half life 2 grahics woes :(

bopdude · 11-12-2004, 17:41

Hi all, I've been out today and bought HL2, got in installed and tried to play it only to be told that my graphics card's not up to scratch.
If someone in the know could give their opinion and maybe a link to a driver update i'd be thankfull.

TIA
My graphics card as seen in hardware manager is a VIA / S3G KM400

Going out, see ya all laterzzzz cheers

**Jefferson T** · 11-12-2004, 17:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by bopdude

Hi all, I've been out today and bought HL2, got in installed and tried to play it only to be told that my graphics card's not up to scratch.
If someone in the know could give their opinion and maybe a link to a driver update i'd be thankfull.

TIA
My graphics card as seen in hardware manager is a VIA / S3G KM400

Going out, see ya all laterzzzz cheers

What is your motherboard?

Is this a seperate graphics card or a built in one? (looking up your card seems to suggest it is)

In which case you can get drivers from here....

http://www.viaarena.com/Default.aspx?PageID=2

Just follow the prompts for your OS - then choose integrated graphics - then kn400/km400 unichrome integrated graphics.

This should lead you to your latest drivers.

edit.... Having said all that I've never been impressed with onboard graphics cards and games so your milage may vary when you've installed the drivers. Also HL2 ran fine on my crappy radeon7500 in my laptop - so you may be ok

Good Luck anyway.
And

bopdude · 11-12-2004, 18:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by dilligaf1701

What is your motherboard?

Is this a seperate graphics card or a built in one? (looking up your card seems to suggest it is)

In which case you can get drivers from here....

http://www.viaarena.com/Default.aspx?PageID=2

Just follow the prompts for your OS - then choose integrated graphics - then kn400/km400 unichrome integrated graphics.

This should lead you to your latest drivers.

edit.... Having said all that I've never been impressed with onboard graphics cards and games so your milage may vary when you've installed the drivers. Also HL2 ran fine on my crappy radeon7500 in my laptop - so you may be ok

Good Luck anyway.
And

Thanks for the link, and yeah, its onboard graphics, its a time machine we got last year, something quick, cheap, and nasty

I'll do the driver update and let you know

bopdude · 11-12-2004, 19:23

Oh well, no difference, looks like i'll have to put hand in pocket and get myself a half decent card ...... wonder who does without a xmas pressie to pay for it

Ramrod · 12-12-2004, 15:03

Onboard graphics

IanGuy · 12-12-2004, 15:58

lol, a 9600 series card from ATI should do the trick very well. Though if you get stutters it isn't due to your hardware, it's a bug in the game. So don't worry if you get stutters and just await the patch like the rest of us lol

Ramrod · 12-12-2004, 16:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by IanGuy

lol, a 9600 series card from ATI should do the trick very well. Though if you get stutters it isn't due to your hardware, it's a bug in the game. So don't worry if you get stutters and just await the patch like the rest of us lol

The patch appeared about 2 weeks ago........

**Maggy J** · 12-12-2004, 16:41

Ah son is very grumpy.After having arranged to register the game on dial-up and the hours that took(oh my poor phone bill) it turns out that his brand new PC hasn't a graphics card to cope.

Anyone want to give me odds that when I upgrade this PC's Graphics card in January that I will find Half Life 2 installed behind my back.

I think I'm just going to have to get a bigger HD after that.

Incog.

Bifta · 12-12-2004, 16:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ramrod

The patch appeared about 2 weeks ago........

You can't really call that a patch to fix the stuttering issue, what with it not actually fixing it for most people (and in some cases, made it worse)

12-12-2004, 17:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ramrod

The patch appeared about 2 weeks ago........

I don't think that was a patch for the stuttering, as a few mods said on the Steam forums. I know they havn't fixed it yet because even with 1.28GB memory and the heap size set to 640MB I still get stuttering at awful times

keithwalton · 12-12-2004, 17:45

Hl2 was made to run from top to bottom of mainstream video cards, scaling all the way back to the TnT2 from nvidia.
Unfortunutly there are a handfull of video cards, and integrated graphics sets which there 3d is laughable. Via / S3 chipsets are the main culprits and there are more bad sis chipsets than good ones in existance. Most of them would strugle up against early generation offerings from nvidia / 3dfx.
and we're on what, 9th generation of nvidia hardware now, (Riva128, TnT, TnT2, Geforce 1-4, Fx, 6).
Technically there was an nvidia before the riva128 aka the nv1, but it was erm paperweight like.

The good news is you should have a fully fledged agp 8x slot on your board, so expansion to somthing more potent should be a snap.
I just had a giggle looking up the via site for info on the chip thats on your board. All they give is that it has an integrated unichrome 2d/3d graphics core. Thats it, no speed, number of pipelines or even technology level

Ramrod · 12-12-2004, 19:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scott

I don't think that was a patch for the stuttering, as a few mods said on the Steam forums. I know they havn't fixed it yet because even with 1.28GB memory and the heap size set to 640MB I still get stuttering at awful times

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bifta

You can't really call that a patch to fix the stuttering issue, what with it not actually fixing it for most people (and in some cases, made it worse)

Hmmmm......fixed it for me