FPS Guide (New Stuff)

[siosios]

Note: I do NOT take any responsibility to anything that happens to your computer, proceed at your own risk. If you follow this guide 100% you will not have any problems, if you do please post a reply and I will help you to the best of my knowledge.

The solutions below have solved many peoples problems, about 90% and I figured since I've seen so many FPS problems or how to increase for FPS posts, id thought id take the time to help you guys out and post the solutions I have found that have worked for others and I and some little extra things to take care of you're computers and keep them at full maintenance for your enjoyment. Here we go.

My current hardware:

Windows: Windows XP Pro SP1
Monitor: FS740
CPU: AMD64 FX-55 Socket 939
Motherboard: Asus A8V Deluxe ATX Socket 939
RAM: Kingston HyperX PC4300 1GB
Video: eVGA GeForce 6800GT 1G

FPS is obviously a constant 100fps, but here is my other computer that I use to play on full-time that had recieved 100fps consistantly in 1.6.

Windows: Windows XP Pro SP1
Monitor: FS740
CPU: AMD T-Bird 1102mhz
Motherboard: N/A
RAM: 512 MB DDR Corsair PC2700
Video: NVIDIA MSI FX5200 128mb

FPS without the following guide was ranging from 60-100 with drops with players on screen to large areas on the map. Follow this guide and you will have 90-100 consistantly on every map, with the maxmium of 10 players on your screen.

Note: This guide will start off basic, so bare with me as I go over basic material to help out the average user.

Anti-Virus

See FPS Maintenance article, also sticky to this forum.

Tweak XP

This guide I came upon when I was looking for some Windows Tweaks I could to do improve my preformance in my Windows by increasing the bootup time, to making Windows run smoother and also increase gameplay at the same time. It has worked wonders for me.

Guide: http://www.techreviewer.com/viewpage.cfm/..

Follow that guide very carefully, on the Services some will have a * beside them, scroll down and it will show you what that service does. Scroll down and make sure it doesn't disable something that you need, (ie. Smart Card)

Some other things I have found extremely helpful is registry tweaks, here are a few that I recommend and will increase preformance. These are only ones I recommend that won't damange your computer at all.

http://tweakxp.com/article37010.aspx
http://tweakxp.com/article37043.aspx
http://tweakxp.com/article37016.aspx

Those will increase your Windows/Game preformance immensly.

Drivers

Drivers are extremely key to running a game good, now the drivers I suggest all NVIDIA users use are the 44.03 drivers made by NVIDIA, these drivers are not available for newer cards (ie. 6800GT), I do not know anything about ATi because I have been an NVIDIA user since the day I started.

Drivers: http://www.voodoofiles.com/11241

Before you install the drivers I suggest you follow these steps to remove your older drivers so there isn't a conflict installing the new drivers.

1. Download DriverCleaner, its a simple and small program that will remove any old NVIDIA files that remain on your computer. (Link below)
2. Download the 44.03 drivers. (Link above)
3. Reboot and tap F8 button continuesly and boot into safe mode.
4. Go to add/remove and remove your NVIDIA drivers.
5. Reboot and tap F8 button continuesly and boot into safe mode.
6. Run driver cleaner, select NVIDIA in the drop down box and click clean
7. Reboot and tap F8 button continuesly and boot into safe mode.
8. Install the NVIDIA drivers and reboot.
9. You are completly finished.

{part2}

ATi Drivers
ATi Ultimate Counter-Strike Drivers (1.6)
http://files.filefront.com/ATI_Ultimate_C..

The Ultimate CS drivers are based on the older catalyst, the ones designed around older OpenGL platform games. Specifically for CS, this driver fixes a multitude of bugs including unreasonably high recoil and strange fps drops. From personal experience I went from 200fps (performance quality) on average with timerefresh, to 300-400 on average on the highest quality settings. Speaking for myself (deLiGHT), my FPS never drops anymore in any realistic scenario. This is a MUST haves for ATi product owners.

Warning: This driver was made specifically for Counter-Strike (1.6), the use of these drivers in compilation with newer games may result in lackluster performance. As for 1.6, you may never find a better driver. Current release also does not support x800+ series. Lastly, graphical anomalies have known to make themselves present under 16bit color depth. Make sure you're running in 32bit when playing Counter-Strike. Also, I would NOT recommend using the ".dll" tweak at the bottom in conjunction with these drivers. You should pick one or the other.

Warning 2: THESE DRIVERS ARE KNOWN TO WORK IMPROPERLY OR NOT AT ALL WITH NON-STANDARD ATi CARDS. Example: SE series.

