Why does L4D2 run so much better on WinXP than on Win7?

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4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#632816 30-May-2012 19:05

One thing that people haven't suggested here is try lowering your graphics settings and working your way back up to high. It may be the graphics card or like I mentioned before it could be due to the slow RAM on Windows 7

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Skolink

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#632988 30-May-2012 23:24

Ragnor:
Skolink: I have the latest video drivers installed, as (to my surprise) Win7 notified me that they were available.
Motherboard is Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H.

Nvidia are on to it with driver updates into Windows Update these days, AMD and Realtek not so much.

The Gigabyte support page for the board looks like it lists really old drivers.

Here's the link for the latest AMD chipset drivers direct from AMD, 12.4 is the latest (released last Thursday)
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Pages/raid_windows.aspx

Here's the link for the latest Realtek audio drivers, direct from Realtek (released last month)
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=14&PFid=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false

Thanks for going to the effort of finding these drivers. Unfortunately the AMD driver broke Windows7. BSOD during startup. Automatic repair does not succeed, I seem to have no system restore points, and get BSOD even in Safe Mode.

Would the Realtek audio drive make a difference if I'm using a USB headset? Will try it anyway (once I repaired windows).

Skolink

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#632990 30-May-2012 23:25

BioGhosty: One thing that people haven't suggested here is try lowering your graphics settings and working your way back up to high. It may be the graphics card or like I mentioned before it could be due to the slow RAM on Windows 7

Good thought. The settings are fairly high in WinXP, but once I've repaired Win7 I'll check that they are not set even higher in that copy.

Skolink

1081 posts

Uber Geek

#632991 30-May-2012 23:27

Nety:
Nety: My son uses my old PC it is a Intel core2duo with a GF 8800GT video card and on board sound. It used to run L4D2 under Vista x86 fine. I have recently switched it to W7 x64 and bumped the ram from 4 - 8 Gig. However he has not played L4D2 since. I will get him to try it tonight but I will be very surprised if it does not run well. IMHO it is not a demanding game as the recommended hardware requirements below show.

CPU: Intel core 2 duo 2.4GHz
RAM: 1 GB for XP / 2GB for Vista
VGA: DirectX 9 compatible video card with Shader model 3.0. NVidia 7600, ATI X1600 or better
DX: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
OS: Windows? 7 / Vista / Vista64 / XP
HDD: At least 7.5 GB of free space

I still think it is a driver issue. Have you checked to make sure you have the correct/latest chipset drivers for your MOBO? Also SATA/Raid drivers. Both could cause the issues you see.

OK can confirm that it runs fine on the boys PC. his core2duo is the E8400 which is better then yours by some, passmark 2222 vers yours at 1631. But yours is still better then a core2duo 2.4 recommended CPU which only gets 1388 (all from http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php)

Thanks, that gives me confidence that my hardware should run the game smoothly in Win7.

Ragnor

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Trusted

#633019 31-May-2012 02:13

Skolink: [

Thanks for going to the effort of finding these drivers. Unfortunately the AMD driver broke Windows7. BSOD during startup. Automatic repair does not succeed, I seem to have no system restore points, and get BSOD even in Safe Mode.

Damn that sucks!

I guess now would be a bad time to recommend that you make a disk image backup of your OS drive before installing new chipset drivers.

Actually just had a thought, I wonder if the new chipset drivers either enabled or disabled the default windows SATA ACHI service, check the SATA mode setting in bios, is it set to ACHI or IDE? Try the opposite of whatever it's on currently.

Skolink

1081 posts

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#633593 31-May-2012 18:25

Ragnor:
Skolink: [

Thanks for going to the effort of finding these drivers. Unfortunately the AMD driver broke Windows7. BSOD during startup. Automatic repair does not succeed, I seem to have no system restore points, and get BSOD even in Safe Mode.

Damn that sucks!

I guess now would be a bad time to recommend that you make a disk image backup of your OS drive before installing new chipset drivers.

Actually just had a thought, I wonder if the new chipset drivers either enabled or disabled the default windows SATA ACHI service, check the SATA mode setting in bios, is it set to ACHI or IDE? Try the opposite of whatever it's on currently.

