Having FPS Problems, video card or what?

[Pyromanyac]

im having a lot of FPS drop problems in games i play. Diablo 2, CS 1.6, those arent even graphic intense. But basically what is happening is that while im playing, i'll monitor my fps and they both hang around 60 fps and suddenly they drop down to like 10 to 20 fps for a second or two, my memory usage shoots up ~100 megs, then after those 2 seconds it restabilizes itself back to normal. THis all happens randomnly, sometimes every 5 minutes, sometimes every 30 seconds. i've had this machine put together since about january, and this problem started about 2 weeks ago. i have my video card drivers up to date, and i did no updates whatsoever before the problem started. another thing i noticed is that when i was running itunes, everyonce in a while the songs would jump around, or skip like when your in your car and you hit a bump on the road. i then went and reinstalled my video card drivers after that, and it stopped the itunes problem, but still not my fps drops. my temp levels are good, not even near overheating so i know thats not the problem. the itunes problem makes me think it might be my cpu, but the fps makes me lean more towards my video card, and possibly even my ram. I have a BFG 7800 GT, AMD 3500+, 2 Gb patriot ddr 400. nothigns overclocked, all stock speeds.

Any one had this problem and fixed it, or anyone can shed some light on what might be going on?

 

[Heyyou27]

It's not the videocard; what type of hard drive do you have? Paging files enabled/disabled?

 

[prozac26]

Background tasks, and malware could be the issue.

 

[Wgfalcon]

download adaware and spybot seek and destroy install ,update and run the scans if that doesn't fix your issue download the diags for your brand of hd and run those see if you have any errors

 

[Pyromanyac]

ive got a 74 WD Raptor, a 250 GB Maxtor and a 120GB WD. raptor is my boot, and the other 2 are just storage. no raid setup or anything, just boot, then 2 slaves.

my page file is set from 2096 initial to 4gigs max on my raptor drive.

background tasks should not be the issue because they've never given me problems before. All i really leave running is AIM and sometimes itunes, along with whatever else is running from the system or other open progs. one thing i did have though was Rivatuner, and i overclocked the video card up more, but it never gave it any problems and its been OC'd since like february. I dont have antivirus software either, so its possible that might be it, but i do my best to keep my machine clean. just havent installed anything yet.

ill try the antivirus and HD diag.

 

[enforcerfx]

adaware and search and destroy are terrible anti-spyware programs. I suggest either Ewido Secuirty suite 3.0(it should auto-update you to 4.0) and a-squared. Both will irridicate any malware viruses guarranteed. You can find both of these at www.download.com Both are free, and exceptionally good. I have both of those and NOD32.

 

[deweycd]

Yea, most likly background programs, expecially if its happening in diablo 2, i ran it so smoothly on a rage 128, not a problem.

 

[Pyromanyac]

well i doubt its background programs, i've never had a problem with them in all the times i've built and ran my systems. i used to run a rage 128 on Diablo 2, and still no problem with background programs. and ran cs 1.6 with an ati 9600, still no problem so i doubt thats it. Also, another thing i notice in CS 1.6 is, if any of you have played, when you shoot a wall or something, a puff of smoke comes off the wall, and sometimes i get a black box where that puff of smoke should be. and also the muzzle flash is also sometimes a black box, along with grenade explosions. And i was just messing with half life 2 garys mod, and when i joined a server, my computer was seeming to have trouble drawing the environment, the area i was in was fine, but the hoirzon graphics were all messed up, like if i were running 16 bit graphics on like an 8 meg card. Ive messed with the video setting and such in CS 1.6, put a low res. and lowered quality settings, and nothing fixed it. So im thinking its not the hard drive. also, the adware searching didnt really turn up anything, just some cookie stuff. Also, playing half life 2 garys mod, i notice the graphics are a little laggy, and im on teh recomended settings.