Video Card Settings

Note: The following settings are personal preference but have seemed to work for me really well.

Left click your desktop, Properties, Settings, Advance, Video Card Tab.

Preformance/Quality Tab

-Image Setting: Preformance
-Antialiasing: Off
-Anisotropic Filtering: Off
-Texture Sharpening: Off

Direct3D Tab

-Mipmap Detail Level: Best Preformance
-PCI Texture Size: 90MB

OpenGL Settings

-Vsync: Off
-Buffer-Flipping Mode: Auto-Select

Monitor:

-By default your monitor is likely set at 60Hz when it's well capable of reaching 85-100Hz+. Making sure the "hide modes my monitor can't display" box is ticked, select the highest refresh rate your monitor can safely handle. Unfortunately while this does set your desktop refresh rate to optimal values, there is a nasty bug in Windows XP that resets this everytime you play an OpenGL or D3D game (without you knowing, and setting it back to optimal when you return to the desktop). To fix this, download a program such as ReForce to lock your refresh rate at specified resolutions. http://www.gotfrag.com/portal/files/81/

- Note: If you'd like to have CS run smoother, enable Vsync. With ATi cards make sure to enable triple buffering under the OpenGL compatibility options if you want a performance boost when Vsync is enabled.

Something else I would suggest would be to install Coolbits, Coolbits is a program that OC's your video card giving an extra little boost of preformance, which can help those people out with major FPS problems. Download the registry install file, install it and go to your video card tab, click Clock Frequencies and enable, you will have to reboot your PC.

Coolbits: http://www.overclockers.com.au/techstuff/..

Once it is installed, the safest frequencies for my system were:

Core Clock Frequency: 287 Mhz
Memory Clock Frequency: 469 Mhz

Check the "Apply at Startup" button and click OK and reboot your PC. If you notice wierd colors in CS on your walls, lower the Core/Memory clock frequencies by 2-3 until they are not noticable anymore.`

Counter-Strike

Note: This portion of the guide was written by Bossi over at the Complexity Forums, it is pretty much the exact same thing I would have written, everything written here is completly safe. This guide is good for both ATi/NVIDIA video card users.

Step #1:

Go to your "C:\windows\system32\" folder and search for the file
atioglxx.dll" if you are ATI User
nvoglnt.dll" if you are nVidia User
opengl32.dll" is the Default OpenGL Driver if you don't use ATI or nVidia
rightclick the File and click "copy".

Step #2:

Go to the folder "gldrv" in your Counter-Strike folder. Usually located at "Steam\SteamApps\YourAccountName\coun...
Inside this folder are 2 files. Rename the "3dfxgl.dll" to whatever you want. Now press CTRL + V or do a rightclick and "paste". Now you should see the file we just copied from the "system32" folder.

Step #3:

Open the file "drvmap.txt" with a Editor (Notepad or whatever), but do not use MS-Word!
Delete everything inside this file! Now write the new Line:

"gldrv/nvoglnt.dll OpenGL Driver" (without the " ") if you are nVidia User
"gldrv/atioglxx.dll OpenGL Driver" (without the " ") if you are ATI User
"gldrv/opengl32.dll OpenGL Driver" (without the " ") if you use Default OpenGL

Save and close this file.

Step #4:

Restart Steam, Start Counter-Strike and go straight to "Options". Go to the Video Tab and choose OpenGL (left top "Renderer"), click apply and ok.

If you follow the guide correctly, you should notice a boost in not only the frames, but how smoothly your game is now running.

Your Config

Note: Some commands are considered illegal in leagues such as CAL.

Your userconfig is extremely important on how your game runs if you don't have that up to par PC, or if you want increase in FPS. I am not going to give you some config that is going to make your game look absolutely crappy, but completly normal, you wont notice a difference in your graphics at all. A few configs that I suggest are jam34, jStar or mine

Note: Place these commands in your:

C:\Program\Steam\SteamApps\youremail@your...

Note: Download and Save it to your desktop and place in the folder above.

http://files.filefront.com/userconfigcfg/..

Direct X
If you have already downloaded the latest direct x, you may notice poor or lower performance in Counter-Strike, this is due in part to the shaders the latest direct x provides. It is a good idea to force Direct X level 7 for Counter-Strike, as you will not notice a difference between the two but can gain a significant FPS boost.

To force Direct X level 7, add "-dxlevel 7" without the quotations to your launch options.

Right click steam -> play games -> my games -> right click counter-strike -> properties -> launch options.

The End