Better Your Computer (+FPS/+Performance/-Ping)

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OMG I R HAVING TEH SUX0RZ FPS, HELP MEH!!!11one!

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Firstly, relax. Before deciding to go and make a 1-line thread complaining about low-ping, low-fps or lag, please make an effort to read through this post.

PING
Ping is a program that "bounces" a request off of another computer/server over a network or the internet to see if the remote computer is responding.

FPS
Stands for frames per second, a measure of how much information is used to store and display motion video. The term applies equally to film video and digital video. Each frame is a still image; displaying frames in quick succession creates the illusion of motion.



Now, there are only a few things that affect your ping, such as:
- The performance/speed of the server's computer
- The performance/speed of the client's computer
- The connection speed of the server
- The connection speed of the client
- The distance between the server and the client

As opposed to that, these are some of the factors that affect your fps:
- The speed of your graphic's card
- The speed of your processor
- The amount of free RAM available when your game is running
- GFX Settings - which can be tweaked and changed

So as would be obvious from the above, ping is something that you cannot change just by using "good commands". All you can do is try to connect to servers which are located near you. You can, however, increase your fps by using appropriate commands.


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(Thanks to SaiyanPrideXIX for this bit.)

Many people are complaining about lower fps/choppy screen/more lag in beta 1.1; well it's just a matter of tweaking your half-life to perform better. Add the following lines to the autoexec.cfg file in your esf folder:

r_mmx "1"
Default - already there

r_dynamic "0"
Default - already there

sv_cheats "0"
Default - already there

fps_max "100"
Tells ESF my maximum framerate allowed ingame is 100fps. It will not go higher, so don't try. I recommend everyone set this, as I don't know why it isn't in the file in the first place...(there is a setting in the CONFIG.CFG file in the ESF folder that tells the game to max at it's default of 72...which sucks cause...if you are at 70 and lose 40 fps, you're in the dumps...if you're at 100 and you lose 40, it's not as much of a horrible loss visually)

gl_texturemode "GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_LINEAR"
This is one of four possible settings telling half-life how to render its textures. THe four settings are really variations of that one, but this is the highest setting. Think of it like this: of the four settings, two are for low and high quality bilinear filtering, and two are for low and high quality TRIlinear filtering. I'll try to find the commands again, I think I found them off of a website called "i.am.halflife" or something like that, if it helps.

gl_max_size "512"
This is the texture cache. I jacked it up to 512. I had it up at 1024 before but it didn't seem to help any, so I lowered it a bit and called it even. It's default, I believe, is 256.

cl_showfps "1"
A better way to view your framerate than using the net graph. It's much less intrusive (upper right corner) and is slightly less accurate, but doesn't adversely affect performance as much on low end machines.

net_graph "0"
This turns off the bigger wave version that shows the actual net performance in the form of a moving graph in the bottom right corner.

r_displayrefresh "100"
Tells Half-Life to force my 100hz refresh rate. THis is kind of redundant since RefreshLock forces it anyway, but I wanted to be certain, and non-XP people may be able to use this command as well.

vid_wait "1"
This is SUPPOSED to turn on Vsync. I want this because my Vsync would sync me in at 100fps max...which is the engine's max anyway, so I wouldn't be missing out. I get refresh rate tearing, which is why I set this...but as yet, it has made no difference either way. Maybe there is a setting in the CONFIG.CFG file that is overriding this one?

cl_rate "7000"
This is a customized data rate between half-life's DSL and T1/Lan settings. This works well for my cable modem; when I find the guide I used to learn all of this, I will post good settings for various connections. It should also be known that some people in TFC would bind various rates to keys, and use them to compensate for lag.

precache "1"
This tells the game to pre-cache all the textures. A longer wait for the level to load, but performance overall improves.

ati_npatch "0"
This weird thing...just seems to make ATI cards suddenly smoke and work massively better in half-life. I HIGHLY recommend using this setting for ATI card users, since it was the BIG difference maker in my game when I first discovered it (Note: there are a few similar looking settings in the CONFIG.CFG file as well, maybe they work in conjunction?)

cl_dusttrails "0"
Disables melee swoop dust trails, greatly increases performance

cl_fxquality controls the particle systems:
cl_fxquality "0"
Off (what you're set on right now)
cl_fxquality "1"
Low quality (Low particle count, low detailed models for effects)
cl_fxquality "2"
Medium quality (Medium particle count, low/high detailed models for effects, depends...)
cl_fxquality "3"
High quality (High particle count, double auras, high detailed spheres, etc...)

Customizable Options:
Ingame, go to MULTIPLAYER > CUSTOMIZE > ADVANCED. Here, turn all the graphics quality to the least possible, turn beams to crappy, fx quality to low, turn of 3D dust particles, etc. This won't affect the in-game quality that much (still looks good), but it will definetly bring about a great improvement to performance/fps.

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(Thanks to Mr.Satan for this bit.)

