Longstanding Performance Issues

[Ignipotens]

Hello everyone, I have an issue I'm hoping someone might be able to assist with. This issue has been going on about 9 months now with my PC, which has suddenly been having performance issues with basically every game I have. Previous to this, the computer ran excellently, with nary a single issue for any of these games. These issues have manifested themselves in different ways for different games:

Skyrim: Minor microstutter/hitching, typically when turning around or entering a new cell, but also randomly.

Fallout: New Vegas: Extremely irregular performance, with framerates jumping around randomly and random pauses.

Mass Effect 3: Brief pauses at both specific areas (i.e. moving from the CEC to the cockpit) and randomly. More troubling is bizarre model glitches, mostly during conversation, where the models will suddenly jerk around and/or switch position.

Other issues are, up until recently, my task manager only showed two cores when I have four (but this I managed to fix) and I cannot seem to update my video card (when I try and run the driver installer, it gives the whole "Windows cannot find the specified..." message); this latter issue is also peculiar in that, when I right-click the installer to run it in administrator mode it takes *forever* to load the right-click menu.

Furthermore, when I run performance tests nothing comes up. CPU stress testers don't show anything and my video card can run MSI Afterburner's stress-tester at ~200 fps with a range of +/- 15 fps. Likewise, when these issues occur they do not seem to coincide with any spikes in CPU, GPU, or RAM usage. I ensure I have a monitoring program on at all times and have ensured my CPU never goes above 50 degrees C, with it typically hanging around 38-43 degrees; GPU temperatures are only slightly higher. Voltages are all well within standard ranges and none of the fans appear to be having issues.

The computer has been defragmented regularly and I have run intense virus and malware scans to ensure there is no malicious software causing the issue. I have, similarly, tried running the games while in diagnostic mode but with no change (also, I still cannot install driver updates in this mode). I have completely uninstalled my anti-virus and this has had no effect.

Any ideas would be most appreciated, as I am going nuts here.

Specs:

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601)
CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) II X4 640 Processor ~3.0 GHz
Memory: 8192MB RAM
DX Version: DirectX 11
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460
MB: ASUS M4A77TD

 

[Ignipotens]

Alright, I've tested another game, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, and that one doesn't seem to have any issues whatsoever except maybe some pauses here and there and some glitchy character models.

 

[Ignipotens]

Tested another game; Dishonored runs fairly well but does seem to have brief slowdowns at certain points. Said drops in framerate do not seem to coincide with changes in GPU or CPU usage (at least, according to the monitoring software).

 

[bystander]

Tested another game; Dishonored runs fairly well but does seem to have brief slowdowns at certain points. Said drops in framerate do not seem to coincide with changes in GPU or CPU usage (at least, according to the monitoring software).

You have a card that isn't particularly strong, so you may just have to lower settings, or your expectations. And for us to have useful info, you need to specify actual FPS and resolution.

It is perfectly normal for FPS to drop under highly demanding areas of a game without changing the usage. If your GPU is at 99% usage, it is going full speed, and FPS may drop based on how hard the area of the game is. If the GPU usage drops below 80%, you may have a CPU bottleneck at that point.

 

[Ignipotens]

@ bystander

Right, but as I already mentioned the other games were running fine previously; in the case of Dishonored, while it is true I just got it, I was just trying to give as much information as possible in regarding to the various performance of various games. I also realize usage is not necessarily commensurate (inversely or otherwise) with fps, but (at least, by my understanding), there is usually *some* type of change in usage during such events as fps drops (be it CPU or GPU).

As for game resolution, I generally run it in a window at ~1280x800 or some such (my monitor is 1650x1050) and all of the games are usually ~60 fps, with changes occurring as mentioned in my initial post; and before you ask, yes, I have tried changing all the settings for the games (including whether it was windowed or not).

My best guess as for what is the problem is some pervasive software glitch that came about due to an update or a game installation (I'm not sure when it began exactly, but I think it was around the time I (re)installed Darwinia, Endless Space, and/or Spore); such an issue would also explain why I can't install driver updates for my video card. Granted, I cannot say for certain this is the root cause, but it's what I have come up with.

 

[fulle]

I was going to suggest re-installing your graphics drivers... but you can't? What happens when you try to install new drivers? Are you pulling them directly from Nvidia's website, or an application?

 

[Ignipotens]

I was going to suggest re-installing your graphics drivers... but you can't? What happens when you try to install new drivers? Are you pulling them directly from Nvidia's website, or an application?

I've tried it via nVidia's site, directly via the program itself, and through Windows update. Sometimes it simply refuses to launch with the whole "the specified driver/device could not be found" message, other times it uninstalls the previous driver but then the installation freezes and the new one won't install.

 

[Ignipotens]

Okay, for some reason, the 301.42 drivers managed to install; I have absolutely no idea what suddenly allowed this to occur. I'll update this when I have a better idea of whether this has actually helped with anything.

Edit---
It did not appear to do anything; I am about ready to throw my computer through a wall.

What I've recently been using as an in-game test to see if any of my fixes show any improvement is to, in Fallout New: Vegas, move around the Lucky 38 Presidential Suite for a while (with all companions in it); prior to all these issues it ran almost constantly at 60 fps, now it lurches around from 44-60 fps and performance seems to degrade the longer I remain in the area. Thus far, I have been able to improve little to nothing in respect to this.

 

[Ignipotens]

Okay, I'm still waiting on any advice on what to do; I don't wish to be overly insistent, but it's a little bit frustrating to still have accomplished so little after trying so much. Please, if anyone has any ideas, I'd be grateful.