CS:S Fps Help (No Flaming)

[gamehacker123]

Hello and this is Gamehacker123.

When i go to de_dust on my Gateway MP8709, it laggs like 10-13 fps, sometimes 7-9.

Help me by telling me what to do, or giving me an AWESOME cfg file (either autoexec.cfg or *name*.cfg).

Computer Specs:

Intel(R) Core 2 Duo T7200 @ 2.00GHz, (Mobile)
2GB Memory
140GB Hitachi Hard Drive, 5200RPM
Intel(R) 945GM Chipset Family *The key to my success of low framerates* *EDIT* This is my graphics/video card.
Windows Vista Home Premium
*EDIT*

Please give me actual help than comments, like a configuration file, some Launch Option commands, atleast something than comment. Please don't give me a huge guide, or explain ANYTHING except for how to get better fps. Also, don't tell me to get a better computer.

[Diaboly]

Try to [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] for a "low FPS config" for CSS. That should fix your Problems.

Also, did you try to Lower all the Settings in Game? Graphics for example?

[gamehacker123]

Originally Posted by Diaboly

Try to [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] for a "low FPS config" for CSS. That should fix your Problems.

Also, did you try to Lower all the Settings in Game? Graphics for example?

I've tried casey's config, all the versions of it, HIGH fps config, and etc.

I lowered all the graphic settings to the lowest value with it, directx level 7.0, and its still lagging. about 17 fps though. 4 fps help isnt much =/
please help

[Diaboly]

Is

Intel(R) 945GM Chipset Family *The key to my success of low framerates*

Your Graphic Card?

Then I know why you get that low FPS.
Consider playing 1.6 with that Hardware. Seriously.

[centosanjr]

So you wanna boost youre FPS eh? Dont blame ya. For those who dont know FPS stands for Frames Per Second. The more fps the better! Generally ~30fps is considered playable, while anything above 60fps is recommended.

A note for ATI users: I urge you to at least try the newest version of Omega Drivers. They gave about a 7fps boost on my radeon 9800 pro 128. Find them [Only registered and activated users can see links. ].
Edit: the brand new Omega's for 4.12 are out and boy are they good! I went from 55.6 to 81.4 in VST...not jokin'!

Next I will address some general graphics settings and why you should/shouldnt use them.

Vsync: This has gotta be one of the biggest misconceptions ever in graphics tweaking. Here's how vsync works: Your monitor has a maximum refresh rate for each resolution. 75Hz for example is my maximum at 1152x864. This means my monitor can ONLY DISPLAY 75 FRAMES PER SECOND. So when you are boasting about your 150 fps in quake 3, although thats what it SAYS it's displaying, its completely bottlenecked by your refresh rate. Anything OVER the refresh rate causes tearing. Tearing occurs when you can see scanlines on your monitor. Vsync does this: sets the max video side FPS to the current refresh rate. It also removes all tearing for a *much* better picture. The only issue is that when the video FPS cant hold up to the refresh rate, the fps gets chopped down to fit ratios. [Only registered and activated users can see links. ](thanks to mothmann). The moral of the story is, if your system stays fairly constant over your refresh rate: USE THIS IN GAME. If you are benchmarking, however, by all means turn it off for higher scores.

AA & AF: AA makes lines smoother; AF makes textures look nicer farther away. Seriously, these impact FPS so much(especially AA) that they're not even worth it. Instead of AF, use trilinear(its FASTER than bilinear on most cards).

Other settings can be set to highest, with the exception of water complexity, which i recommend set to simple reflections.

