ATI Radeon 8500LE and Counter-strike

I'm relatively happy with my new system, sig, but i expected a flat 99FPS playing counter-strike, instead tho is 65-99FPS [dips down most when viewing 4 or more other player models]. I'm new to ATI, but i d/l the latest driver and everything else is at default. I had to turn the ~game gamma~ up a bit b/c it was quite dark and couldn't tell which was t and ct in the dark areas.

Also u know when ur in the game, press esc, and alt tab to minimize? well when i try to come back to the game, the entire screen is...~smudge?~ Only the crosshair is normal, while everything else is basically like a toil over my head [in the game].

1 last oddity is the OpenGL mode, i play in direct 3d ok, other than the fps, but I thought OpenGL would work just as well. Somehow, the screen is...a fraction of what it should be...I see about 3/4 of the screen [top left section] and so the money, time, and hp is GONE!

Anyone know about any of these -bugs-? if there are known fixes i have not found, plz tell me where or direct me to them. Thanks a bunch guys/girls!

Well, can't say for sure with the RadeonLE, but I run the retail 8500, and don't have problems with counter-strike. As for your FPS, what's the refresh rate on your monitor? That can affect things. There's also muzzle flare and the like that slow it down. Try downloading and running 3DMark2001 (SE), and run that. You should probably get a score close to 8000 or so. At least that's what I get.

As for the screen getting screwy, I've had problems alt-tabbing out of some games, including counter-strike. It's not always a smooth thing. Try pressing escape to get back the menu, then resume game. Sometimes that clears it up for me. And I run in OpenGL with no problem. I leave it on the default GL driver, and set it to 1024x768, and I have no problems with it.

Make sure you're running version 1.0.0.4.

Wa11y's probably right on (the verticle refresh synchronizing)... you will have to check to make sure something called "v-sync" is not activated, if it is disable it.

i dont think the refresh rates have anything to do with fps u get in game... or atleast that is what i've heard and won't beleive it until proven differently... u tell the guy to turn off v-sync when i'm more then sure that u don't know what effect that option has....

The video card detects the refresh rate the monitor can support at the set resolution then uses that, I did read somewhere that that can lower FPS, but it seems a little far out, but i guess it is possable.

v-sync does indeed have an effect on games, and benchmarks, but IMHO its not worth it to disable it, alot of games look alot worse, for the small sometimes not noticable speed increase you get.. benchmarks on the other hand, are impacted ALOT more from having v-sync enabled on a system.. thats why everyone disables it when benchmarking.. you're going to get improved results.. i agree with genocide, i doubt its his v-sync..