G400 & Half-Life

[#gbib|prophet]

Hi all,

I have a little, but extreme nerving problem :/

I have the matrox millenium g400 card, I will play counter-strike, but on some maps my fps crashs from 40-50 down to 4-10. This only happend if there is a special lightning on the map. Best example for my problem is on de_aztec at each flash my fps goes down to 10 :*( so it is unpossible to play.

I have found with the search function some info about other problems with g400 and half-life games here. But noone really helped me.

Can someone help me?

ps: sorry for my terrible english

[Maggi]

did you already try the 5.86 drivers ?

[#gbib|prophet]

actually I have the 6.82.016, I only founded:

14. Juni 2000: Version 6.00.010 Beta 4,0 MB

25. Februar 2000: Version 5.52.015 4,3 MB

but not the 5.86 drivers, where I can get them?

[Maggi]

sorry, those are win2k drivers, I didn't know you where running W98 ...

For W98 you could try out the latest beta release

http://www.matrox.com/mga/support/drivers/files/w9x_683beta.cfm

[#gbib|prophet]

Sorry my fault :> OS is Win98se

I have the latest drivers 6.83.017 only powerdesk is 6.82.016 the opengl-icd version is 2.57.057.

[RichL]

What CPU do you have?
My G400 needed a fast CPU to give a decent FPS in Half-Life TFC. With my old K6III/475 I'd regularly get the 9-10 FPS you're getting.
Going to a Duron 800 then Duron 1000 really improved things, with FPS rarely dropping below 30.
Performance increased more with an XP1600-1900, but I dont have an FPS figure for the XP processor.

[#gbib|prophet]

I got amd athlon 600, 256 mb ram the thing what makes me crazy is, that there was a time with the same configuration I don't have any problems with the special lightning :/

Today I had install CS again on a other hdu with a clear config and normal settings, but also there I got the same problem. So it must be some conflict between the drivers and windows I think :P

Any other ideas what I can test?

[Chrono_Wanderer]

Maybe you can get the 6.85 Win 9X drivers...

Also, what's ur AGP aperture size? what AGP mode are you running at? Is your G400 a MAX, a 32MB or a 16MB? What res are you running in half life anyways?

P.S.: And also maybe you can flash your gfx BIOS if you want to, just to keep everything fresh

[#gbib|prophet]

Originally posted by Chrono_Wanderer
Maybe you can get the 6.85 Win 9X drivers...

I'm blind, I can't find it O_o

Also, what's ur AGP aperture size? what AGP mode are you running at? Is your G400 a MAX, a 32MB or a 16MB? What res are you running in half life anyways?

agp don't know waht u mean, where I can get this informations?
matrox millenium g400 dh 32mb

P.S.: And also maybe you can flash your gfx BIOS if you want to, just to keep everything fresh

My actual bios is 2.1 b35.

[mmp121]

AGP Aperture Size can be found in your system BIOS


As for the latest drivers for win98/98SE go here:

http://www.matrox.com/mga/support/drivers/latest/home.cfm

The latest greatest drivers I see are:
6.82.016
27feb02

And the link for your G400 BIOS Update is:

http://www.matrox.com/mga/support/drivers/bios/home.cfm

And the latest BIOS version there is:
v.2.55a.002

Hope this helps!

[G400SG16mb]

Try:
1) Swap from OpenGL to direct3d, the G400 greatly prefers the latter
2) Go into the Bios settings and try increasing the AGP aperture. Also, disable the video shadow option - this increases speed
3) If you've got an Asus motherboard, try setting the system to "optimal" speed
4) Make sure in the Bios settings that your ram is running at full speed. It is very common for ram to be set too slowly in the Bios setup. Much money is wasted on ram and motherboard FSB which is running in slow mode with nobody noticing.
5) Go to www.matrox.com and upgrade the drivers
6) download and install MGATweak and optimise the ram settings as said in the pdf file
7) Try different screen resolutions in Half Life and see if it goes away. The G400 sometimes prefers higher resolutions
8) Go into the Matrox Powerdesk advanced options Options. Enable things like bus mastering and improve the settings
9) Make sure in the Bios settings that your video card is set to run in AGP mode and not PCI mode.

you can access the Bios by pressing the DELETE key many times straight after the computer is turned on

[RichL]

Originally posted by #gbib|prophet
I got amd athlon 600, 256 mb ram the thing what makes me crazy is, that there was a time with the same configuration I don't have any problems with the special lightning :/

Today I had install CS again on a other hdu with a clear config and normal settings, but also there I got the same problem.

Your biggest benefit will probably be from a faster CPU. If that isnt an option then the less load you place on it the better.
Disable background virus scanners, task scheduler, MS Office Fastfind etc etc while playing Half Life.
Reducing your desktop resolution to 16bit colour may also give you a noticable speed boost.

To gain an extra FPS or two, go into the Config file and try reducing Decals (set by default to be 300) to , Giblife and Gibcount (reduce to 1), turn off Dynamic Lightling and Hardware EAX/A3D sound.

thing what makes me crazy is, that there was a time with the same configuration I don't have any problems with the special lightning :/

Valve Software, creators of Half-Life, have the unfortunate tendancy to screw around with things and break stuff.
They did something about the time of the 1106 patch that screwed framerates big time. Quite a few people with lower spec machines who used to get 30-40fps suddenly struggled with 10-20. The TFC clan I was in at the time lost three good members who could no longer compete.
Which is why I'll happily warez the next Valve game I want to try until it either reaches the budget labels or becomes apparent they arent going to release 30mb patches that break things.

[P5ycho]

You don't want to run halflife in direct3d. OpenGL is the way to go here.

[G400SG16mb]

Originally posted by P5ycho
You don't want to run halflife in direct3d. OpenGL is the way to go here.

Agreed, except with the G400 - running it in OpenGL mode causes about one hard system-lockup once per half dozon hours of run-time. Direct3D is more stable with the G400.

[VigilAnt]

Originally posted by G400SG16mb


Agreed, except with the G400 - running it in OpenGL mode causes about one hard system-lockup once per half dozon hours of run-time. Direct3D is more stable with the G400.

I have found this statement to be wrong. Poor advice.

VigilAnt