Now on to the FUN STUFF! From here we will look at CSS specific tweaks via console commands to make the game run oh so smoother. You will need to make a file in "counter-strike source/cstrike/cfg/" named autoexec.cfg. Open this file with notepad or whatever and add these commands:

NOTE: Some of these commands ill refer to as being considered a "cheat". This only means that servers with sv_cheats disabled will not recognize some of these commands. They are BY NO MEANS cheats and you can safely use them without ever being questioned. Valve will eventually fix these commands to NOT be considered cheats, the flags were put in in beta so that while stats were being collected, everyone would be using the same controllable settings. I urge you to add all these commands and open up your own server and see the huge improvement it makes!

r_mmx 1
adds support for MMX cpu processing, minor fps help, no gfx loss

r_sse 1
adds support for SSE cpu processing, minor fps help, no gfx loss

r_sse2 1
adds support for SSE2 cpu processing, minor fps help, no gfx loss

r_3dnow 1
adds support for 3DNOW (AMD ONLY) cpu processing, minor fps help, no gfx loss

r_3dsky 0
turns off some of the 3d objects looming in the sky. This is currently considered a cheat for unknown reasons, thus will only work in your servers until its fixed. Major fps boost. Little gfx loss

r_shadows 0
One thing im sad to say is....shadows in HL2 suck. Well at least in CSS. Until they fix this, itll look better without em. Major fps boost. Little gfx improvement

net_graph 3
this command draws a network graph on the bottom right of your screen. Its helpful for seeing if your connection has choke (bad network conditions). The game will act like crap with any choke. If it stays at 0 choke, you can turn this off(net_graph 0) as it takes a couple FPS to run. Helpful tool.

r_decal_cullsize 0
this sets the minimum pixel size of decals to be displayed. It lets you see bulletholes from farther off with effecting your fps by much if anything at all. Very minor if any fps drop. gfx improvement.

cl_smooth 0
Not much is known about this command except that it lowers fps when enabled(which is default). Ive played with this on and off and theres no gfx difference at all. Moderate FPS boost. No gfx loss.

cl_phys_props_enable 0
BIG help! This removes the smaller junk items that choke your cpu for processing. Items like tires, barrels, crates, and all the important stuff stay. Huge fps improvement. Less clutter.

cl_pushaway_force 0
This is another command currently considered a cheat that will default back to 20000 in most servers. It removes the push back when you bump into a barrel or other physics item. Makes game a lot smoother in movement. Again, wait until the cheat flag is removed to use. Better motion.

fog_enable 0
Sigh, yet another great FPS booster still considered a cheat. It disables random far away fog. Note this has nothing to do with smoke grenades, just random ingame fog. Major FPS boost. Minor gfx loss.

cl_allowupload "0"
This command just keeps random stats and junk from uploading ingame. Helps with ping

cl_allowdownload "0"
This command likewise just keeps random junk from downloading ingame. Helps with ping

r_lod 0
this controls the distance at which models use less polygons to save processing power.
The options for this are -5(best image quality, most processor use),-4,-3,-2,-1,0(least image quality, least processor use). so fool around with the settings to fit your taste. I personally cant tell a difference and prefer r_lod 0 for more fps gain. varying fps boost. varying but small gfx loss. -thx to rivercitycat for info

cl_show_bloodsprays 0
Once again, this is a "cheat"...like not having bloodsprays would improve your leet skillz. moderate fps boost. minor bloos loss :P

cl_ejectbrass 0
Same as above..."cheat"...just removes the brass ejections. helps in firefights. moderate fps boost. minor gfx loss.

As more and more of these commands become unlocked(by removing cheat flag)...youll notice improvement in your multiplayer games. You can try all of these commands by creating your own game; you'll be impressed with the FPS boosts. I recommend you play with each command to find the balance that you most enjoy.

With all these commands entered, my athlon xp 2400+ and radeon 9800 pro pump a constant 75 fps(vsync enabled) at 1024x768. This has been in improvement of about 30fps before these tweaks.