If you use DSL/CABLE, you can try adding the following commands to your autoexec.cfg to help improve gameplay performance. Remember that this information is a recommendation only.

bgmbuffer "0"
bgmvolume "0.000000"
bitmapfonts "1"
cl_3drocks "0"
cl_allowdownload "1"
cl_allowupload "1"
cl_backspeed "5000"
cl_beamquality "0"
cl_cmdrate "55"
cl_download_ingame "1"
cl_drawnames "1"
cl_dusttrails "0"
cl_dusttrailslbl "0.000000"
cl_forwardspeed "5000"
cl_fxquality "3"
cl_gaitestimation "1"
cl_gg "0"
cl_himodels "1.000000"
cl_latency "-50"
cl_lc "1"
cl_lw "1"
cl_nopred "0"
cl_rate "11000.0528"
cl_resend "6"
cl_sidespeed "5000"
cl_updaterate "55"
cl_upspeed "5000"
con_color "0 255 0"
console "1"
fakelag "0"
fakeloss "0"
fps_max "120"
gl_clear "0"
gl_cull "1"
gl_dither "0"
gl_keeptjunctions "1"
gl_lightholes "0"
gl_max_size "256"
gl_picmip "0"
gl_spriteblend "0"
gl_texturemode "GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_LINEAR"
gl_wateramp "0"
gl_ztrick "0"
hisound "1"
hpk_maxsize "1"
hud_centerid "1"
hud_classautokill "0"
hud_deathnotice_time "6"
hud_saytext_time "6"
loadas8bit "0"
m_filter "1"
mp_decals "400"
precache "1"
r_decals "400"
r_dynamic "0"
r_mirroralpha "0"
r_drawviewmodel "1"
r_mmx "1"
rate "7500"
scr_conspeed "100000"
suitvolume "0.000000"
mp3volume "0.000000"
sv_aim "0.000000"
sv_cheats "0"
sv_voiceenable "0"
s_a3d "0"
s_eax "0"
s_reverb "0"
violence_ablood "1"
violence_agibs "1"
violence_hblood "1"
violence_hgibs "1"
voice_avggain "0.000000"
voice_clientdebug "0"
voice_dsound "0"
voice_eax "0"
voice_enable "0"
voice_fadeouttime "0.000"
voice_inputfromfile "0"
voice_loopback "0"
voice_maxgain "0"
voice_modenable "0"
voice_overdrive "0"
voice_overdrivefadetime "0.000"
voice_profile "0"
voice_recordtofile "0"
voice_scale "0"
voice_serverdebug "0"
voice_showchannels "0"
voice_showincoming "0"
volume "1.000000"

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Search through this thread to see common problems that other users faced - and how those problems were dealt with. Trust me, it's much simpler going through that than posting a new thread and waiting for a reply.

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I hope the information in this thread helps you (the reader) improve your ingame performance and in most cases, there should be a considerable increase in the FPS.

*Stickied and Closed*.

Regards,
grOOvy

(Note to moderators: Please do not open or un-stick this thread. Seeing as how this section gets maximum threads about issues that have been dealt with in this section - it is necessary to have a placeholder for the solutions in here.)
 
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* Make sure all external programs are closed (especially any download programs!).
* Check your computer for adware/spyware/malware with...
SPYBOT: Search & Destroy (FREE)
Microsoft's Anti-Spyware Beta (FREE)
Ad-Aware (FREE - But PRO Version Is Best) would be a good idea too.

Another thing, it wouldn't hurt to defragment your hard drive(s). You can use the default windows program for this, but I recommend a program called Diskeeper (Faster & Does a better job)

Aside from that, make sure you have the latest updates for things.

MICROSOFT UPDATE ~ http://update.microsoft.com
ATI Graphics Drivers ~ http://www.ati.com/support/driver.html
NVidia Graphics Drivers ~ http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp

Oh and, just a tip; Automatic updates don't get ALL updates PLUS having that on can cause lag in-game if it decides to download while you're playing. I recommend turning it off.

ALSO

If you think STEAM is a problem; Open up the games list and right click any non-3rd party game (Ex. Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike, Opposing Force) and click PROPERTIES and change them to not keep the game up to date. Then the game will only update next time you run it.



THE FOLLOWING WILL WORK FOR NORMAL CLIENTS AND SERVERS

At the System Properties Window (control panel -> system)

1. Get rid of system restore (turn it off) (system restore option)

2. Uncheck the automatic updates (Automatic option)

3. In the advanced setting go for performance settings.Adjust it for best performance.

4. XP Pro ONLY - Open "run" window, and run "gpedit.msc". follow this tree, computer configuration, administrative templates,network, QoS packet scheduler, at right window, right click on "Limit reservable bandwidth" and get properties, in the new window, make this enabled, and in the bandwidth limit (%) part enter 0 (i mean zero), apply and exit.

5. Go to this page --> Black Viper's Win Registry Page *CURRENTLY DOWN* Go HERE, in this
page you will find some registry files, "safeproallstart", "safehomeallstart",
"gameingproallstart", these files are really great, they will disable many of windows xp services that are useless and can occupy memory and cpu usage.
I recommend "safe" settings because they do not harm anything, besides try to learn everything on that page, do not disable any
service from msconfig, thanks to this cool guy.

6. Get TweakXP from TweakXP.com, this is the most coolest application that
I have ever seen for tweaking WinXP, configure it due to your needs, and do not forget the hardware part, it can help alot.

7. If you have Service Pack 1 installed, and you use a hlds with windows media player or flash player (for high HLDS fps) use this tweak for decreasing cpu usage that mediaplayer eating,
run regedit, go and remove this key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes
\CLSID\{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489-5FE6850DC73E}\InProcServer32"

8. If you use a standalone server for HLDS (not for any other usage), try to disable any sound system on your computer.

9. Disable any kinds of indexing service on your hard disk partitions.

10. Disable any kinds of power managment for your hard disks.

11. Always use the lastest drivers for your mobos, latest Bios upgrade and so on. Most of the times you can download these things from your mobo's manufacturer.

12. Don't forget most of smooth servers are using cpus with a large amount of L2 cache and front side bus, and a great amount of RAM!!!

13. Run msconfig and at the "startup" option try to uncheck every unneeded application or ...

14. Try to defrag your hard disk every 2 weeks, this helps alot for having better H.D.D performance.

15. Try to have a great cooling system for your server.
 
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