CS Smoke of Death!

Hi guys, ive experienced lots of lag when played with smoke.

I usually drop down 20~30fps when i scope through it.

How can i usually fix this? what should i turn down a notch to be able to stay at a constant fps of 40+?

I run the game maxed up (1024x768), 16xQQ AA and 16x AF

Yeah its a little crazy for my little 8400M GT. But how can i somewhat fix this?

Its really annoying during scrims and CAL matches

 

16xQQ AA is a FPS killer and more than you should be running that card at. Bump it down to 8x and you'll probably nearly double your framerates.

 

Should i use vsync? i sometimes (but pretty much rarely) see image tearing

 

I personally like having vsync on, but it is personal preference. Just remember that it probably will drop your FPS at least slightly.

 

Will it boost performance ingame?

 

No, vsync don't improve the performance, it force the card to wait for the screen to refresh to draw new frames. Reduce your AA settings, 4x is aplenty.

 

Couldnt he just turn visual settings to low? then he wouldnt even see the smoke. Thats how most league players play since no smoke=more visibility

 

no lol im not lowering to Med or Low...i like high settings

 

If your card can't take it then you're stuck with either high settings or unacceptable performance during smoke rendering. It's your call.

 

its not the settings that screwing me up. Its just the anti aliasing...will 4x suffice?

 

You could drop both AA and AF down probably without noticing much if at all.

 

you could always try and see if you like it, I mean it wont hurt your computer to try a game or two with the AA settings lowered

 

I highly doubt you'll notice 8x vs 16x AA in CS 1.6 anyway, drop it down and you'll never have frame rate issues.

 

There is absolutely no reason you should be at 16x CSAA, that is EXTREME overkill. 8x should be max, after that you can barely tell any improvement.

I for one never push it above 4x, because that is the absolute sweet spot for AA/performance.

While you're at it, drop AF down to 8x, unless you are playing on surf maps, or if you are playing in Half-Life 2 and staring over at the Citadel all day.

Dust/Office/Italy/etc do not need 16x AF to look amazing, they just don't have the scale to make it necessary.

That said, if these changes bring your FPS up high enough you will start to see tearing, in which case V-sync is very useful. If you do not see tearing, then there is absolutely no reason to turn V-sync on, as its sole purpose is to smooth out tearing by syncing your monitor/lcd refresh rate with the outputted frames. It will never improve FPS, just smooth it out.

 

Not sure what drivers you're running at the moment, but 174.74 has really bad tearing for me. I'm probably going to go back to 174.16 where I had fewer issues.

 

i use 175.75

 

Okay..if all the above tips are still not helping let me know.

I ll give u some Console commands & Settings that make it run at normal FPS.

 

At 1024 by 768 there's just not enough pixels to make 16x AA look good. 4x is plenty for that resolution.

 

Obviously first lower it to 4XAA or 2XAA

CS is not a game which was made to look good...so focus on FPS.
Now try Reducing the Color depth to 16 Bit...this will make u see through smoke & maintain FPS.

Now change the following settings in console:

Rate 25000

cl_updaterate 101
fps_max101
cl_cmdrate 90
sv_maxupdaterate 90
sv_minupdaterate 30

Reduce maxshells to 0


Now most likely u should get decent FPS in smoke.

Btw.... many Servers Restrict Smoking because Smoke nade causes the Server to lag.

Hence, tell the Admin to Restric Smoke nade.


Enjoy! and let us know.

 

uhg the dreaded particle issue that some laptop gpus suffer from, on my laptop, when playing halo2 with particles on, ive noticed that when i shoot and run foward, allowing my face to go through the gun smoke, i see a frame drop from 60(vsync) to 45...hate it. laptop gpu's suffer from particles when up close especially in high resolutions

 

AF could be turned up to 16 if you want. I think it's fine at 8. As for AA just leave it at 4x. If there is no difference in gameplay at 8x, that will be fine too.

 

noctornal thanks for the comands. Are you sure those are CAL or CEVO regulations? because i am currently in CAL-O (yes noobie ^^), so i dont want to get banned.

 

you dont really need AA if you play at higher resolutions just test it out, you wont notice much of a difference, but your FPS will be alot higher