Edit: For those with serious FPS problems use these commands on top of the aforementioned ones. They WILL damper graphics so only use if your desperate!

cl_show_splashes "0"
mp_decals "0"
mat_bufferprimitives "1"
mat_bumpbasis "0
mat_bumpmap "0"
mat_dxlevel "80"
mat_fastnobump "1"
mat_fastspecular "1"
mat_filterlightmaps "1"
mat_filtertextures "1"
mat_forceaniso "0"
mat_forcedynamic "0"
mat_loadtextures "1"
mat_mipmaptextures "1"
mat_picmip "1"
mat_reducefillrate "1"
mat_showwatertextures "0"
mat_specular "0"
muzzleflash_light "0"
r_modellodscale "0.1"
r_drawlights "0"
r_DispUseStaticMeshes "0"
r_waterforceexpensive "0"
r_shadowrendertotexture "0"
r_rootlod "2"
r_drawrain "0"
r_decals "0"
r_dynamic "0"
r_WaterDrawReflection "0"
r_WaterDrawRefraction "0"
violence_hgibs "0"
budget_show_history "0"

Again, this second set of commands will make CSS not look near as nice, but will add huge FPS improvements. I only recommend them for users who are getting less than 30FPS average. Good luck and feel free to tweak as needed!

[gamehacker123]

Originally Posted by centosanjr

So you wanna boost youre FPS eh? Dont blame ya. For those who dont know FPS stands for Frames Per Second. The more fps the better! Generally ~30fps is considered playable, while anything above 60fps is recommended.

A note for ATI users: I urge you to at least try the newest version of Omega Drivers. They gave about a 7fps boost on my radeon 9800 pro 128. Find them [Only registered and activated users can see links. ].
Edit: the brand new Omega's for 4.12 are out and boy are they good! I went from 55.6 to 81.4 in VST...not jokin'!

Next I will address some general graphics settings and why you should/shouldnt use them.

Vsync: This has gotta be one of the biggest misconceptions ever in graphics tweaking. Here's how vsync works: Your monitor has a maximum refresh rate for each resolution. 75Hz for example is my maximum at 1152x864. This means my monitor can ONLY DISPLAY 75 FRAMES PER SECOND. So when you are boasting about your 150 fps in quake 3, although thats what it SAYS it's displaying, its completely bottlenecked by your refresh rate. Anything OVER the refresh rate causes tearing. Tearing occurs when you can see scanlines on your monitor. Vsync does this: sets the max video side FPS to the current refresh rate. It also removes all tearing for a *much* better picture. The only issue is that when the video FPS cant hold up to the refresh rate, the fps gets chopped down to fit ratios. [Only registered and activated users can see links. ](thanks to mothmann). The moral of the story is, if your system stays fairly constant over your refresh rate: USE THIS IN GAME. If you are benchmarking, however, by all means turn it off for higher scores.

AA & AF: AA makes lines smoother; AF makes textures look nicer farther away. Seriously, these impact FPS so much(especially AA) that they're not even worth it. Instead of AF, use trilinear(its FASTER than bilinear on most cards).

Other settings can be set to highest, with the exception of water complexity, which i recommend set to simple reflections.

Now on to the FUN STUFF! From here we will look at CSS specific tweaks via console commands to make the game run oh so smoother. You will need to make a file in "counter-strike source/cstrike/cfg/" named autoexec.cfg. Open this file with notepad or whatever and add these commands:

NOTE: Some of these commands ill refer to as being considered a "cheat". This only means that servers with sv_cheats disabled will not recognize some of these commands. They are BY NO MEANS cheats and you can safely use them without ever being questioned. Valve will eventually fix these commands to NOT be considered cheats, the flags were put in in beta so that while stats were being collected, everyone would be using the same controllable settings. I urge you to add all these commands and open up your own server and see the huge improvement it makes!

r_mmx 1
adds support for MMX cpu processing, minor fps help, no gfx loss

r_sse 1
adds support for SSE cpu processing, minor fps help, no gfx loss

r_sse2 1
adds support for SSE2 cpu processing, minor fps help, no gfx loss

r_3dnow 1
adds support for 3DNOW (AMD ONLY) cpu processing, minor fps help, no gfx loss

r_3dsky 0
turns off some of the 3d objects looming in the sky. This is currently considered a cheat for unknown reasons, thus will only work in your servers until its fixed. Major fps boost. Little gfx loss

r_shadows 0
One thing im sad to say is....shadows in HL2 suck. Well at least in CSS. Until they fix this, itll look better without em. Major fps boost. Little gfx improvement

net_graph 3
this command draws a network graph on the bottom right of your screen. Its helpful for seeing if your connection has choke (bad network conditions). The game will act like crap with any choke. If it stays at 0 choke, you can turn this off(net_graph 0) as it takes a couple FPS to run. Helpful tool.

