HL2 on M680x

I am wondering how well a M680x will handle HL2. My M6805 is all stock and I have the GPU overclocked to 440/227. Any thoughts and/or personal experience would be greatly appreciated.

 

Well I have a M6805 and I'm playing HL2 at 1280x800 with no signs of slowdown. QuakeIII engine games have no problem. I overclocked my video to 400/250 and I'm having no problems at all. E-Machines heavily underclocked the card for battery life.

 

Thanks for the good news!

BTW, I tried to OC my video card at 400/250, and I got some major artifacts. You're lucky to be able to run the card that fast.

 

Overclocking is always a crap shoot. Use ATITool to test for artifacts before you overclock, as you might damage your card if you just go by what others say.

That being said, if you reduce the memory rating, you will most likely have better luck with the GPU clock speed. The GPU itself is highly scalable, but the memory is really unpredictable.

As battery life is very important to me, I have a very reasonable oc of 375/208, which powers most of my games to utmost satisfaction. After testing, I could go as high as 445/208 without artifacts, but the battery life would be severely limited, and the heat would skyrocket.

Good luck!

 

By the way, most of us will do well by purchasing more RAM, as HL2 is a serious hot (384MB MINIMUM).

 

From what I've read over at Anandtech it seems that even a lowly GF4MX will run this game nicely enough!

I'm impressed by the way the programmers have put this game together to allow it to run well (fast FPS) on all formats. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for other recent releases.

I'll pick up a copy of this game around Xmas or NY (when the price drops) and test it out for myself – unless there are any downloadable demos out at present?


Tell it like it is...NOT how it should be

 

Sorry, no demos right now. There may not even be a demo for this game at all (rumor).

 

Well I have just done the download of the Steam version...what a carry on if you ask me!

Thank goodness HL1 was not like this or I would never have bothered.

Each time I play the game I need to wait about 15 minutes for it to update (this is the second day I've played).

I try to play in offline mode but it does not let me for some reason.

The game actually runs like shyte on my system to be very honest - stuttering sounds and locking up graphics too.

I am hoping it is my failing HD that is to blame.

Next step is to winrar all the steam files and burn to disk so that I can transfer over to my new HD. Oh the joy!



Tell it like it is...NOT how it should be

 

i have HL2 on my M809 and it plays well, theres just a few things you need to do (i can play it on the highest setting graphically with out anti-antilasting.)
first off goto http://www.omegadrivers.net/ and get the new omega drivers for your vid-card. (they need to be updated to get the best preformance.)

2ndly an old gamer trick that i learned from playing the old CS and HL1 on a 266mhz machine was right after the game starts to load use the taskmgr to end explorer.exe, after all when your playing a game its running in the background taking up aprox. 26megs of memory, and its not like you need it when your playing the game anyways, plus you can always reload it after your done with the game by opening the taskmgr again and go to file:new task: then type in explorer.exe.

also another trick to optimizing your PC is using a site called http://www.processlibrary.com/ its a great way to find out whats running in the background of your computer while your using it. just open the taskmgr and go through each of the exe's that are listed under processes, and kill any that arnt being used. great way to free up more ram of processes you dont need (like the wireless suport drivers if your connected to a lan via a cable for example).

hope this helps! oh yeah and the best thing about HL2 is that it suports 1280 x 800! widescreen! perfect for these notebooks!! (too bad doom3 doesnt =/)

M6809 supersized!

 

Well I defragged my drive etc and HL2 appears to be fully updated now.

Game play is much better but I'm just running on 1024x768 with medium settings and low sound quality.

The game play is improved but occasionally I get slow downs and stutterings as levels load into the next section.

I only play the game running steam and HL2 and nothing else (other than firewall).

Tell it like it is...NOT how it should be

 

Dude, it's your hard drive...replace it, quick!

 

Well I now have my HD replaced and sent the old one back to Emachines.

The whole notebook feels much quicker now in general and I don’t get that tell tale problem of stuttering sound when windows finally loads!

I played HL2 for the first time last night and things certainly appear to be much better. I did have a short burst of stuttering but on average the levels load much more smoothly than previously.

I’m still playing at 1024x768 and on medium settings with default clock speeds using the Omegas.

What resolutions and settings do you guys recommend for the best playing experience?


Tell it like it is...NOT how it should be

 

Told ya[ ]

 

Well the game is generally good so far - I just got teleported back to City 17 where u need to disable a powerfield and they bad guys keep coming at you until that annoying (slow-ar$e) chick hacks into the system or suchlike. (Oh I realise she might appeal to nerds that never get laid but I digress...)

Well talk about MAJOR slowdown - it was like 0.5fps...[xx(]

Once I got to the end of the level it was fine but there must be a bug in that stage!

I'm now testing out a console mod (mat_dxlevel 81) running the game at dx8.1 levels.

I appears to be faster and not any obvious differences visually but I'm not 100 sure yet.

Tell it like it is...NOT how it should be

 

Game Over! - completed yesterday...

Last level was way to quick and easy if you ask me...[xx(]

Tell it like it is...NOT how it should be