Severe FPS problems in games

[lunar99]

I'm having some really bad fps problems in Half-Life 2 games, especially Counter-Strike Source and Day of Defeat:Source. I think something must be out of order, my computer (I think) is too good to be slowing down this much.

First off, my specs are:

3.2GHz Intel Pentium 4
1GB RAM
256 MB Radeon X800 PRO
Microsoft XP Home, (SP 2)

Even with all the options I can find turned down (model detail, texture detail, resolution bumped down to 800x600 etc) I get sometimes under 10 fps when firing/being fired at. I'm wondering what the problem is, I can't think what could be slowing me down this much. Let me know if you need to know more, and thanks in advance for the help.

 

[Anphrax]

Try updating your drivers, or if you have recently updated them try getting the driver version you had before.

 

[lunar99]

I just did upgrade to the newest Catalyst drivers, I'll see if I can track down the old version. When I started HL2 it told me to update them though, so apparently they want you to have the version I have.

 

[lunar99]

Bump.

 

[SHAWN]

Problem = ATI video card.

 

[lunar99]

I'm pretty sure plenty of people with ATI video cards can play this game fine. I don't think me buying an ATI card is making the game run poorly. There's got to be something wrong.

 

[Sprooty]

have you scanned your computer for viruses,spyware....?

also while running CSS/HL2 push ALT+CTL+Del and go to performance and check how much Physical Memory (K) you have availible.

I have basically the same system apart from the card. I have a 9800Pro and i can run CSS/HL2 fine with all settings on medium and res a 1280x1024.

 

[lunar99]

I use the Spybot/Ad-aware combo, I've done scans with both since the problem occured, so I don't think that's it.

Looking at the performance tab, I have about 220k available, and that's with this mozilla window running. I don't know if that's good or bad or what.

Someone suggested to me that it was my (admittedly crappy) sound card... but can a lame sound card be repsonsible for FPS drops?

 

[Sprooty]

when u say 220k do u mean 220 000? because if it says

Physical Memory (K)
Total: ####
Avavalible: 220
System Cache:####

if it says that it would mose likely be your problem. You have 1GB of ram and CSS/HL2 dosn't noramally take up to much.

A crap soundcard can sometimes put more strain on the CPU to process sounds, but it is nothing very noticeable.

Did this just start happening? or could you play CSS/HL2 befor with decent frame rates?

 

[shenlingstyle]

Maybe it's overheating O_O