(Please Note: Most of this stuff won't help people with x800s or 3ghz cpus, this is really meant for people with similar or lower specs than mine and people getting similar or lower FPS than mine)

Comp Specs:

9800pro 128mb

512mb DRR ram

2.2ghz AMD Athlon cpu

WinXp SP2

 

CSS Setup:

Model Detail-Medium

Texture Detail-Medium

Water-Simple Reflections

Shadows-Low

AA-No

AF-Trilinear

Vsync-Off

Shader Detail-High

Res-800x600

 

With this, I was getting about 60-70fps, 90 max.

this was pretty ok. But as some of you may know, I'm obsessive when it comes to getting more FPS in my games.

 

So, after a long time searching, and tweaking, and trail and error, I finally came out with some great stuff that hopefully get YOU more FPS in CSS without the loss of good looks.

 

-Defragment every drive you have. It helps

 

-I find the best resolution is 800x600. After many of following tweaks and commands I was able to get some good fps on 1024x768, but was still getting better fps on 800x600. Choose what you like.

 

-Turn AA off. Basically, you don't need it. It's just meant to give that tiny extra amount of detail, that you reall won't notice. It bogs down on your system and makes everything darker for some reason.

 

-CONSOLE COMMANDS:Turn shadows off. Shadows also arn't needed. There are those rare cases where you'll see the shadow before the guy comes around the corner, but really, you'll be dead by the time your brain registers someone's coming around the corner. How do you turn shadows off completely? In console type r_shadows 0. I don't know if this setting stays the same everytime you boot up CSS, so I binded it to f3 (in console, type bind f3 "r_shadows 0"

 

-Turn off all background programs. Everything that's actully doing something in your systray should be turned off/exited. These will bog down on your performance.

 

-Don't use netgraph 3. Netgraph uses alot more stuff than cl_showfps 1, thus it will slightly slow down your game. Not by a lot, but it will.

 

-CONSOLE COMMAND: r_3dsky 0. Right now, this is considered a cheat for some reason. But keep this command handy. Hopefully Valve will "uncheat" it and when they do, using this command will greatly increase your fps. It simply removes all the stuff in the sky, like the palm trees and temples in dust and the buildings in office. They're really just there for keycandy, and arn't needed

 

-CONSOLE COMMAND: cl_smooth 0. No one knows what this does, expect when it's activated, it lowers fps. Type in the command above to turn it off. It won't effect anything graphics wise, and might give you a slight fps boost.

 

-CONSOLE COMMAND: another GREAT console command considered a cheat, cl_ejectbrass 0 gets rid of the shells that eject from your gun. This can increase fps, but once again, keep this handy until Valve "uncheats" it.

 

-And finally, La Creme de la Creme of all CSS tweaks, download this program:

Game Accelerator

Basically, this program gave me a major fps boost. Install it, and it will appear in your systray. Don't turn it off when you start a game, instead, do the following

1)When you first install it, right click on it and click defragment memory. This might take a bit, just let it go.

2)Then, to get better fps, either click High Performance Gaming Mode at the top, THEN right click on the icon of the game you want to play and click Run In-High Performance Gaming Mode. This will then run the game, so don't click on the icon. You can leave this on. Before, I was getting 60-70fps, with this on, I now got 80-120fps!!! I was able to turn AF to x16, max model detail, and max texture detail. BUT KEEP YOUR RES AT 800x600 or you'll be down to 50fps.

3)Instead of using that one above, right click on the thing in the systray and click Start Dynamic Boost. Read what is says, but it basically says start this JUST before you run the game then turn it off RIGHT AFTER you end the game. It does the same as High Performance, just makes it so you don't have to right click on the game icon.

4)Game Accelerator also has some cool other features, but I havn't explored them thoroughly yet. Try em out if you want.

 

Anyway, that's all I got for now. That Game Accerator is a MUST for gamers running the latest games.

I might post later with some more tweaks.

 

EDIT:

Having just played de_dust on the TAC server, I saw my fps drop to 40-50fps when exiting ct spawn. This is because of all the stuff you're looking at at one time when you leave

I tested all these tweaks on dustII, because IMO it's the hardest on your FPS.

Anyway, besides that, I've been getting awesome fps all around

 

EDIT:

new commands

-CONSOLE COMMAND (thanks to Scoutnex) cl_lagcompensation 0. When this is set to 1 this command seems to try to compensate for any little amount of lag and ends up just making it worse.

 

-CONSOLE COMMAND r_rainspeed 0

this will stop the rain on aztec that I hear ALOT of people hate, because it can really bog down on your system

 

-CONSOLE COMMANDS here are two good commands

first, do mat_bumpmap 0. This will make some things, like hands possibly, look really bad. But don't turn it off. Now type mat_specular 0, and it should fix all those problems bumpmap caused, and give you a bit more fps.