Fantastic suggestion! In Win7 now! Was set to ACHI, changed to 'native IDE'. I didn't think you could switch between the two without reformatting/repartitioning the HDD, as it affected how data was stored.

Will continue tests later tonight.

BioGhosty

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#633642 31-May-2012 19:35

Also just re-read that you're running Windows XP x86 and then running Windows 7 x64. Windows 7 x64 has a minimum requirement of 2GB of RAM to be able to run so in addition to having to run a 64bit O/S you're also trying to run a 32bit application. So that would then boil down to
one of maybe 3 things:
Your CPU can't handle the load that you're trying to make it do.
You don't have enough RAM or fast enough RAM to be able to run both applications, I remember trying to run Windows Vista Ultimate in 64bit with 2GB of RAM which wan't pleasant.
Your RAM isn't fast enough. DDR2 800 isn't the fastest in the world and probably not the best for modern gaming requirements

Skolink

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Uber Geek

#633648 31-May-2012 19:42

BioGhosty: Also just re-read that you're running Windows XP x86 and then running Windows 7 x64. Windows 7 x64 has a minimum requirement of 2GB of RAM to be able to run so in addition to having to run a 64bit O/S you're also trying to run a 32bit application. So that would then boil down to
one of maybe 3 things:
Your CPU can't handle the load that you're trying to make it do.
You don't have enough RAM or fast enough RAM to be able to run both applications, I remember trying to run Windows Vista Ultimate in 64bit with 2GB of RAM which wan't pleasant.
Your RAM isn't fast enough. DDR2 800 isn't the fastest in the world and probably not the best for modern gaming requirements

I'm booting *either* WinXP or Win7 (separate HDD partitions), not running one inside the other if that's what you mean?
I have 6GB RAM. I initially had 2GB and the game ran perfectly in XP, when I discovered that it ran badly in Win7 I added more RAM but that didn't fix the problem, obviously.
Win7 otherwise ran perfectly smoothly with only 2GB RAM.

Skolink

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Uber Geek

#633730 31-May-2012 22:09

Skolink:
Ragnor:
Skolink: [

Thanks for going to the effort of finding these drivers. Unfortunately the AMD driver broke Windows7. BSOD during startup. Automatic repair does not succeed, I seem to have no system restore points, and get BSOD even in Safe Mode.

Damn that sucks!

I guess now would be a bad time to recommend that you make a disk image backup of your OS drive before installing new chipset drivers.

Actually just had a thought, I wonder if the new chipset drivers either enabled or disabled the default windows SATA ACHI service, check the SATA mode setting in bios, is it set to ACHI or IDE? Try the opposite of whatever it's on currently.

Fantastic suggestion! In Win7 now! Was set to ACHI, changed to 'native IDE'. I didn't think you could switch between the two without reformatting/repartitioning the HDD, as it affected how data was stored.

Will continue tests later tonight.

Fixed Windows7 by this method.
Frustrating that AMD haven't fixed this in the last 3 revisions of their driver! Now to test L4D2

Skolink

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Uber Geek

#633775 31-May-2012 23:26

BioGhosty: One thing that people haven't suggested here is try lowering your graphics settings and working your way back up to high. It may be the graphics card or like I mentioned before it could be due to the slow RAM on Windows 7

As it turns out some video settings were slightly higher in Win7,
Anti-aliasing Mode: 2xMSAA in XP, 4xMSAA in Win7
Filtering Mode: Anisotropic 2x in XP, 4x in Win7.
I have never changed the advanced settings, so had assumed the defaults would be the same under both installations.

Unfortunately lowering the settings to the same as WinXP (2xMSAA, Anisotropic 2x) did not seem to correct the glitching/stuttering problem. In fact (coincidently I'm sure) it was worse after I lowered the settings, compared to immediately before.

I was about to say I thought there was a slight improvement after upgrading the AMD chipset drivers, but when I loaded the game for a second time (as above) it was just as bad.

