CS:S on a GMA 950

Okay then..

I have a new lappy, yay! Its a Toshiba Satellite A110 with 512mb of RAM and a Core Duo, as well as a GMA 950.

Now, I want to run CS:S, even on low graphics, as long as it is playable. What settings should I use? How do I force it to DX 8.1 mode?

Thankyou

 

http://support.steampowered.com/cgi-bin/steampowered.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=242#force

How do I force a working DirectX level and video mode?

If the game fails to load with the default settings, you will need to test for a working DirectX level and video mode.
Force a DirectX level

This process may help with some older video cards - some users report the game will run faster, as well:

1. Open Steam
2. Go to the "My Games" tab
3. Right-click the game which needs to be reconfigured
4. Select "Properties" from the menu
5. Click the "Set launch options..." button
6. Add one of the DirectX level launch options specified below - be sure to include a space before the "-" and anything before it.

DirectX Level Launch Options

* -dxlevel 90 (DirectX v9.0)
* -dxlevel 81 (DirectX v8.1)
* -dxlevel 80 (DirectX v8.0)
* -dxlevel 70 (DirectX v7.0)

 

the GMA 950 should have no problem running CS:S as I have seen people play FEAR with it.

 

I have to see to believe that.

GMA 950 playing F.E.A.R.? No way.

Maybe at 640 x 480 with everything off or low at 5fps.

 

im sorry to tell you but yourgonna have to try and run it at DX7 mode and i would add more ram as well as put it in 640x480 and you can pull off about 15 fps if your not doing anything

 

Follow the directions usapatriot gave you and run CS: S in DX7 mode. There's no way it is going to be playable otherwise. At least in DX7 mode it has a chance.

Having only 512MB of RAM is going to be a killer. Upgrade that to 1GB for best results.

 

Hey Chaz, merry Christmas!

Congrats on your purchase! Always love the feeling of a shiny new laptop. You'll be able to run CS:S fine if you force it to run under DX7, you can try DX8 as well. Turn off the special effects, like Bloom. Turn down details too, water reflections, etc---basically fiddle around with it until you find the gameplay acceptable. I'd say your RAM is fine if all you're planning on playing is CS:S, but be sure to close as many applications/programs as possible before launching Steam. Getting another GB of RAM would do you good though, it'll make things run a lot faster under Windows.

 

Fear actually works on the gma950 just at fairly bad settings

 

Well here's a thread that talks a bit about CS:S on a Mac Mini with the GMA 950.

http://www.123macmini.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5037&sid=c27533b42e9748bdac43729e77350dc4

Essentially, ZeroCorpse could run it at 1024x768 with reasonable frame rates. Now before everyone is up at arms, this seems to be only for when he's not playing on Steam (or playing on Steam in the middle of the night when there's fewer people on). Which begs the question what is the point? In any case this seems to pretty much match my friends experience on his E1405. He really only plays occasionally when he has a few minutes against bots and he has no complaints. He doesn't bother with Steam.

There's also been some comments on the web that CS:S plays okay in custom maps, but not default ones. This appears to be because the custom maps in question have less objects (ie. bottles, barrels, etc.).

In any case, you can certainly try, but make sure you update to the latest drivers (they're up to 14.25 now and were supposed to release 14.26 before the year is up but don't seem to have gotten around to it yet) and latest patches. As mentioned before, 512MB of RAM is a definite limiting factor since the GMA 950 needs to share a large portion of it when playing games. 1GB is really required and should be in a dual channel configuration to best feed the GMA 950.

 

I am getting 1gb very sson! Thanks!