r_decal_cullsize 0
this sets the minimum pixel size of decals to be displayed. It lets you see bulletholes from farther off with effecting your fps by much if anything at all. Very minor if any fps drop. gfx improvement.

cl_smooth 0
Not much is known about this command except that it lowers fps when enabled(which is default). Ive played with this on and off and theres no gfx difference at all. Moderate FPS boost. No gfx loss.

cl_phys_props_enable 0
BIG help! This removes the smaller junk items that choke your cpu for processing. Items like tires, barrels, crates, and all the important stuff stay. Huge fps improvement. Less clutter.

cl_pushaway_force 0
This is another command currently considered a cheat that will default back to 20000 in most servers. It removes the push back when you bump into a barrel or other physics item. Makes game a lot smoother in movement. Again, wait until the cheat flag is removed to use. Better motion.

fog_enable 0
Sigh, yet another great FPS booster still considered a cheat. It disables random far away fog. Note this has nothing to do with smoke grenades, just random ingame fog. Major FPS boost. Minor gfx loss.

cl_allowupload "0"
This command just keeps random stats and junk from uploading ingame. Helps with ping

cl_allowdownload "0"
This command likewise just keeps random junk from downloading ingame. Helps with ping

r_lod 0
this controls the distance at which models use less polygons to save processing power.
The options for this are -5(best image quality, most processor use),-4,-3,-2,-1,0(least image quality, least processor use). so fool around with the settings to fit your taste. I personally cant tell a difference and prefer r_lod 0 for more fps gain. varying fps boost. varying but small gfx loss. -thx to rivercitycat for info

cl_show_bloodsprays 0
Once again, this is a "cheat"...like not having bloodsprays would improve your leet skillz. moderate fps boost. minor bloos loss :P

cl_ejectbrass 0
Same as above..."cheat"...just removes the brass ejections. helps in firefights. moderate fps boost. minor gfx loss.

As more and more of these commands become unlocked(by removing cheat flag)...youll notice improvement in your multiplayer games. You can try all of these commands by creating your own game; you'll be impressed with the FPS boosts. I recommend you play with each command to find the balance that you most enjoy.

With all these commands entered, my athlon xp 2400+ and radeon 9800 pro pump a constant 75 fps(vsync enabled) at 1024x768. This has been in improvement of about 30fps before these tweaks.

Edit: For those with serious FPS problems use these commands on top of the aforementioned ones. They WILL damper graphics so only use if your desperate!

cl_show_splashes "0"
mp_decals "0"
mat_bufferprimitives "1"
mat_bumpbasis "0
mat_bumpmap "0"
mat_dxlevel "80"
mat_fastnobump "1"
mat_fastspecular "1"
mat_filterlightmaps "1"
mat_filtertextures "1"
mat_forceaniso "0"
mat_forcedynamic "0"
mat_loadtextures "1"
mat_mipmaptextures "1"
mat_picmip "1"
mat_reducefillrate "1"
mat_showwatertextures "0"
mat_specular "0"
muzzleflash_light "0"
r_modellodscale "0.1"
r_drawlights "0"
r_DispUseStaticMeshes "0"
r_waterforceexpensive "0"
r_shadowrendertotexture "0"
r_rootlod "2"
r_drawrain "0"
r_decals "0"
r_dynamic "0"
r_WaterDrawReflection "0"
r_WaterDrawRefraction "0"
violence_hgibs "0"
budget_show_history "0"

Again, this second set of commands will make CSS not look near as nice, but will add huge FPS improvements. I only recommend them for users who are getting less than 30FPS average. Good luck and feel free to tweak as needed!

I already know what all that means.....

On the bottom for the parameters/commands for console (cfgs) it didnt even help as much as my casey's cfg.

Not to be rude, but that didn't help at ALL.