Problems with Source Engine at 4K

[daniellearmouth]

Hello!

 

Now, this is really confusing the hell out of me.

 

Yesterday I took delivery of an Acer K242HQK 4K monitor. Me likey.

So of course I went to try and play about with some games to see what would work with my configuration and what wouldn't.

If you want to know my specification, my signature has you covered.

 

I ran five games to see what worked and what didn't: Half-Life, System Shock 2, Half-Life 2, BioShock, and Civilization V.

 

Half-Life works perfectly fine, I hit the 100FPS cap without any issues whatsoever.

System Shock 2 crashed on launch, but whatever. I'll sort that out later.

BioShock ran smooth as butter as well at 4K.

Civilization V wasn't particularly smooth, but the game's nature made it still playable for me at about 20 to 30 FPS.

 

Here's where things get interesting, however.

I ran Half-Life 2, and the first thing I noticed was how slow the splash screens were. Once the menu had loaded up, I loaded up the FPS counter.

In the spoiler is the screenshot I took.

 

5 frames per second.

 

I even reduced the resolution to 720p, one ninth of a 4K monitor, and the results did not improve much at all. At best, I got 8 frames per second.

 

Sooo......I don't know. If anyone has a way of unborking the Source engine so that I can play stuff in 4K, that would be grand. Because if BioShock can run and Civ V can run, I fail to see how anything Source can tank this badly.

[daniellearmouth]

Also, I ran Portal 2 and Half-Life Source. They didn't work either. #rip

[brownninja97]

I imagien its simple optimization, these games came out back when few people even had wide screen monitors, i blame DX9. 

[daniellearmouth]

I imagien its simple optimization, these games came out back when few people even had wide screen monitors, i blame DX9. 

 

My machine restarted itself (under strange circumstances) so I tried it again.

 

Half-Life 2...works better, I guess?

I mean, it's not especially smooth at 4K (I caught a screenshot in the station at City 17), and it runs...somewhat smoother at least.

Still not ideal, but it's improved a little bit. Still confuses me how it runs at a lower frame rate than BioShock......DirectX 10, maybe?

[brownninja97]

im not 100% sure about how everything worked back then because ive been taught(still learning) about technologies from 2012+

[Timmy-P]

My machine restarted itself (under strange circumstances) so I tried it again.

 

Half-Life 2...works better, I guess?

I mean, it's not especially smooth at 4K (I caught a screenshot in the station at City 17), and it runs...somewhat smoother at least.

Still not ideal, but it's improved a little bit. Still confuses me how it runs at a lower frame rate than BioShock......DirectX 10, maybe?

I'm thinking it's either your drivers or Crossfire not being active.

Did you update to Crimson, and if so are you keeping track of your temps?

Can you verify if Crossfire is enabled for HL2?

[Tedster]

I'm thinking it's either your drivers or Crossfire not being active.

Did you update to Crimson, and if so are you keeping track of your temps?

Can you verify if Crossfire is enabled for HL2?

Maybe CrossFire is messing it up...

 

Maybe.

[PlayStation 2]

A combination of drivers and shitty optimization

that or crossfire, source engine fucking hates dual gpu setups

[Timmy-P]

Maybe CrossFire is messing it up...

 

Maybe.

 

 

A combination of drivers and shitty optimization

that or crossfire, source engine fucking hates dual gpu setups

...so I'm taking that Source and CF go together like oil and water?

[PlayStation 2]

 

 

...so I'm taking that Source and CF go together like oil and water?

yeah

[daniellearmouth]

Right. I'll do a quick update in the form of me saying this: running this at 4K is...well...rough.

 

It's an improvement now that it restarted. It plays at just below 30 FPS now, but not really what I would call comfortable.

However, playing it at lower resolutions (1440p in particular) has shown enough of an improvement that I'm comfortable with playing it at that resolution without it freaking the hell out.

 

As for the questions, I'll answer them individually.

 

I'm thinking it's either your drivers or Crossfire not being active.

Did you update to Crimson, and if so are you keeping track of your temps?
Can you verify if Crossfire is enabled for HL2?

 

I have updated to Crimson. I have also not had to be too concerned about temperatures as I have Sapphire TriXX running in the background keeping my fans in check. Right now, though, they're spinning 100% because I can't be bothered to turn them down at this point since it resets to 100% when the computer shuts down. They never go above 60 Celsius anyway, and that's with the fans off. These are pretty cool-running cards.

 

As for whether or not Crossfire is actually working, it does in fact work. The AMD CrossFire status icon appears when I boot the game up, so it's definitely running.

 

A combination of drivers and shitty optimization

that or crossfire, source engine fucking hates dual gpu setups

 

Well ain't that just grand.

 

Thanks, Volvo!

 

 

Here's hoping Source 2 is at least more...let's say, forgiving in that regard.

[PlayStation 2]

Right. I'll do a quick update in the form of me saying this: running this at 4K is...well...rough.

 

It's an improvement now that it restarted. It plays at just below 30 FPS now, but not really what I would call comfortable.

However, playing it at lower resolutions (1440p in particular) has shown enough of an improvement that I'm comfortable with playing it at that resolution without it freaking the hell out.

 

As for the questions, I'll answer them individually.

 

 

I have updated to Crimson. I have also not had to be too concerned about temperatures as I have Sapphire TriXX running in the background keeping my fans in check. Right now, though, they're spinning 100% because I can't be bothered to turn them down at this point since it resets to 100% when the computer shuts down. They never go above 60 Celsius anyway, and that's with the fans off. These are pretty cool-running cards.

