Official Left 4 Dead Performance Thread.

you will definitely able to run the game on the highest shaders if you try overclocking.

give that a try, its safe if your notebook is pretty cool during regular gaming.

 

Does 83 C sound cool to you for my regular gaming? =X

Anyway I just did a full overclock to 600/900 and it can definitely handle shaders on high, but it feels more stutter-ish.

I think you might want to check the part about GPU being the bottleneck for most people though. I'm pretty sure that L4D would max out both cores if you have 'Multicore Rendering' turned on.

 

if you want to turn shaders up you need a better GPU.

anyways.. seems that stuttering issues can either be caused by issues with multi-core support (same case as a team fortress 2 here)

or

a problem with your video driver

since your stuttering increased after a overclock, its most likely a video driver issue.

I'd suggest you mess around with drivers first before setting OC aside.

174.74 and 177.35 are very overclockable.

 

The 8600/9600 cards will always be limited by their 32 shader units, which isn't enough to put shader settings on high in most games.

I'm still using the following settings (earlier post):
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4183034&postcount=39
No slow-downs at all, even in horde fights. I may try that triple buffering trick though.

 

overclock the 8600m gt and it'll run smooth with shader on highest @ 1280x800

so far its worked for me, except with slow downs during motokov spams, but medium settings on effects smooth that out

 

hi guys, im having some problems with l4d at the moment
it seems to be crashing to desktop whenever i get attacked by tons of zombies, this usually occurs about 20mins into the game
ive googled the problem and checked the l4d forums but noone seems to really have a solution? It seems that quite a few people are actually have this same problem

i have a dell m1330
attachments:
my dxdiag
printscreen of my video (default) settings

btw my graphics driver is up to date

please help!

 

Disable multicore rendering.

 

ok, im gonna try now, be back in about 30 mins to let u know how it went

btw can i ask why? what does that do? yes-i dont know much about this stuff

 

how would a 1.8GHz C2D, 3GB RAM, 9500GS run it @ 1280x720?
all high with shaders med?

 

Yes, definitely. You could probably bump the resolution 1440x900 and be fine (~40-50 FPS).

 

good stuff, seemed to work for now, hope it stays like that!!
cheers mate

 

the game runs fine for me except i keep getting studders that are less then a second long, i tried a few different drivers but the problem keeps coming >_>

 

Uneven frame rates are caused as a result of enabling multi-core rendering. Did you turn those off?

 

heh, my screen doesnt go that high

 

btw guys add me, Meedoso

 

Runs perfectly on max settings bar AA even on a 8600mGS

 

It runs like crap (15-35)fps with my notebook, everything set to low and multicore rendering either on or off.

I even reformatted and it still sucks.
DELL XPS M1530
T9300 (2.5GHz) processor, 8600GT 256MB DDR3 graphics card, and 4GB System RAM

 

Wow, thats weird. Are you plugged in or on battery?

 

there is something wrong i'm getting that with an integrated card

 

Strange. I'm in Vista x64, using DELL's video drivers right now. What do you guys recommend for a better video card driver?
Before formatting I never knew to disable multi-core rendering, and that's when I was using the latest drivers.
It seems I get 90fps~ the first 10 seconds or so of the map, then it furiously drops to unenjoyably low.

 

Sounds like you got some defective 8600M overheat downclocking going on...call Dell.

 

We can't jump to that conclusion without troubleshooting.

 

well it looks that way

 

You reformatted, got the latest drivers, and you're card downclocks in 10 seconds? Troubleshoot all you want, but you're lined up for a replacement from Dell. You could try laptopvideo2go.com's drivers, but I don't expect much difference those are just used to slightly enhance current forceware.

 

Thanks for the help. I'll definately call DELL over the Christmas break. I'll have to send my laptop in for repairs, right? If I do, at least I can possibly get my grainy screen replaced also. This isn't good, considering I need my laptop for university.
This laptop has been nothing but trouble. Both initial RAM sticks died within the first month, the hard drive died within 2, and now the video card? Not to mention the grainy screen...

EDIT: When I call DELL, what should I tell them so they don't spend hours troubleshooting me?

