High fps but choppy in team fortress 2

bent

Recently I was having a bit of a shitty fps whilst playing TF2 on my PC so I figured I needed a new PSU.


Set up:
AMD 5000+ 2.6ghz Black Edition duo core
6 gigs of ddr2 800mhz RAM
ATI HD4870
Vista 64 bit

My old PSU was a 220 and the new one is an 800. Now I'm getting a high(er) fps but the game itself is coming through choppy as all hell. Other games work fine (blood bowl, counter strike source) but for some reason my computer just dislikes tf2.

Any tips?

redhead

I think this might have to do with your network settings in the game itself. next time the game is choppy, type "net_graph 3" in console. if the number labeled "lerp" is often yellow, your problems are probably somewhere in that area. if it's orange or white you should be fine.

vonPoonBurGer

I was getting all kinds of jitter and chop in TF2, but only when I got near a significant number of other players. Based on the comments in this message board thread, I checked the "choke" number on the output of "net_graph 3". What I found was that whenever I got bad lag/chop in-game, my choke count would shoot up to 50+. That means the server was holding back (choking) 50+ updates during those lag spikes. Seeing as the updates tell your client where to draw projectiles and other players, it's not surprising that the game wasn't playing very well. I changed cl_cmdrate to 66, cl_updaterate to 66, and rate to 25000, and the game has been much better since then.

Apparently this is a frequent problem with TF2 because its default settings aren't very conducive to pitched battles. I find Payload maps show this problem more than others, since all the fighting tends to concentrate around the cart. More people clumped together near the cart, with all their various projectiles flying around, means more updates from the server, which in turn means a greater chance you'll get choked to the point where players or projectiles stop moving smoothly in-game.

Barrakketh

redhead wrote: »

I think this might have to do with your network settings in the game itself. next time the game is choppy, type "net_graph 3" in console. if the number labeled "lerp" is often yellow, your problems are probably somewhere in that area. if it's orange or white you should be fine.

A yellow lerp means that the server's framerate drops below your cl_interp value (lerp in the net_graph). If you're getting lots of choke that usually means that the client is having to extrapolate movement based on the last available snapshot from the server (i.e. making shit up, but being somewhat intelligent about it) since your client isn't getting enough updates from the server to keep up with the action, and then putting things where they really are when it has a recent update which is why it's jerky.

At the very least you'll want to change your cl_cmdrate, cl_updaterate, and rate settings to something better. I use 66, 100, and 100000 respectively. If any of those are higher than what the server supports it will temporarily limit it while you're connected to the highest it does support.

DekuStick

With my CS:S experience I keep my rates set as such for best performance in Source games.

cl_cmdrate 100, cl_updaterate 100, rate 100000

With source games they will limited to whatever the server puts out but 100 tick is generally the standard.

Choke can be a real chop bringer.

bent

I already had my cmdrate etc at a decent value (as I said, counter-strike runs fine) but what does seem to have worked is setting the graphics using the catalyst control center rather than using the in game settings. It's not perfect but it's a lot better.

However I do still seem to be getting choke (around 3-5 when there's a few other players on screen). I get none whilst playing css; reckon it's worth re-installing?

When you say if lerp goes yellow do you mean the text itself or on the graph? It seems to hang around a constant 100 (text staying white).

redhead

I meant the text, and yeah, the number wouldn't be changing. if you've got your interp still set to .1 then I can't imagine you'd have any trouble there. low interp could cause a choppy game, but not high. you could even consider turning it down--0.1 is really quite high. but in any case it's not causing your choppiness.

what are your cmdrate, updaterate and rate currently set at? I looked around and came to the impression that rate 30000, cl_updaterate 66, and cl_cmdrate 66 were generally considered solid values, and when I started using those myself I noticed a great reduction in choppiness. but I decided on those simply by googling stuff and reading up for a while, so I'm no expert.

also what I've gathered is that while 100 tick servers may be standard for CS:S (not sure), TF2 servers are capped at 66.

Barrakketh

bent wrote: »

When you say if lerp goes yellow do you mean the text itself or on the graph? It seems to hang around a constant 100 (text staying white).

The text. lerp itself will stay a static number based off of your cl_interp value. You don't actually get to see the graph that's for lag compensation/interpolation unless you use net_graph 4. It will be at the very bottom of the net_graph. If you're curious about the parts of the graph you can read this.

Also, CS:S uses a different version of the Source engine than the games included in the Orange Box (and I believe L4D) does. Some convars don't work the same as they do in CS:S.

EDIT:

redhead wrote: »

also what I've gathered is that while 100 tick servers may be standard for CS:S (not sure), TF2 servers are capped at 66.

That depends on the server. My usual stomping grounds caps the cmdrate at 60 while the updaterate is 100.

bent

redhead wrote: »

I meant the text, and yeah, the number wouldn't be changing. if you've got your interp still set to .1 then I can't imagine you'd have any trouble there. low interp could cause a choppy game, but not high. you could even consider turning it down--0.1 is really quite high. but in any case it's not causing your choppiness.

what are your cmdrate, updaterate and rate currently set at? I looked around and came to the impression that rate 30000, cl_updaterate 66, and cl_cmdrate 66 were generally considered solid values, and when I started using those myself I noticed a great reduction in choppiness. but I decided on those simply by googling stuff and reading up for a while, so I'm no expert.

also what I've gathered is that while 100 tick servers may be standard for CS:S (not sure), TF2 servers are capped at 66.

I've got everything set at those same rates, save for rate being set at 50000. I'll try tooling around with it now.

DekuStick

Oh I also see you mentioned Catalyst. I remember a friend of mine having similar issues. He was using Anti-Aliasing on both the game and the catalyst control. This caused for a terrible game performance. But if you've already tried turning off the catalyst settings entirely and running in-game settings then I suppose this point is moot.

vonPoonBurGer

bent wrote: »

However I do still seem to be getting choke (around 3-5 when there's a few other players on screen). I get none whilst playing css; reckon it's worth re-installing?

3-5 choke should be Ok. From what I've read there's always likely to be some choke with TF2. I'd say choke is only likely to be the main cause if it's jumping to 10+ during choppy stretches.