 

 

Again, if any of you people have problems, just post and tell me about it. I, and possibly some other techsavy ( ) members will attempt to help you.

thanks for the tips, i have my settings on all high and have 1gig for ram and a 9600 pro128meg running at 1024x768 and i get 30-50+ fps, but i will try some consol commands and that willl hopefully boost me enough not to have to lower the settings,this should be sticked

i ran it, and when i selected high-performance gaming mode it gave some warning saying that for some games top-performance won't work properly, in that case it said to select high-performance modehow do i tell if top-performance mode isn't working, will the game not boot or will i not notice a boost in fps?

thanks for the guide ill try that program.yes 800x600 greatly increases fps, but on LCD moniters text and models can have alot of jagged edges. o well, 30fps gain is more important

9800Pro Users Please read ** Possible Frame rate Solution **

This may also be relevant to other chipsets by ATI but here goes. I recently posted this on HL2World helping out a guy who had framerate issues with his 9800Pro...it may also be relevant to post it here as well....

 

 

***********************

 

When I first installed the Catalyst 3.8 drivers, I was getting less than impressive results in CS:S (Take note that I had downgraded from the 3.9 drivers as I found them a bit of a memory hog and very cluttered)

 

ATI drivers seem to react terribly with each other if there are ANY resident files on the system hanging around from previous driver installations. Just from reading your posts, I think you have fiddled/tweaked around with various driver versions trying to reach that holy grail of framerates. My best advice is to download this little gem called 'Driver Cleaner" get it from:

 

http://www.driverheaven.net/cleaner/

 

BUT WAIT...don't run it yet. Follow my steps and I believe you will see an increase in your frame rates......

 

1. Go into Add/Remove programs and remove anything from there ATI related

 

2. Restart the PC in SAFE MODE and run the driver cleaner. Use the dropdown menu in the application and select anything in there ATI related (there are about 3 or 4 by memory)

 

3. Whilst you are in safe mode install the latest Motherboard drivers (whether they be nForce / VIA / SIS drivers). Jump to the respective websites and get these drivers

 

4. Reboot the PC and we should be theoretically in a clean OS (as far as video drivers are concerned) The reason you should install the mobo drivers is to make sure the GART drivers are all installed and working OK. ATI drivers seem to configure themselves based upon the current settings of the system.

 

5. Next...install the latest ATI drivers. I suggest the latest Omega drivers being 2.9.50 During the installation it will ask questions in regards to the card you have etc etc Just stick to the defaults for the 9800. (If some options state only for so-and-so card then DONT choose it)

 

6. Upon completion of the driver install, reboot and we should be all done. Fire up CS:S and (hopefully) bask in the wonders of a nice frame rate

 

Additional

 

These are the settings I run for CS:S

 

- Antialiasing................... 2X

- Anisotropic Filtering........ 2X

- Textures...................... High

- Shadows...................... High

- Models......................... High

- Reflections................... All

- Everything else.............. High

- Resolution.................... 1280x1024

- Monitor refresh.............. 75Hz

 

***********************

 

Good luck ATI peeps

 

--- Edit ---

 

My frame rates sit anywhere between 50 - 120 FPS.

 

 

 

(used a few, and increased FPS for my 9800XT as well)

meh, I've had to reinstall my drivers many time before in the past, it's kind of annoying

I might try that. Will it work the same way with the 4.1 drivers? (I think I have that version installed, not sure where to check though)

 

i ran it, and when i selected high-performance gaming mode it gave some warning saying that for some games top-performance won't work properly, in that case it said to select high-performance mode

 

how do i tell if top-performance mode isn't working, will the game not boot or will i not notice a boost in fps?

don't select top performance. I tried it and it didn't help a whole lot.

and you'll probably tell if it's not working by no increase in fps

i tryed this gameaccelerator, and believe me its not good for everyone, bcuz it just about crashed my game - just a word of warning!

what did you do exactly?Like, after you installed it, and before you booted up the game, what did you do

dont use memory optimization or fancy pop up blocking (forgot what they are called exactly, remember i have no mouse so i cant open the program)resulted in enourmous fps drop when i switched gun, or someone appeared in front of mei did noticed a 20 fps increase with the dynamic boost

shotty raised a good point in ventrillo today, what if VAC recognizes it as a hack of some sort?

lol it won't...um...hopefullybut really, it doesn't change any of your files or ingame stuff, it just gets rid of certain services around system that will give you that increasebut um...yeah. I really don't know about VAC. Most likely not. If you're REALLY worried about it, post it up on the steampowered forums

