Low FPS help!

Hi. Currently the main game I am playing is Team Fortress 2. I currently get (it fluctuates rapidly) between 26 and 52 FPS.

Here are my specs:

OS: Windows Vista
Processor: AMD 8400 triple core (2.1ghz)
Memory: 3GB DDR2 ram
Graphics: Nvidia 9800GT
PSU: 650w

My computer is a standard Gateway GT5670, except i upgraded the Power Supply and Video card.

Another interesting thing, is when i installed the 9800GT, it wouldn't let me install the drivers from the cd. it wouldn't recognize the 9800, at all. I had to download the drivers online. and whenever i search for update drivers, it installs drivers that replace "Nvidia 9800 GT" in control panel with some random title, it might even be the model of my monitor or something.

All I know is something isn't right. if anyone could shed some light, I would appreciate it so much!

Thanks,
Kenny

drivers are botched most likely

uninstall all nvidia related drivers/software and download the newest ones from nvidia and install from scratch

with your gfx card and cpu you should be getting at least 40fps SUSTAINED in heavy firefights with res + eye candy cranked to max and like 100fps in low activity areas

i have e8400 and hd 3870 and i get sustained 50fps in heavy firefights in big levels like badwater

once u sort out the drivers, you can look into this to enable dual core support in tf2

http://www.fpsbanana.com/tuts/5790

its not that stable but it works for like an hour or so, and during heavy firefights the fps for me stays around 65-70

u should disable vsync in the drivers and in the game to get more fps, also enabling motion blur in tf2 mitigates the drop in fps effect

Performance tuning for TF2 is just silly. That game has almost zero requirements. Just because it only runs on one thread doesn't mean you will get bad performance. It makes much more sense that this is a software based issue, especially with crashes.

If you want you might be able to get a better proc but it might be a bit of an issue that this is a Gateway since sometimes OEMs use odd mobos.

Well, I know in my spare comp I can run at 30fps+ easy with max settings and it has much worse hardware than what you are using so it would seem to me that a software issue makes more sense. It could be some sort of conflict (are you using a firewall?) or maybe you need to reinstall the game itself.

The only possible way a hardware conflict make sense is if it was an AMD exclusive problem which just seems odd to me. If it 100% loaded a core than maybe you could claim you are being limited but I know I never exceed 60% usage on any core.