ATI Radeon HD 5450 MSI

[De CodeerHeer]

Sup guys?

So yesterday I received a better videocard from my friend TieGuyGaming, it's a ATI Radeon HD 5450 MSI, and nice and silent thing!

But I have a question. I received this card on 10-10-13 and my OS is windows 8. I tested it out and I have no lagg (or nearly no lagg) spikes anymore when entering the city but. But I lagg when I'm coming closer to Nexus on V33x and v2p. I expect much more from this card since it has 1GB RAM DDR3 (previous has 256MB). I'm running on a resolution of 1440x900x60Hz. I thought I can play Gmod lagg free? My system classification growed up from 3,8 to 4,5. But what can I expect from this card on windows 7? The same or more?

Here is the link. It's the one slot version.

Thanks for your help!

[OrbitalNonsense]

5450 is the very basic entry level graphics card that you can buy. Don't expect much from it, especially with the fact that it is still using DDR3 and a passive cooling system. No wonder why you find it so quiet. As for the performance on a different OS, you won't see any better results with W7, perhaps worse performance. Windows 8 doesn't take a huge chunk out of your system. W8 has actually been found to be better in some games.

For your problem with the Nexus, I would end your explorer while you are playing. To do this, you will need to:
1.) Open task manager
2.) Find the process explorer.exe
3.) End the process

Note that this will not allow you to use any applications unless they are currently open or you open them up via file name.

You will also want to end dwm.exe. It doesn't do anything really, just takes up space and RAM. It will end and pop back up, make sure that you end it twice.

To restart your explorer.exe
1.) Goto Task Manager
2.) Click "New Task"
3.) Type in "explorer.exe" (no quotations)

You can also reboot it by pressing a hotkey, but I don't remember what it is.

You can also try Game Booster if you want. Make sure you tweak your settings to what you want to be ended and stopped and all that.

Common commands can be used as well while in GMod.

"mat_picmip 2"
"r_rootlod 2"
"cl_updaterate 30"
"cl_forcepreload 1"
Note that these are client side (hence the cl) so you will have to enter these commands each time you start the game. I know that it can get annoying, but for the amount of performance that it gives you, I find it worth it.

You can also edit the properties of it. If you aren't currently messing with this, I would switch your DX Level to 8.1 instead of 9.

1.) Goto Steam Library
2.) Right Click on Garry's Mod
3.) Click properties
4.) Click on the General Tab
5.) Set launch options
6.) Type in -dxlevel 81

If 8.1 doesn't work, try -dxlevel 80 ( DX 8 )
If 8.0 doesn't work, try -dxlevel 70 ( DX 7 )

You can also mess around with the amount of RAM that Garry's Mod uses. Not sure how much RAM you have, but you can use this equation to find out your heapsize.

x/2*1024

X is your variable for the amount of RAM that you want to be dedicated towards hl2.exe. Say you have 2 GB of RAM, you will have 2048 MB of RAM. Every gigabyte of RAM is 1024 MB.

Now however much RAM you want to be used towards hl2.exe is completely up to you, but don't go overboard with it. 2 should be a good amount.

Using the given equation, we can factor 2048 in for x. With that in mind, the equation will be

2048/2*1024

This comes out to be 1048576
In the Launch Options, you will type in "-heapsize 1048576" (no quotes)

I hope this helps, I can give you more if needed, but this should be enough for now. I hope you get a lot better performance while using these things!

P.S. - Manually change your settings in game. Make sure you have AA on bilinear and VSync off. You do want Multicore Rendering, and make sure that everything else is on low or off. To me, all of that stuff doesn't make a huge difference, but I guess I can get used to that stuff.

[De CodeerHeer]

Thanks so much!

I will try your suggestions when I have time and post the experience here.

Again thanks!!
Mavis

[Trevor Jackson]

No matter what you do you're probably going to experience lag. Your GPU isn't bad, but it is on the lower end. You could try turning settings down in Garrysmod to speed up the game, but killing dwm and explorer won't speed things up noticeably.

[De CodeerHeer]

But if the lag when entering the city is gone I'm fine with it. Thank you guys!

[OrbitalNonsense]

No matter what you do you're probably going to experience lag. Your GPU isn't bad, but it is on the lower end. You could try turning settings down in Garrysmod to speed up the game, but killing dwm and explorer won't speed things up noticeably.

Ending that stuff has always helped me, but that might just pertain to me and my current sh*tty computer

[Wood]

Orbital. You put alot of efford into explaining that. You've earned my rep

also your friend gave you this for free?

[De CodeerHeer]

Yeah, we exchange some things with eachother. He got a new laptop and gave me his videocard. And I gave him mine videocard (Crappy thing).

Btw, The experience is much better with explorer.exe off. The game runs a bit faster.