HL2 in DX7

How do I set HL2 to run in DX7? I went to the advanced settings in HL2 Video settings but it doesn't let me select anything other than DX 9.

BTW: This is HL2: Episode 1.
Another Q: How do I get it to show FPS?

And for my fellow X200M users GET THIS GAME IT WORKS! It works great on the X200M, high settings all around just turn the HDR off and it's just amazing! I want to set it in DX7 so I can see how much it improves it and it does get a little laggy when there are alot of things in sight.

Thanks in advance.

DO I have to install DX7 to have it play in DX7? If so where do I dl DX7?

 

in steam right click on the game go to advanced and then click set luanch options the type -dxlevel 70, or if you want you can put 81 or 80

 

TO get DX 7 mode, go to Launch Option of HL2 in the Steam menu (right click on HL2, click properties, Launch Options)

In the launc options box, type in

-dxlevel 70

Or for DX 8.0 then its

-dxlevel 80

Or for DX 8.1 its

-dxlevel 81


For FPS, open the console in game and type in

cl_showfps 2


And there you go.

TO improve performance some more on EP1, go into video settings and disable Colour Correction (if its enabled) Costs FPS, and I can't see what it does at all.


Also to adjust your heapsize settings (equivalent of a paging file for HL2) in the launch options type in

-heapsize

followed by the amount (in bytes) you want HL2 to use as a heapsize file. This total should be no more than 50% of your total system memory. For an example, I use 512mb heapsize file when playing, so my launch options box says

-heapsize 512000

Mine is 512000, you might want to make it bigger or smaller depending on your total memory, so 256mb, you'd put in 256000, 128mb = 128000, 1gb = 1000000 etc. (hypermemory or turbocache users, deduct your GPU shared memory before working out the total)

Heapsize goes into launch options box. Leave a space between each different command.

 

Thank you guys .

 

Why try DX 7 mode while the X200M can play easily at DX 9 mode?

Charlie

 

directx7 will make it look like crap... Relatively. I'd stay with DX9.

Or did DX9 have any big effects to speak of?

 

Many people seem to think that if a card is DX9 capable, it will play the game just as fast as it would DX7 mode, but this is not the case. With higher DX9 levels comes a greater load on the GPU itself. On an IGP dropping down a DX level can definitely give you a greater fps.


There is a good comparison chart here between the different DX levels in HL2 here.

 

hey guys if you really care you can play in dx 6 and 5 lol just replace the numbers, but funny, fps are lower then 7...

 

Well, the Steam engine itself was written to be DX6 compatible, but I don't think HL2 itself was written with DX6 in mind. Only DX7. So that might explain why DX6 performs even worse than DX7. Also, drivers would be optimized to run HL2 in DX7 and up and not DX6.

In terms of the different modes. If DX9 isn't giving you the performance that you want, you should just drop to DX8.1 and leave it at that. Visually, running in DX9 and DX8.1 mode is really close with the main difference being water quality. However, running in DX8.1 should give a noticable performance boost. DX7 mode is actually very good for the technology level, but the visual quality is noticably reduced. With things looking quite flat, draw distance being reduced, "poor" shadowing, etc.

 

If anything, you could use DirectX 7 mode in CS: S (assuming you will be playing that), there is not a drastic difference between DX7 and DX9 in there, at least from my experience. I played the Source engine games for the longest time on DX7 mode with my old laptop, which had a GeForce 4MX. It wasn't so bad.

 

I remember playing on an older a45 series with the intel graphics card Extreme2, only supported 6 but i was dam proud to get it to run on that notebook

 

How does DX6 look anyway, Im assuming it looks horrendous.

 

I disagree...HL2 DM looks fantastic on my nVidia GeForce 440 Go

It wont install at all. I believe the minimum GPU specification for HL2 needs to be DX 7. IF it did install, the GPU wont be able to display half the textures in the game. You wont see oil barrels exploding I assume and Brickwork texture on a building wall proably would appear solid Brown or something...