Genfres

47 posts

Geek

#633830 1-Jun-2012 02:28

I can confirm that I can run L4D on mod-high settings on my six year old 2GB DDR2 800 Intel Quad q6600 computer with no problems as described by the OP.
The only problems I experienced with gaming with some of the newer games or high memory dependant games is after playing a while memory issues, but with 6GB RAM these should not occur.
I havent seen your CPU model and motherboard mentioned?
Does this problem occur in any other games?
Does changing resolutions or to windowed mode make any difference?
Um apart from corruption issues with drivers, windows or L4D install, that leaves a conflict between something running and L4D (sorry to state the obvious).
Assuming this only occurs with L4D:
The only way to find it might be to troubleshoot through a clean windows 7 install, installing L4D second and seeing if problems occur. If not, then slowly add your programs and drivers until they do. If it does, then it is something to do with Windows 7 services/drivers/settings and may be a little trouble finding the one causing the problem.
Good Luck!

Athlonite

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Inactive user

#635546 4-Jun-2012 17:11

Skolink: I have the latest video drivers installed, as (to my surprise) Win7 notified me that they were available.
Motherboard is Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H.

I can never stipulate this often enough "NEVER EVER" let windows update your drivers always go to the manufacturers website and download and install them yourself MS say they don't frig with anything but more often than not installing the ones downloaded from nVidia/AMD/gigabyte/MSI/Intel or whoever work better than the ones from MS's windows update service......

Colinspocket

30 posts

Geek

#635646 4-Jun-2012 20:25

I can never stipulate this often enough "NEVER EVER" let windows update your drivers always go to the manufacturers website and download and install them yourself MS say they don't frig with anything but more often than not installing the ones downloaded from nVidia/AMD/gigabyte/MSI/Intel or whoever work better than the ones from MS's windows update service......

Is this simply personal experience? I have never had any problems whatsoever with the MS driver finding service. In fact when I've needed drivers I could not find on the internet the MS service has found them no sweat, and I've never had an incorrect/old driver been installed using it. Only manually install drivers if I'm looking for something specific!

Just had a thought, I was having troubles with games running badly when they shouldn't be, and my Catalyst Control Settings (ATI i know but whatever is similar for NVIDIA) were overriding my game settings and this was causing things to run much worse than they should be. Could try seeing if this is the case? Could be different settings between OS's?

Also sounds like it won't help but could try rebuilding the game files on steam? This has helped me when my steam games have stopped working for some reason.

Skolink

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#635809 5-Jun-2012 08:52

Athlonite:
Skolink: I have the latest video drivers installed, as (to my surprise) Win7 notified me that they were available.
Motherboard is Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H.

I can never stipulate this often enough "NEVER EVER" let windows update your drivers always go to the manufacturers website and download and install them yourself MS say they don't frig with anything but more often than not installing the ones downloaded from nVidia/AMD/gigabyte/MSI/Intel or whoever work better than the ones from MS's windows update service......

Yes, I tend to agree, although it seems to have improved of late. It doesn't apply in this case, as Win7 actually directed me to the Nvidia download, rather than updating automatically, which is why I was surprised.

Colinspocket: Just had a thought, I was having troubles with games running badly when they shouldn't be, and my Catalyst Control Settings (ATI i know but whatever is similar for NVIDIA) were overriding my game settings and this was causing things to run much worse than they should be. Could try seeing if this is the case? Could be different settings between OS's?

Also sounds like it won't help but could try rebuilding the game files on steam? This has helped me when my steam games have stopped working for some reason.

Good thinking, there are settings that aren't even adjustable from within the game (or as you say it may be overrrding those that are). Will look tonight.

I did play some more L4D2 in WinXP on the weekend, just to check that I wasn't imagining things, and it is definitely much better on XP.

Ragnor

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#635920 5-Jun-2012 10:54

Left 4 Dead can display the current framerate/fps.

1: Enable the developer console (I think it's under options > keyboard/mouse > enable dev console)
2: In game press ~ to open the console window
3: Type: cl_showfps 1

You could also use something like fraps to capture fps over time and try and correlate it with something happening on your system, eg: background process, anti virus scan etc.

Actually if you can plug in a 2nd monitor, you can leave task manager (performance tab), resource monitor and gpu-z running on the 2nd screen while you play on the main screen and try correlate lag with system activity.

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