Source Games Basically Unplayable

[sc350z]

Hey all,

Ever since buying a laptop for myself (May '11) I have been having an issue with playing any online source game. I have a Samsung QX410-S02 which is perfectly capable of running more intense games than CS: S, TF2, or L4D1/2. I have played COD4, BLOPS, BF: BC2, SWTOR, EQ2, D3, Guild Wars 2, etc running fine. The issue is that every 30 seconds to a minute, I will skip 3-4 times in a few seconds, making it impossible to do well in Valve's online shooters.

I have tried running the game just the intel graphics card, and just the Nvidia (through Optimus controls) and no change. Running hl2.exe in admin, Windows XP SP2/3 also has no effect. I even tried dual booting with Windows 8, same issue. Unfortunately cannot try XP on this machine as I have issues finding drivers for my HDD. I'm out of luck, been searching like crazy for a year now and cannot find anything to fix this. Any, and I mean any help is appreciated! Let me know if you need more information.

Video of the skipping in multiple games:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_hpk...ature=youtu.be

Windows 7 Home 64bit
Intel Core i5 m480 @ 2.67ghz
Nvidia Quadro 310M / Intel GMA HD (Nvidia Optimus)
4 GB RAM
SATA HDD 5400 RPM

 

[Richardc269]

5400rpm in a HDD? Isn't that kinda slow for a HDD? I thought the average was 7200RPM? Or is that only in IDE drives?

 

[taylorig]

The 5400rpm HDD would only effect load times to be honest. Not impact on actual game performance. It's the "Nvidia Quadro 310M / Intel GMA HD (Nvidia Optimus)" that stands out to me the most for the main "Underperformer" with Source games. But on the other hand Source games are known to be more CPU intensive than GPU.

So most Source games should actually run ok on that system in Medium settings. Have you made sure that HDR isn't turned on by default sc350z? And all the usual like making sure system drivers i.e. Graphics/Motherboard (Chipset) are all up to date?

Other than that i couldn't really supply anymore help other than going on the Steam forums and asking this same question on there

Hope you get it sorted

EDIT: I'm sure i read somewhere that checking you Steam settings for things like "Steam Cloud" (Check it with on and off to make sure). I'm not 100% sure on this as i can't find the post about it anymore. But there was something that caused lag for some people within Steam. Again, check the official forums.

EDIT 2: Ahhh. Just noticed your thread on the Steam forums (http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2738365) And is this only happening when playing Online? If so then i would say it is down to your Wireless connection without a doubt.

 

[Richardc269]

If he's getting high ping, yes.

 

[sc350z]

Thanks for the replies. Did some troubleshooting and did a hard reset on my router, changed the network ID, password and encryption type and the issue seemingly is gone for now.