Best settings for HL2 Ep. 1?

[gman901]

I was playing a little HL2 ep. 1 last night and noticed my frame rate was bad with the resolution at 1280*800 and advanced settings to recommended. I have the 13" aluminum MacBook with 2.4 c2d and 4 gb of Crucial ram. The frame rate was better at 960*600. I would have thought this game would play at the top settings.

 

[Consultant]

Video games depend on graphics card.

Discreet graphics card > integrated graphics card

MacBook had integrated graphics card which means it can play at lower resolutions only. Look up benchmarks next time if it's important.

 

[kiranmk2]

What graphics do you have? I'm on a 2.0 unibody and it's playing fine at 1280x800 with everything at "recommended" settings and reflections turned up to full and it's playing fine (only got in a few chapters though).

 

[gman901]

What graphics do you have? I'm on a 2.0 unibody and it's playing fine at 1280x800 with everything at "recommended" settings and reflections turned up to full and it's playing fine (only got in a few chapters though).

I have the integrated 9400m. I am going to test it out again today, maybe my results will be better. The only change I made was upgrading my forceware drivers to the latest version from the Nvidia website and upgrading to 4 GB of ram from Crucial. I seem to be getting better frame rates from my other games like Fallout 3 and Lost Planet.

 

[asphyxiafeeling]

sounds like a HL2 issue more then your macbook.

the 9400M is more then sufficient to play HL2.

all settings on max in native resolution? doubtful!

but on some slightly held back settings / slightly smaller resolution? should work fine in the 40-60FPS area!

 

[gman901]

Okay, it worked perfectly when I ran the game today at 1280*800 and the High settings. The frame rate was smooth and the graphics were sharp. I guess I just needed to reboot my MacBook or maybe just relaunching the game fixed my issue.

 

[aznguyen316]

goodie. I was gonna say even Episode 2 which is a big step up (in my opinion) on graphics runs at native resolution with settings on high on my 2.0 MB. I hope you have plans to play episode 2 after 1... very very good.

 

[gman901]

Yes, I plan on getting to episode 2... but I am not sure how many hours I'll get from Episode 1... Steam says there is another episode, but it doesn't look like it is ready for download yet. I love the Macbook for gaming; it pretty much fits the bill on all the games I have played, i.e. Fallout 3 (still playing), Mirror's Edge, Quake 4, Lost Planet, Dead Space (this game looks great - better than my PS3 version), Turok and Guitar Hero 3. I have a bunch of games that I haven't tried out yet, like GOW, Quake enemy territory and Fear (never played this one). I just never have the time to get to all of these due to work and family. I actually gave up WOW because it took time from other games. I think I like playing on my Macbook better than my PS3 for most 1st person shooters.😀

 

[aznguyen316]

I've turned that way too. I've sold a lot of my PS3 FPS games for PC ones including CoD: 4 & WaW and Fallout 3. The Orange Box on PC all the way though =)