YeOldStonecat you posted ---->

[BlackSword]

quote:
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Originally posted by YeOldeStonecat
XP runs likes a champ for me. I stayed with 98SE up til last fall when XP came out...2K was just too sluggish for games for me, and quite frankly, 98se the way I build and tune it is rock stable, and very fast.
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Hi YeOld,,,
Did you have to change anything specific,,, reason I ask is that Xp for CS (half-life) just doesn't seem to run the greatest.

Problems I have seen are fps are lower and when using in game voice your voice comes out choppy almost like the mic is getting too small of cycle time to catch your voice.

Additionally my p3 450 box consistently averages lower ping times and drops the connection like never,,, Xp will drop once in a while,,, the worst for dropping is WinME, but WinME still has better fps than XP like twice as many fps.

I am starting to think it is just a problem with the Half-Life engine.

Any light you or anyone else can supply would be greatly appreciated.

[YeOldeStonecat]

I don't play CS, and haven't played Half Life in years....gave it away a while ago...so I cannot install it to see. What I have re-installed on my rig since XP came out was Q3, UT, Castle Wolf, Microsofts CFS2, and some games for the GF's kid....ReVolt, even the original Duke Nukem 3D.

The games I played heavily are UT and Castle Wolf....they run like a champ. Also, when I still had my old PIII 1.0 gig as my primary rig, I went form 98se to XP....without any noticable changes in gaming performance. I did lose about 350 points in 3DMark 2002...going from 6800 somthing to 6400 somthing.

Cannot comment on WinME...I wouldn't even let an install disk for that into my house....hate it.

I'd run taskmanager while you're playing your games, track RAM usage, and CPU utilization....XP is very RAM hungry, and I'd say 512 megs is marginal for good gaming performance.....I wish to add more to mine. Return to Castle Wolf, when I'm playing, will suck up all my RAM....I've had my system pass 500 megs of RAM usage playing that. I know CS, on the HL engine, which is rebuilt engine mostly on the Q2, with some Q1, isn't a RAM monger like Wolf with it's reworked Q3 engine....but still.

As to dropping the network connection....I'm a firm believer in 3COM or Intel NICs...and not sharing any IRQ with your NIC, and the latest drivers...good patch cables....not laying around anthing that gives interference.

[BlackSword]

the w98 box has the cheapest nic a realtec,,, the other two boxes have 3com 905 cards. Patch cables are all new. The disconnects seem more related to WinME(not not really disconnecting just dropping from game server),, I put a second harddisk in and installed XP pro on WinMe box(PIII866) but my fps were cut in half making the game less playable.

XP on my p4 1.6ghz never seems to go over 40% usage with CS running, And has a choppy effect to it. Is playable but not smooth. Off the top of my head I can't remember the ram usage.

I will put Q3 on the XP box and see how it performs,, if it is smooth with good performance then must be something with half-life engine.

[YeOldeStonecat]

What drivers are you using for WinXP on your TNT cards? Using the latest from nVidia's website? Compared to what versions are you using when running 98se? I know you have older TNT cards, but again, you're just running CS...on the HL engine, which shouldn't really tax your TNT2 cards much.

I dunno, I can see XP running games like molasses on anything lower than an upper range PIII with 256 megs or less, but your P4 should push it fine....try bringing your RAM up to 512, and latest chipset drivers?

[BlackSword]

Will check drivers but,, think I downloaded the latest from nVidia for both scenarios.

With the cost of RAM,, yep will try that....

Hopefully I will finish all the work on my house soon,,, doing major rework and no time to dig into things.

At work I still use NT4 for all critical real-time apps so haven't had the chance to work with XP. Hard to believe that XP would require upper range PIII to run good but you are more than likely correct. It would almost seem like Gates was in bed with all the hardware manufactures, lol, the faster they make the rigs the more resource hungry he makes the OS then the more we want to upgrade.

as always greatly appreciate the help YeOld;)

[YeOldeStonecat]

Originally posted by BlackSword
Hopefully I will finish all the work on my house soon,,, doing major rework and no time to dig into things.

I know what you mean....I'm getting ready to move out of my pad for a month or so soon....gonne blow the roof off of my ranch and build a second floor...hopefully be back in by Sept. Gotta give up DSL, as my G/F's condo doesn't have broadband. And give up boating...house on the ocean...summer coming. :-(

As for software and hardware...yeah, they both grow hand in hand...software gets a lot more bloated...doing more...hardware's gotta keep up with it.

[BlackSword]

Originally posted by YeOldeStonecat


I know what you mean....I'm getting ready to move out of my pad for a month or so soon....gonne blow the roof off of my ranch and build a second floor...hopefully be back in by Sept. Gotta give up DSL, as my G/F's condo doesn't have broadband. And give up boating...house on the ocean...summer coming. :-(

As for software and hardware...yeah, they both grow hand in hand...software gets a lot more bloated...doing more...hardware's gotta keep up with it. Good luck with the renovations,,, I know for me there just doesn't seem to be an end to it,,, I have totally redone the bedrooms that includes putting down hardwood floors and now I am in the livingroom......once I finish that it is out side to redo the shrubs,,,,, just no end:(

[Set]

Hey black i read some where ther is a prop with CS and xp cant find url man. Some older game dont like xp Rogue spear for 1 and black thorn... wish i could find url cuz it had steps on inproving CS on xp ill look on and see if i cant find it :)

[BlackSword]

Originally posted by settrippen
Hey black i read some where ther is a prop with CS and xp cant find url man. Some older game dont like xp Rogue spear for 1 and black thorn... wish i could find url cuz it had steps on inproving CS on xp ill look on and see if i cant find it :) Thanks,,, would be great if there is, greatly appriciate it if you can:)

[BlackSword]

Update,

Had a little time last night to play around with TNT2 card settings on PIII 866 machine. Now I get better frame rates with my P3 866mhz 320ram XP-pro TNT2 M64 ; compared to my P4 1.6ghz 384ram XP Home Geforce2 MX 400

Next step; I obviously need to work on my p4,,,,, it should blow the PIII out of the water.

Settrippen, still would be great if you could find where that info is. Thanks;)

[illestdynasty]

Originally Posted By settrippen
Hey black i read some where ther is a prop with CS and xp cant find url man. Some older game dont like xp Rogue spear for 1 and black thorn... wish i could find url cuz it had steps on inproving CS on xp ill look on and see if i cant find it

Rogue spear runs fine on my rig. But Blacksword, I would try upping the ram on the P4 system, also, how often do you defrag?

[BlackSword]

Originally posted by illestdynasty


Rogue spear runs fine on my rig. But Blacksword, I would try upping the ram on the P4 system, also, how often do you defrag? was on a fresh install,,, and ya I do try to defrag,,, seems like things aren't terrible with the current setting I have,, currently 60-80fps,, will keep trying and post what I find if U guys want.

Thanks for the reply Illestdynasty!