# half life 2:ep2, portal, team fortress 2 running slow on vista



## jason88 (Nov 11, 2007)

Hi, I recently bought a pc, but I am only getting around 50-60 fps when I play the Orange Box games. Occasionally it would dip down to 30 fps when there is a lot of action. Is there any way I can increase it? My specs are:

Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6600 @2.40GHz
Memory: 2GB
OS: Window Vista Home Premium 32-bit 
Video Card: NVIDIA 8800GTS 640MB
Resolution: 1680X1050
Widescreen: 16:10
All graphics settings at maximum

Any advice is greatly appreciated.


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## pharoah (Aug 28, 2006)

there are a couple of things you can do.first goto control panel,and system.system properties,advanced tab.under performance hit settings.change that to adjust for best performance.the gui will revert back to an older windows look,but you can change that back to the vista look in personalize,then window color and appearance.then switch the color scheme back to vista.


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## jason88 (Nov 11, 2007)

Why is my fps so low though? Shouldn't it be around 80 fps with what I have?


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## pharoah (Aug 28, 2006)

just try what i said i think the problem is vista's performance tuning kinda stinks.when i did what i got posted above all my frame rates went up significantly.


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## Xaszx (Nov 10, 2007)

Vista takes a crap load of RAM to run..it is never good for games...since you have 2g RAM...cut it in half...and thats how much you got in real life...fps is basicly restricted to how well your computer handles the memory it recieves from it, how fast your computer can process the information, and how "leet" your graphic card is, if you have a high graphic card, with a low cpu clock speed and practicly no RAM...you will have to adjust your graphics of the game...take down any shadow rendering, etc that uses extra memory..it helps increase the speed of many games, also windows vista settings have a part in it, but it doesnt have the effect that in-game settings have..if you use windows xp...you should double your fps for games with the right system..


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## pharoah (Aug 28, 2006)

also this could be related.what kind of power supply do you have?


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## jason88 (Nov 11, 2007)

I tried doing what you said pharoah and noticed about 20-30 fps increase. Thanks for the tip. 

The power supply unit is 400 Wattage which is the requirement of the video card.


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## koala (Mar 27, 2005)

400W might be the requirement of the video card, but what about the rest of your system? Hard drives, RAM, CPU, fans, USB devices, etc. all need power. Enter your full system specs into this *power calculator*, and *add 30% to the total* to allow for PSU inefficiency.

Any system with an 8800GTS installed will need at least a 600W PSU to run efficiently. Anything less and over time you will start to see performance issues, overheating and graphics artifacts. I would upgrade the PSU.


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