X1400 Tweaking for HL2 Engine games?

Hey! Just got my Dell 6400 yesterday w/ vista basic 2g ram

Very satisfied

However when i started playing dods and css I turned all the setting to low and still it lags a lot =\

Any guides or suggestions i should take?

Is there any drivers whatever things i have to install? Please reply, THANKs!

 

its probably windows vista taking up most of your ram

 

I don't think this is a RAM issue; 2GB should be more than enough to handle games and the operating system.

Gaming on Windows Vista is not exactly the best thing right now; there is some performance decrease compared to XP but games should still be playable. Are you lagging because of a network connection or are your frames per second simply too low? Download FRAPS to measure framerates.

 

Check drivers, although Vista isn't great for games right now either.

On all low settings, an X1400 can hit 120fps easily, and can manage high settings at very playable levels, so don't worry, it's not the technical performance of your card in question here.

 

Once the Vista issue is all set and done, you should be able to crank Source to maximum details @ 1440 x 900 w/o FSAA no problem if you overclock the GPU to 500 MHz.

 

I m @ school right now, but when i get home i ll frap the games

For now, i can remember these performance from the games:

DODS

All on max + HDR no AA 4xAF

around 12-20 FPS

No HDR

Around 25, almost playable. Hiccups

Everything Low

40FPS

-

CSS

Everything on high 4xAF

Around 25 FPS, almost playable

Low setting

Okay FPS, around 50

-

HL2 : DM

Wow this game is crazy. Everything on high is very fast

Even with HDR it's around 50 FPS

-

EDIT:

http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/vista32/common-vista32.html

this is the driver i use

 

Thats the right driver to use. But as most have said. Vista and gaming just don't mix right now. I'd say your running at 75-80% of what you'd be getting with XP. But don't worry give it some time with each new vista driver you will see noticeable improvements.

 

aww hopefully that happens

yesterday i was vsing my friend on CSS

normally i could do really well but i constantly got like a 2-3 second interval of framerate drop