 

That's some serious bad luck, and to think I was going to purchase the M1530 one day...do call in when university takes a break. I get off classes this Friday so thank god I will be able to mess around with my laptop some more. And yes, call in and tell them all problems at once so you dont have to RMA the system twice. Be serious, because you shouldn't have to troubleshoot a system if you just reformatted it and the same issues occur. If you're persistent, hopefully you will receive a new system overall.

RAM sticks
HD
Video card

3 strikes, Dell's out and you're lined up for a replacement or a refund if you really want it that bad.

 

Awesome, I didn't realize there was a 3-strike rule. Thanks for the help everyone. Any more tips?

PS: The RAM died on separate occasions. I'm guessing the motherboard was always faulty, considering it sometimes makes a loud BEEP (very spontaneously), and all these other problems!

 

Don't take my word for it, I don't believe there is a "rule", but I do remember reading something about 3 errors w/ Dells. It's more of a unwritten law with Dell (I dont have experience with other companies) that if your system is faulty by default over and over, you can either get a replacement or a full refund if you are persistent with the people on the other side of the line, regardless of how long you've had the system. It takes a bit of work though, so be prepared to keep calling until you get someone who's willing to participate (trust me, I speak from experience w/ Dell replacements).

Tips? Be kind but firm, continuously bring up all the issues you're having with it, tell them it's getting in the way of your work and let them know that you demand a full replacement for all the issues. Also remind them you're entitled to an extended warranty as a result of the video card failure.

http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/...ment-to-all-affected-customers-worldwide.aspx

 

Has anyone ever have the game close on them between stages? Left 4 Dead will intermittently close out with no error message while loading the next stage for me. Here are my specs, any ideas?

I have similar issues with Unreal Tournament 3, but not with games like World of Warcraft or Warhammer Online.

Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T5600 1.83GHz 2MB Cache 667MHz FSB
Operating System (Office software not included): Genuine Windows® Vista Home Basic
Display: 17" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD - Saucer Silver
Motherboard: Alienware® Intel® 945PM + ICH7 Chipset
Memory: 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 667MHz - 2 x 1024MB
System Drive: Single Drive Configuration - 100GB Serial ATA 1.5Gb/s 7,200 RPM w/ NCQ & 8MB Cache
Primary CD ROM/DVD ROM: 24x10x24 CD-RW / 8X DVD Combo w/ Software MPEG2 Decoder
Video/Graphics Card: 256MB ATI Mobility™ Radeon® X1800
Sound Card: Intel® 7.1 High-Definition Audio
Wireless Network Card: Internal Intel® PRO Wireless 3945 a/b/g Mini-Card
Communications: Integrated 10/1000Mb Gigabit Ethernet & 56K V.92 Modem

Oh, and for the guy on the first page who had trouble activating the radio at the hospital the second time, just walk and face away from the radio and then come back to it after he is done replying.

 

^^ does your computer shut down too? Because that would be a heat issue.

 

Just wanted to chime in and say that my previous XPS M170 was repalced after 3 hardware problems (video card, video card, motherboard). A replacement may have to be requested though.

 

Yeah, I used to have heat issues on my alienware laptop... it even fried my video card. I used my warranty to get a new video card and I bought a cooling pad since then.

When I had heat issues, I would see lines and distortions all over my screen when playing games... This seems different. Left 4 Dead just closes out on me with no warning, and not during intense graphics.... it only seems to happen between stages while playing online.

It closes the game out clean without an error, and leaves Steam open.

 

just got the game finally (took like 10 days to ship off amazon on top of missing the $20 deal..) I'll post the results when I play tomorrow hopefully. I have a 8600m GS with 2 gigs of ram. I heard that upping the ram helps gaming performance immensely with the 8600m GS because of it's turbocache feature. Can anyone confirm this? I have 2x2gb sticks coming in soon.

 

For anyone else playing on a Studio 15 with the Radeon 3450 I've found that playing on your native resolution with low settings gives you the same FPS as playing on 800x600 resolution with med-high settings. The game also looks better even with the other settings all on low/off.

