Half-Life 2 runs poorly despite me having recommended specs

[HL1=BEST]

I'm really confused about how Half-Life 2 runs on my computer. I have a

3.0 GHz P4 processor
2 GB RAM
nvidia zotac geforce 8400gs (512 mb vram) which supports directx 10

and I'm running windows xp. The recommended settings for my computer set everything on high, water on "reflect world", Anti-aliasing on none, HDR on full, and the filter thing on trilinear. However, the game runs like shit, there's a lot of screen tearing, the framerate drops often, and it overall just doesn't feel smooth. I've defragmented the game files, and I've just installed the service pack 3 and once I restart I'll defragment my HDD. I'm not downloading anything in steam except the Team Fortress 2 beta, which doesn't seem to effect it since it runs the same in offline mode. Team Fortress 2 runs perfectly fine on the recommended settings, and looks great (albeit a bit jagged without AA), as does Half-Life 2 deathmatch, which I can run with AA on x4 with no lag. Half Life 2 lost coast has a similar problem as the main game, but I can still run it on higher settings with better performance. PLEASE HELP!! I've tried just about everything. Thanks a bunch!

 

[atomic-led]

Turning on Vertical Sync (vSync) will stop the screen tearing. Try turning off things until you find what it is thats doing it? It might not even be a graphical problem.

 

[Warped]

maybe some other applications are running, start deleting useless programs that run in the background and you'll be fine with those specs. also a new GTX460 1GB card is like $115 now. maybe another 2GB of RAM would help too, thats only like another $140 and you'll be up to par with many games

 

[Kyzr]

You have a horrible processor, which is whats causing the lag. If you set everything to low, you'll be able to run it. I really have a hard time believing that you can run tf2 smoothly on a Pentium, single core processor.

 

[Vegeta897]

You have a horrible processor, which is whats causing the lag. If you set everything to low, you'll be able to run it. I really have a hard time believing that you can run tf2 smoothly on a Pentium, single core processor.

Um? I used to run TF2 just fine on my old 2.6ghz. A 3ghz single core is more than enough to run HL2.

 

[Cpt Tenacious]

Buy an Xbox.

 

[Acepilotf14]

Buy an Xbox.

This is a horrible suggestion don't listen to this person.

 

[ríomhaire]

This is a strange problem seeing as TF2 has a reputation for having become a processor hog with the updates and you're running that fine. Is it throughout the entire game you're having issues or only on certain maps?

 

[HL1=BEST]

ok, so I enabled "wait for vertical sync", which got rid of any screen tearing, but the frame rate still takes a hit if there are explosions, if I'm looking at a relatively big area (such as the vertical mining shaft at the end of ravenholm), and especially when I turn the flashlight on in a dim area. Thanks a lot guys! btw, I'm NOT buying an xbox.

 

[HL1=BEST]

Also, it's not the worst performance in the world, but I would think it would be better considering I SURPASS the specs RECOMMENDED BY VALVE. And my video card is decent, especially for a game from 2004.

 

[HL1=BEST]

Ok, just did a fps check. It hovers around sixty when I'm just walking around but then if I look down that hole I mentioned it goes to 30 and when there's an explosion it goes down to 30 or even below 20, and it goes down there whenever I use the flashlight. But it's always at either roughly 30 or roughly 60.

 

[ríomhaire]

Just so you know. HL2 received an engine update that brought it more in line with Episode Two. They may have forgotten to update the recommended specs. Do you pass the recommended specs for EP2?

 

[HL1=BEST]

Yup, the specs are the same.

 

[HL1=BEST]

Just so you know I have 45 processes going on right now. idk if that changes anything but a lot of them are for the system so I don't really want to end too many of them.

 

[HL1=BEST]

Hey I just realized something. The process "HL2.exe" is using 284,000 some kb of memory. I'm assuming this means RAM right? So, 284 mb is NOT a lot, which means that I could probably adjust how much it's allowed to use, I'm assuming. Anyone know if I'm on track here?

 

[tschumann]

The process "HL2.exe" is using 284,000 some kb of memory. I'm assuming this means RAM right? So, 284 mb is NOT a lot, which means that I could probably adjust how much it's allowed to use, I'm assuming. Anyone know if I'm on track here?

Yes, it's RAM. I think there's a parameter called heapsize that allows you to set how much RAM is used by the game, though it may have been removed in a recent engine update.

 

[Darkside55]

people still having single core processors, less than 4GB ram, video cards with less than 1GB

it's 2011

 

[ríomhaire]

Heh Darkside I'm planning on buying a netbook with 2GB of RAM and 512MB video.