anyway, enough rambling - a couple of quick
questions for anyone who has a minute :

1. How likely is it that things will go wrong again if I try and upgrade to
the latest drivers from my Sapphire ATI catalyst drivers (version 4.10 /
driver version 12-026) ? I previously tried to install the new drivers over
the old nVidia ones, which might have been my downfall. Is it worth it for
extra lovely textures ?

2. How accurate is HL2 in guessing what quality the video settings should be
on ? I cranked up the resolution to 1024x768, but all my other settings are
on Medium, apart from high shadowing . Not knowing much about antialiasing,
is it worth trying to turn them on too ? My motherboard and card *should*
both be on 8x AGP, if that's of any help.

3. Is there a way to find out the frame rate HL2 is running at ? What do
people use to benchmark their cards ?

Many thanks for any further help,

Dan

 

[DaveL]

Archived from groups: alt.games.half-life (More info?)

I also have an ATI 9600XT. It's great for HL2. I run at 1024x768 with 2xAA
and 2xAF. All other settings at the recommended except I have water set to
"Reflect All". Runs great and looks great. Be sure to take heed to what
Andrew told you.

DaveL


"Dan" <no@spam.please> wrote in message
news:1xuFd.187$Ug2.79@newsfe3-win.ntli.net...
> Many thanks to all those who helped me choose a new graphics card a few
> weeks back, I eventually went for a Sapphire 9600XT 256Mb (couldn't quite
> stretch to a 9800 Pro :-/ ). Anyway, after a couple of hours arsing around
> with drivers, it's finally all working, although using the CD drivers that
> came with the card (probably a bad idea, I know, but they work). I tried
> using the latest 30Mb ATI drivers at first, but something went badly wrong
> and they wouldn't install. Anyway, enough rambling - a couple of quick
> questions for anyone who has a minute :
>
> 1. How likely is it that things will go wrong again if I try and upgrade
to
> the latest drivers from my Sapphire ATI catalyst drivers (version 4.10 /
> driver version 12-026) ? I previously tried to install the new drivers
over
> the old nVidia ones, which might have been my downfall. Is it worth it for
> extra lovely textures ?
>
> 2. How accurate is HL2 in guessing what quality the video settings should
be
> on ? I cranked up the resolution to 1024x768, but all my other settings
are
> on Medium, apart from high shadowing . Not knowing much about
antialiasing,
> is it worth trying to turn them on too ? My motherboard and card *should*
> both be on 8x AGP, if that's of any help.
>
> 3. Is there a way to find out the frame rate HL2 is running at ? What do
> people use to benchmark their cards ?
>
> Many thanks for any further help,
>
> Dan
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.half-life (More info?)

> 3. Is there a way to find out the frame rate HL2 is running at ? What do
> people use to benchmark their cards ?
>

To benchmark the card I use 3DMarks03.
With my new XFX6600GT I got 7119 points.
I guess that it's possible to check framerate ingame too but can't remember
how.

lyset

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.half-life (More info?)

Dan wrote:
>
> 2. How accurate is HL2 in guessing what quality the video settings
> should be on ? I cranked up the resolution to 1024x768, but all my
> other settings are on Medium, apart from high shadowing . Not knowing
> much about antialiasing, is it worth trying to turn them on too ? My
> motherboard and card *should* both be on 8x AGP, if that's of any
> help.

It depends on the rest of your system, but I have a Sapphire 9600 Pro 128MB
(i.e. not as good as yours) running with an Athlon XP 3000+ and 1GB RAM, and at
1024x768 I have all the fancy graphics settings maxed out, 2xAA, 4xAF, and it
runs with a very good framerate. However, these were more or less the
recommended settings, so I suspect your CPU is a bit lower spec. I find it hard
to live without anti-aliasing, but try it and see what you think. I had to
switch it on in the drivers rather than in HL2, as for some reason the internal
AA settings stopped working with my ATI card. I think it's a DirectX thing, as
I've had this trouble in other games when set to DX, but not in OpenGL.


> 3. Is there a way to find out the frame rate HL2 is running at ? What
> do people use to benchmark their cards ?

FRAPS from www.fraps.com, as David said.

--
Paul

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.half-life (More info?)

Dan wrote:

> 3. Is there a way to find out the frame rate HL2 is running at ?

The quickest and easiest way is to use one of the controls in HL2 that
shows the FPS on screen

Open the developer console (The key directly beneath ESC), and type in
one of these commands

net_graph 3
cl_showfps 1

You need the developer console enabled in the advanced keyboard options
in HL2.

--
Ben Cottrell AKA Bench

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.half-life (More info?)

"Ben Cottrell" <bench@bench333.screaming.net> wrote in message
news:34offaF4d8i7vU2@individual.net...
>
> The quickest and easiest way is to use one of the controls in HL2 that
> shows the FPS on screen

True, but FRAPS is easier to read, will log the max/min/average, and works the
same way in every game

(Plus the facility to record movies, if you're interested in it)

--
Paul

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.half-life (More info?)

"Paul Catley" <paul.notreallymyaddress@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:34o55kF4f0dqaU1@individual.net...
> Dan wrote:
>>
>> 2. How accurate is HL2 in guessing what quality the video settings
>> should be on ? I cranked up the resolution to 1024x768, but all my
>> other settings are on Medium, apart from high shadowing . Not knowing
>> much about antialiasing, is it worth trying to turn them on too ? My
>> motherboard and card *should* both be on 8x AGP, if that's of any
>> help.
>
> It depends on the rest of your system, but I have a Sapphire 9600 Pro
> 128MB
> (i.e. not as good as yours) running with an Athlon XP 3000+ and 1GB RAM,
> and at
> 1024x768 I have all the fancy graphics settings maxed out, 2xAA, 4xAF, and
> it
> runs with a very good framerate. However, these were more or less the
> recommended settings, so I suspect your CPU is a bit lower spec. I find
> it hard
> to live without anti-aliasing, but try it and see what you think. I had
> to
> switch it on in the drivers rather than in HL2, as for some reason the
> internal
> AA settings stopped working with my ATI card. I think it's a DirectX
> thing, as
> I've had this trouble in other games when set to DX, but not in OpenGL.

Living without AA isnt too bad if you can increase the resolution. Great for
cards with lower memory bandwidth but a but more processing muscle

>
>
>> 3. Is there a way to find out the frame rate HL2 is running at ? What
>> do people use to benchmark their cards ?
>
> FRAPS from www.fraps.com, as David said.
>
> --
> Paul
>
>
>
>
>