Increasing FPS in Counter-Strike 1.6

mister-x · May 2, 2010

-This guide will help you increase FPS in Counter Strike 1.6-

What does FPS stand for?
FPS stands for Frames Per Second.

How do I know what my FPS is?
Launch your Counter-Strike 1.6 and press the "~" button above Tab button. In the console window type in "cl_showfps 1"

Why does it matter how many FPS I have?
Higher frame rate makes the game smoother.

How many FPS do I need for smooth game play?
If you have 100 FPS or more, you don't have to read this guide because your performance is perfect.

If you have 60-100 FPS, you can improve, but you don't have to.

If you have 30-60 FPS, I would suggest reading this guide.

If you have 10-30 FPS, you HAVE to read this guide!

- First Step -
1) Launch your game and open console by pressing the "~" button.

2) Find "C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\"Your steam name"\counter-strike\cstrike

3) Find or create a file named "userconfig.cfg" - If you can't see the extensions like ".txt" or ".pdf".
Watch this guide to see file extensions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tYl31fojb4

4) Paste these commands into the userconfig:

Code:

cl_shadows 0 fps_max 101 developer 1 sys_ticrate 1000 rate 25000 cl_rate 10000

That step should boost your FPS by ~15.

- Second Step -

Defragment your hard drives.
Simple and effective.

To Defragment,

For Windows XP - Go to Start Menu, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Defragmenter.

For Windows Vista - Go to Start Menu, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Defragmenter.

For Windows 7 - Go to Start Menu, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Defragmenter.

- Third Step -

Check disk for errors.

To do that:

Go to the hard drive that have Steam is installed in.

Right-click on it

Select Properties.

Select "Tools" tab and go press "Check Now".

Select whichever you want.

- Forth Step -

Scan for Viruses.

I'm pretty sure everyone has an anti-virus software of some kind. Scan all your drives for Viruses and Infections.
Viruses may slow down your OS causing decrease of FPS.

- Fifth Step - (most important)

1. Your graphics card.

If you know what is your graphics card, move to the second step.

First, you need to know what your graphics card is.

Press "Start"

Find "Run"

Type "dxdiag" in box and press enter or click "Ok".

Now click "Display" tab.

Now you can see what your graphics card is. As you can see from this picture, I have a Mobile Intel graphics card (Really bad for gaming).

2. Finding your OpenGL driver.
Read this part carefully

Now you need to find your OpenGL driver that your graphics card uses.
ATI cards: atioglxx.dll
All cards except ATI: opengl32.dll

These files are on your "Windows/system32" folder.

If you are too afraid to find it or you are just lazy, use search to locate your OpenGL driver.

When you find file, copy it...
DO NOT CUT IT! NEVER! YOU MIGHT SCREW UP YOUR GRAPHICS!

and paste it into your gldrv folder. (Default: C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\"your steam name"\counter-strike\gldrv)

After pasting open "drvmap.txt" If you have a graphics card other than ATI, change code to this and save.

If you have ATI, change code to this and save.

Save and you're done! Make sure you also type in "fps_max 100" in console, or replace 100 with whatever your computer can support.

This guide works with other goldsrc engined games (Half-life, Team Fortress Classic etc).

Optional: Turning off Vsync. It's different for every graphics card so try to find a guide for that, and as long as it doesn't distort your image, don't turn it back on.

This concludes this guide, hope I helped. Happy fragging!

- Mrx