I'm having performance issues with HL2 as well...plz help

[Vigilante]

Pc specs:
Athlon 64 3000+
512 mb kingston HyperX ddr433
80 gig WD ide hdd
350w psu (12A)
radeon 9600 pro
MSI K8N Neo Platinum (nforce 3 250gb)

Okay, well my pc really doesnt like running games to begin with, but the weird thing is that HL2 acts really weird on my pc. About every 30 seconds to minute the video will freeze and the sound will start repeating for aobut 1 second, then it goes back to normal. I've heard other people are having this problem as well. When it was first extremely noticeable was when you have to throw the can at the combine guy to get by the gate. It's almost list my system has the hiccups.

THIS is the really weird part;....CS:S runs pretty well considering my mediocre graphics card. I will get frame rate slowdowns sometimes (like in aztec when I look at that really brown bumpmapped rock on the ground), but it will never freeze.

Anybody have any problems like this? I'm about to order a new motherboard as I am not happy with this one. Should I stick with this motherboard if this is a problem with HL2 and not my system?

 

[Vigilante]

/bump for help

 

[Abix]

Generally speaking, stuttering such as that is usually due A.overheating or B.inadequate powersupply or C.drivers. What powersupply do you have?

I myself had problems with a generic 450 watt powersupply that I picked up when I decided to add a few more peripherals to my machine. Games would randomly reboot the machine, stuff would crash for no apparent reason, my CPU would force a reboot when it was only at 44c. Strange shit like that. I scrounged around for a reliable Antec 350 watt powersupply, and all my problems went away. Magic.

Also, I am playing HL2 on a GeForce4 Ti4200 with a P4 2.4B, and I must say the performance is incredible. I cannot recall a single incident when my FPS went under 60, and most times it was well above that. With that card and that processor, you should be doing great.

Id also go about getting the latest catalyst drivers from ATI for that card, and like I said, check those temperatures.

 

[Tytarian]

Only thing I can think of is try more ram,it GREATLY,improved this issue for me,however even people with 1gig plus of ram have been getting the same thing.My advice is to keep on searching the forums for a possible fix,or just wait for a patch that deals with this problem(Valve are fully aware of this sound bug)I will be waiting as well as while my problem improved,it is far from gone.

Here's hoping for a speedy patch release.

 

[Vigilante]

My power supply is a 350watt codegen with 12a on the +12V rail.
My cpu temps are always in the high 30s or low 40s. The weird thing is that cs : s runs well. I'll go to bestbuy tomorrow to get a new PSU, as I'll be needing a better one anyway. I'm running on the cat 4.11s


EDIT: Tytarian - It's not only my sound that i'm having a problem with, when the sound stutters the video does too.

 

[GuNzABlaZiN]

There are many topics on this, some contain tips on how to temporarily fix this. Since it happens on such a wide variety of systems, it is definately a BUG.

 

[Abix]

Only thing I can think of is try more ram,it GREATLY,improved this issue for me,however even people with 1gig plus of ram have been getting the same thing.My advice is to keep on searching the forums for a possible fix,or just wait for a patch that deals with this problem(Valve are fully aware of this sound bug)I will be waiting as well as while my problem improved,it is far from gone.

Here's hoping for a speedy patch release.

I guess Im one of the lucky ones then. Im using 512MB of RAM, and HL2 ran absolutely flawless. Literally, I could not find one single bug at all. Everything was perfect.