Thank you UnwantedHero, my fps is awesome now 8)

do u know if theres a command line to add to start the dynamic boost? i wanna make it start when i connect on HLSW

nice guide unwanted. im gonna try game accelerator tonight. what kind of ram do you have pc2700? another 512 stick would probably increase performance quite nicely. also the command cl_lagcompensation i have that set to 0 when set to 1 this command seems to try to compensate for any little amount of lag and ends up just making it worse. give that one a try. set it to 0also i use the ati cat 4.12 beta drivers. the creator optomized them for the hl2 engine boosted my fps by 10fps in css and hl2 will always fluxate its in the engine. it was the same in the early days of 1.6 if anyone can remember. people we constantly _____ing about low fps. it will be better with time :Dhey shotty you're using an lcd screen im guessing eh

do u know if theres a command line to add to start the dynamic boost? i wanna make it start when i connect on HLSW

my guess would be start dynamic boost before you boot up hlsw, then leave it on until you you're done with that game

if you're going switch over to another game (say from CSS to Doom3) Stop Dynamic Boost, then start it again.

 

and yea, after I get some christmas tips from my paper route (they're always generous) I'll hopefully be able to get a good deal on 512mb ram at Futureshop.

cl_lagcompensation? never heard of that one before. I'll put that in the orignal post.

I do believe I have the 4.12 drivers, where can you check what version drivers you have?

I beleive you can either go into device manager and check it through there. or display properties and go to settings advanced and click on the tab with your video card listed. im on a comp with an nvidia gpu so i'll let ya know when i get back on my computer. also what speed ram is your computer capable of? if you dont know what motherboard do you have. or what model number if its a prebuilt like dell hp etc. what amd cpu is that 3200+? if so your ram is either pc2700 or pc3200

I'm running pc2700...and for everyone who's already dled Game Accelerator, a new version was released, and I changed the link on the first post so it downloads the latest version, version 4.0

well another night of good gaming, i was on the tac server tonight as i had a good number of close friends wanting to play and not enough room on the tac server for all of em. but i did notice my fps were insanely low so im gonna try out game accelerator now.

I just noticed on a site that it says the 4.12 drivers were just released. Anyway, I dled them and am now up-to-datealso added new console command to the main post. It stops the rain on azteclook at the very bottom of the first post for it

How did those cat 4.12 drivers work for you unwanted? any increase in fps? I have tested the following drivers in the last couple nights4.10, 4.11, 4.12, and the omegas. 4.12 seems to give the 9800pro the best performance. also depending on which 9800 pro u have. Look at the arctic cooler. The stock cooling on some 9800pros isnt that great. after a few test last night and a couple of hours of ripping my hair out haha. i found that running at 1280x960 was more stable then any other resolution which is weird. but meh haha. i uninstalled game accelerator it didnt agree with my system.

I get 300FPS in CSS games.... 150 in a firefight there abouts.

wow. may i ask what your system specs are? and or how you managed that? im assuming one of the following graphics cards6800gt, ultrax800pro, xt, xtpedo i assume correct?hopefully mine will be the same by xmas :Du are also looking at the floor. what are your fps in combat situations. or heavy ambiance?

i uninstalled game accelerator it didnt agree with my system.

strange.

anyway, check out the Game Tweaks section at www.majorgeeks.com

they have some OTHER game accelerator-like programs thta might 'agree' with your system

and I might try going up to 1024x760 resolution tonight, just to see how good it works.

the 4.12 gave me a slight increase, not a whole lot though, and recently on maps like dust/dus2, my fps has been dropping to the 40s and 50s.

The strangest situation I had yet was when I was on that rail that's next to the trench in long a on dust2. My fps was ok for a bit, but it suddnely dropped to 3 or 4 for about 10 seconds, and I presume I was killed because when my fps went back up I was dead :S.

 

and shotty, I envy you as a god

Im gonna give game accelerator another shot after work. i have a feeling i didnt use it properly. i will also check out major geeks see whats cracking over there. that is weird bout your fps. its strange how that happens in certain areas. u should be able to handle 1024 in medium settings. especially after you get 512 more ram. a regular on the other server i play on / administrate was trying to help me out with my problem last night. he gave me the following commandsmat_bumpmap 0 and mat_specular 0 (not sure of the spelling of the second one, the console will pop it up when u type mat_spe)i dont know what those two commands do, but it didnt take away any eye candy and seemed a bit smoother.

I tried mat_bumpmap 0 first and it made my hands all shiney and such. I thought 'this can't be good'so I didn't turn it off but tried mat_specular 0 and it fixed everything. It's true, it didn't seem to take away any of the eye candy. I played on some servers and still see my fps reaching the 40s on long a in dust2.Anyway, those commands did help slightly, I'll add them to the main post