I love the game and all the effects except for the rendering of fire.

With Half Life 2 the fire seems to be rendered at 30 FPS and looks
pretty choppy and weak.

With Half Life 2: Ep 2 it appears to be rendered at full FPS but then
it slows down my system and causes severe frame stuttering.

(I have intel duo-core 6400 [2.1Ghz I think] and Nvidia 8800 GTX 768
MB, 2G system memory, and play at 1024x768 2AA @ 85 Hz V-sync)

When I play Quake 4 the fire is much more realistic with blue and
orange flame plus dynamic air refraction (heat effect on the
atmosphere) and doesn't affect FPS at all. (I get steady 60s)

I heard in one of the in-game commentaries that they had to recode
everything for their latest lighting technology in HL2: Ep2 (I forget
what it's called)

I think they should go back to the drawing board and completely recode
their fire effects because, honestly, they suck.

-alien