BleepingComputer.com: Half Life 2 Tremendous Lag

I need help because in a particular area of half life 2 (not ep1 or ep2) im experiencing tremendous lag preventing me from passing this area.
My Pc Specs are:

Comp: Dell XPS 420
OS: Vista Home Premium SP1 32-bit
Processer: Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz 2.39GHz
Ram: 3gb
Graphics Card: ATI RADEON 3650 HD 256mb RAM
EDIT: my resolution is 1680x1050

I use 938mb of memory without running the game and on average i run 1.7gb of ram when running it and even at the lagging point, so i know i dont need more ram.
I dont have much virus protection so a virus may be the problem but i dont have adequate tools to locate them.
My PC is not overclocked and i havent changed any parts from time of purchase ive had the computer about 3 months now, so its not that old.
It may also be my GC because im not sure of its quality.

Half Life 2's requirements are (according to orange box):

OS: Vista/XP/2000
Proccesor: 1.7GHz
Memory: 512mb
Hard Drive: 20 GB
CD-DVD: 8 speed
Video Card: 128mb RAM
Direct x:8

Any help would be much appreciated!

The part of the game im up to is:




the game has been fine with no or very minor lag up until this point.

This post has been edited by NegaDrain: 14 February 2009 - 06:08 AM

Which 3650 and what resolution? There are 3650s all the way from 128meg to 1gig of RAM. Does the game speed up when you bump your textures and AA down?

im afraid i don't know which 3650, thats all it says on tesco's product description. i dont think its 1gb though.
my settings are all on the lowest on half life 2 except the resolution, ive tried lowering the resolution to 840x480 and playing in window mode but it still lags.
it may be a virus that slows my pc down, but i dont know of any completly free good virus protection software...

i'll try to find out more of my 3650 for you though.
EDIT: my video card is 256mb ram =)!

This post has been edited by NegaDrain: 14 February 2009 - 06:00 AM

Do you have any hard drive activity when the lags occur?

lol those pic you gave us look like the last level in golden eye on 64 Lol
mabye new drivers may do some thing
for your graphics card and sound card

It only occurs at a certain part in the game? A 3650 should be good enough to play half life 2 on medium-high settings. Have you updated your drivers recently as starcraftmaster suggested?

When in-game, go to options and advanced, enable the console.

Open console up(`) and enter net_graph 3, check the fps and compare it to someone else who has the game, should be about 60 im guessing.

tried a patch for the game

You have plenty of PC power to play that game. You may have to lower your settings to get past that certain part. You can try turning HDR off, turning down AA, and maybe lowering the resolution to cut down on lag. Also, make sure your video drivers are up to date. There have been problems with Vista and video drives in the past. Lastly, I would try running a virus scan. I doubt it is this since it is the same part of the game. However, it is good to have an anti-virus program. You can get a good, free one called anti-vir.

gee that really looks like the map in golden eye 64
is that a mod level or some thing lol
mabye turning start up stuff and services you dont need in msconfig will do some thing

DA8686, on Mar 6 2009, 10:44 AM, said:

He said he already turned down most of the settings. I think it's a virus. Download Avira or Avast, both work very well. Do you lag in other parts, like, have you tried going back and seeing if you still lag?

thanks for your help, but i probably should have updated this earlier,
this was half life 2, half life 2 (as opposed to the episodes) does not have a field of view option, so my comp was showing lots of things very far in the bridge level.
i know this because the lag only happened when i looked down the bridge where all the detail is, if i look up, down or out of the bridge its fine. This wasn't a mod level btw, its chapter 5 =P

i managed to get past this by trying not to look down the bridge and struggled through =P
thanks for your recommendations of free anti-virus software aswell!!

dont know if you have tried this but turning vsync off helps lots in hl2 i think you are talking about fps slowing down not lag as such.