 

i used to run the game on:

all high
no film grain
1920 x 1200
multicore enabled
no AA
no AF
vsync disabled

this worked for about 40-60 FPS (anyone with similar spec running higher?)

but i do not like motion blur in my FPS games really (at least on the computer) as when things get heavy the framerates stutter, and i like smooth gameplay. I normally have this setup on single player, and sometimes even campaign. though on versus i like to have less problems with stuttering as there already is stuttering from occassional lag.

i now run it at:

1920 x 1200
all high
shaders medium
no AA (i mean on a 17 inch laptop, AA at 1920 x 1200 is hard to notice when you're moving fast)
no AF
Multicore enabled
vsync disabled

fps is about 100+ constantly. usually i can read it at 120 fps or so.

i would keep the game on all high, though, if i could only find a console command disabling the motion blur.

does anyone know how to turn it off?

 

Hmm, blur is more controlled by quality rather than one option unlike half life 2 episodes.

Try sv_cheats 1 and then fov 90 and mess w/ that number.

 

when you have the shaders set to max or on high, it enables motion blur. when i turn it off, i don't have that feature.

but thanks, i'm about to try it out now. gunna post the results in a second

EDIT:
it really didn't change too much around; perhaps i'm making this blur up in my head, but i swear i see it when i spin around really fast.

changing the field of view to 75 increased the fps by about 1-2 for me, in case people were wondering.

 

Hmmm. Any way to increase FOV without turning cheats on? I've a friend who gets motion sickness really quickly. Figure an FOV increase would help. Or better yet, making it third-person.

 

Nope, you can't, as it gives you an advantage over other gamers.

You can play in third person though. Simply open your console and type in 'thirdpersonshoulder'.

 

thinkpad t500, Mobility Radeon 3650, 1680*1050, NO AA, Multicore rendering on, other settings medium or high. the game works without any hiccups.strange the game is crashing a lot at lower resolutions.

 

The game runs really well on my laptop, I can play it at 16:10 Aspect Ratio, 1920 x 1200 Resolution, Multicore-Rendering Enabled, 4xMSAA Anti-Aliasing, Anistropic 8x Filtering Mode, Enabled (Triple Buffered) Vertical Sync, Film Grain at Optimal (Red Mark), Shader Detail @ Very High, Effect Detail @ High, Model / Texture @ High, and Paged Pool Memory Available @ High with an average of 60 FPS all the time, spiking up to 100 FPS, except for Dead Air's first chapter, where it is a known problem that the FPS drops to the floor (60 FPS -> 30 FPS here), I am sure that my laptop can handle higher AA and AF, but there is no jagged edges or any other graphical defects with this config, so I am happy with it, the laptop runs really well as a local server also (I can spawn dozens of Witches along with other monsters with no major lagging or crashing).

 

just so you know, your FPS is actually bottlenecked by your refresh rate. My laptop is 60, most laptops are 75 I think. But Either way, you can only see as much FPS as your screen refresh rate allows, so I can see a max of 60FPS

 

this game actually run smoothly even at a constant 30, people with OCed 8600gt ddr3 and above cards should think about turning shaders to high/even very high, effects @ medium and be content with a 30fps game. The game looks amazing @ that settings.

 

I'd prefer keeping the Shaders at Medium and get a constant 50 - 60fps. It still feels pretty laggy for me even at 30 fps.

 

You just taught me something new, thanks, now I will keep that in mind when browsing monitors and other devices with displays, my laptop is 60 Hz.

 

I'm getting ~40 fps in outdoor areas which is pretty annoying since i have a decently high end notebook which should be killing this game. playing on 1440x900 all high 2xAA. What settings to turn down would give me almost the same visual quality with a boost in fps?

 

Runs perfectly on my asus g50vt a1

all highest settings with 60+ easy

 

I really wish I could play this game on high at a smooth rate . I run the highest settings 1440x900, but keep the shaders at medium. Higher shaders make the game look beautiful, but at a huge fps cost.

With my settings the way they are, I can always get >60fps even during the intense moments. With everything maxed (no AA, 4x AF), I only get ~30fps during intense moments, and that just feels way to sluggish.

 

You need a better CPU.

 

i can play smoothly (more than 30fps even at intense moments) with all settings on high and 2xAA which is good considering the 8400m gt isnt a very powerful card