Counter-Strike: Source Forum

since the latest cs:s update I have a strange bug:

• I join the game, everything is fine (constantly 70-100 fps, capped)
• after a random amount of time (sometimes seconds, sometimes an hour) the fps drop down to 9 AND STAY THERE
• If I then restart the game (exiting completely to the desktop, relaunch via steam) FPS are back to normal.

May i know what OS are you using ? ...Whats your graphic card model?

I too notice a sever fps-drop when playing source and unreal -powered steam games on Mac. Both in native and crossover.
It accurs after about half an hour of game time

I have an iMac 27" with i7 and ATI (4860?) gpu.

Recent changes to the Steam client seem to have introduced this problem for users of Wine on Linux. Some component of the Steam DRM or Valve Anti-Cheat system is doing a lot of a certain operation that Wine has no efficient way to implement on Linux. It doesn't affect the Mac because Wine does have an efficient alternative there.

Other users on other threads (TF2, IIRC) report that opting into the Steam beta client fixes the problem.

Dawda, I think your issue must be something else. First, running Steam native vs. via CrossOver is so different that any problem that affects both is likely external to both. For example, if your GPU overheats and the OS responds by reducing the clock speed, that would explain it. So would something having to do with your network.

If you can reproduce it under CrossOver while running a game in windowed mode, then please use Activity Monitor in the background to identify if CrossOver Games, wineloader, or wineserver is using lots of CPU. If so, you can try sampling those processes which are using significant quantities of CPU and submit the sample reports in a ticket. (Actually, it's better to use the "sample" command from the command-line with a delay, because you want to sample the game while it has focus and is running. So, identify the process ID then issue a command like "sleep 10; sample <process ID>" in Terminal. While the 10-second sleep is happening, switch back to the game window and resuming playing to the degree possible. Then the sample will occur while the game is doing its thing.)

Thanks for your answers.

I run kubuntu 10.04 with a nvidia 8800GTS, C2D E6600. Besides this bug, the games run very good. No issues at all.

Will this bug be fixed with wine 1.2?

overd0se wrote:

Will this bug be fixed with wine 1.2?

Unfortunately, no. To my knowledge, there is no mechanism provided by the Linux kernel to efficiently do what Steam is asking to do.

One hypothesis, with really no way to figure out if it's true, is that Steam's DRM or VAC is being "provoked" into this aggressive behavior because it notices something "different" or "suspicious" as a consequence of Wine's differences from Windows. So, if that were true, then Wine could be changed to not provoke that aggressive checking technique, and Steam would not try to make intensive use of this functionality that can't be efficiently implemented. That's a long shot, though.

Really, the hope lies in Valve updating Steam so it no longer does this thing which can't be done efficiently on Linux.

Leave it to Alexandre Julliard, maintainer of Wine, to find a simple workaround that I hadn't considered. The forthcoming release candidate of CrossOver Games 9.1 will include what we hope is a fix for this issue.

Ken Thomases wrote:

Leave it to Alexandre Julliard, maintainer of Wine, to find a simple
workaround that I hadn't considered. The forthcoming release
candidate of CrossOver Games 9.1 will include what we hope is a fix
for this issue.

sounds great. can't wait to try it.

CrossOver Games 9.1 has been released and includes the fix for this Steam games lag/timeout issue.

yes yes YES!!! It's working. you guys are awesome!