 

As for whether or not Crossfire is actually working, it does in fact work. The AMD CrossFire status icon appears when I boot the game up, so it's definitely running.

 

 

Well ain't that just grand.

 

Thanks, Volvo!

 

 

 

Here's hoping Source 2 is at least more...let's say, forgiving in that regard.

Yeah, the Source engine scales like fucking ass on any system

[Timmy-P]

yeah

Where have I been the past decade, then? That's embarrassing.

 

@daniellearmouth Glad to know your temps are in check. I forgot to mention, it's stupid, I know, but you don't happen to have the in-game's AA set too high, do you? I know it's a shot in the dark, but still.

[daniellearmouth]

Where have I been the past decade, then? That's embarrassing.

 

@daniellearmouth Glad to know your temps are in check. I forgot to mention, it's stupid, I know, but you don't happen to have the in-game's AA set too high, do you? I know it's a shot in the dark, but still.

 

Antialiasing mode shows up as 'None *', and given the resolution I'm playing at, it'll probably stay like that.

[Timmy-P]

Antialiasing mode shows up as 'None *', and given the resolution I'm playing at, it'll probably stay like that.

Alright. I had a hunch that maybe it was still on x4 or x8 from before you upgraded your monitor. It's something I'd probably do, at the very least.

Anyway, since you have monitoring capabilities, next up would be your usage. What's your CPU/GPU usages? Do they look normal?

[daniellearmouth]

Alright. I had a hunch that maybe it was still on x4 or x8 from before you upgraded your monitor. It's something I'd probably do, at the very least.

Anyway, since you have monitoring capabilities, next up would be your usage. What's your CPU/GPU usages? Do they look normal?

 

I'll go over that later, since I'm off to bed now.

 

What I will say, however, is I think I've nailed it down to what the cause may be.

 

I think it may be down to the second monitor somehow. I don't know how that works, but it's possible that the second monitor was chewing into the VRAM that the game sorely needed.

I unplugged it from the graphics card, rebooted the computer and reloaded the game and it worked just fine. Now I know the routine I must go through to get anything Source related working.

 

Weird, innit.

[GoldSrc]

Have you tried Half-life 2 Update, or you used the original Half-life 2?

Source games should run even on a potato, I don't see a reason as to why it would be so slow on a 7770.

I will try using nvidia DSR and try HL2 at 4K on my GTX-650 (which should be under your 7770 in terms of performance) and come back with the results.

[Timmy-P]

I'll go over that later, since I'm off to bed now.

 

What I will say, however, is I think I've nailed it down to what the cause may be.

 

I think it may be down to the second monitor somehow. I don't know how that works, but it's possible that the second monitor was chewing into the VRAM that the game sorely needed.

I unplugged it from the graphics card, rebooted the computer and reloaded the game and it worked just fine. Now I know the routine I must go through to get anything Source related working.

 

Weird, innit.

In that case, just disable Windows Aero when playing, which can be automated with RadeonPro.

[daniellearmouth]

Have you tried Half-life 2 Update, or you used the original Half-life 2?

Source games should run even on a potato, I don't see a reason as to why it would be so slow on a 7770.

I will try using nvidia DSR and try HL2 at 4K on my GTX-650 (which should be under your 7770 in terms of performance) and come back with the results.

I have the original installed.

I could try Update when I'm able to tomorrow.

[GoldSrc]

I have the original installed.

I could try Update when I'm able to tomorrow.

 

Nope, both the original and the update seem to give the same results, you could still try yourself to confirm this.

4K + 4xAA gives me around 30FPS in both original and update, and 4K 8xAA gives me 10FPS on both versions lol.

Disabling AA didn't seemed to give me more FPS though so I just kept it at 4x, even though at 4K is not needed.

 

Original HL2 4K + 4xAA

 

Original HL2 4K + 8xAA

 

HL2 update 4K + 4xAA

 

HL2 update 4K + 8xAA

[daniellearmouth]

Nope, both the original and the update seem to give the same results, you could still try yourself to confirm this.

 

Weirdly for me, the Update seems to run slightly better than the original...

 

Maybe it's because it's a slightly newer version of the engine or something. Either way, it's less of a problem now.

[daniellearmouth]

Hmmm, interesting. Half Life 2 with MSAA 8x runs at like 200 fps for me at 4K. Source Engine games are a joke for modern PC hardware. Honestly your GPU might not be up to snuff to handle Half Life 2 at 4K. Really, I have no clue, maybe try out other games and see if you have the same/similar results.

 

I've played with a few more games.

 

Dead Space at maximum settings is very much playable at 4K on my setup, Crysis - when I installed the x64 compatibility mod - also ran, albeit at medium settings, and other things.

[daniellearmouth]

Define playable, for me it's 60fps, with a few exceptions. Crysis really doesn't fare well with newer hardware, I'm guessing its a limitation of the engine and the age of the game. LTT did a video showing modern graphics cards running Crysis at 4K and the results aren't what you would expect. I made a video showing that I can run Crysis at maximum settings with AA off and get about 45-70fps. It's really playable, but bugs me that Crysis runs like crap on 2014-2015 hardware. Crysis 3 runs better at high settings with AA off than Crysis does at 4K. Crysis is un-optimized and still eats up resources for no apparent reason. 

 

I can answer that with two words - ambient occlusion.

 

It does bugger all, and yet it eats up resources like a ravenous buzzard at a carcass.