Sudden slowdown while gaming

i recently installed crysis and i didnt manage to tweak it back to the former glory it had when i installed it some time ago (which had better visual quality and performance than i`m getting now)
i was also gettign sudden slow downs while playing. i was in the same area, nothing new will be happened.
the screen would kind of blink or something like that and it would suddenly go slow(really slow), even though just seconds before it would be doing fine, i minimized to see maybe there something in background, but nothing.
seeing this i format (been a long time since i did)
installed it again etc... same thing happens.

i just installed stalker clear sky, samething happens.

drivers bios etc.. were all mostly uptodate before the format, and after the format, the only thing i didnt do was the bios, but it doesnt seem to matter.

any ideas? help?

 

System specs, please? OS and installed background processes as well. It is easier to have ideas when we know a bit more what kind of system you are trying to play the game on. For all the information i have right now, my best suggestion is "buy a new computer", and that's probably not helpful to you.

 

E6600
7900gtx
2gb ram corsair ddr2
XP afaik uptodate

avast and all of the bs it usually starts up with
comodo firewall pro
smart defrag 1.0
and some very minor drivers for grfx, mp3 and sound

however you shouldnt need the spec. because even if i was running with a pnetium 1. 12mb ram and an integrated grfx card, the fact that it was once running well and now it screwing up could show where its weak pt is

 

The fact you're having problems with two different games means it's something on your computer that's causing it. If you want me to be any more specific than that, I need to know about the computer itself. If you're not willing to do your part, by giving me an idea of what we have to work with here, then take your computer to a shop, and pay someone to put up with you.

Back on track: Is the CPU or RAM over-clocked? If it is, set it back to default. Are you still using the exact same drivers for everything as you did when you last played the game? The exact same OS update? The exact same settings? Did you change your hardware in any way?

Does it happen only when you're playing these games, or does the slowdown happen under other circumstances as well?

 

you right,

ok so
i have overclocked nothing and afaik the manufacturers didnt OC them either(cpu and grfx incl.)

drivers:
i`m not sure. afaik between the time where they ran well and now where they didnt ran too well(preformat) i didnt update any drivers, most prob XP did a few updates here and there.
between the time where they didnt run well (pre format) and the 2nd time they didnt run well(post format) i had downloaded latest grfx driver, however bios i left it default(before format i had it at a newer version, not the latest but not the oldest)
hardware unchanged (after format, i opened and removed a lot of dust, especially around cpu fan, but nothing changed)

settings i cannot remember, i had tweaked it so its impossible to remember, however i remember better quality and performance)
these are the only 2 games i am playing currently and the only games i got that can push the PC unless i buy soemthing new

afaik only main difference is comodo pro and smart defrag, the time were i ran well i had zone alarm and smartdefrag was in beta and afaik didnt start up as a background process, then preformat were it didnt run to well i had comodo and smartdefrag + usuall bs running

some more info
while ingame recently i minizmied and checked ram usage, afaik it was at 1.6 or 1.8
cpu goes down to close to 15-0% on minimize


now

 

Okay, let's work our way through this, one item at a time, and see if we can get things back to normal frame-rates.

First of all, does your motherboard have on-board graphics? If it does, you will need to go into BIOS and disable the on-board graphics adapter before the motherboard will use the 7900, so let's start by double-checking that. (Which motherboard is it, btw?)

Using a different BIOS version can make a difference, especially if one of the things that changed in the update was "improved support for a number of graphics cards"... It would be worth your while to go over the release notes of the next few BIOS updates and see if they mention anything about graphics support. If they don't, don't worry about it, but if they do mention something that seems to apply to your situation, you may want to consider updating to the version you were using before.

If the problem you see is a slow-down in graphics only, try wiping out the graphics driver entirely, and reinstall it. MajorGeeks has a whole bunch of driver utilities and tools you can use to make sure you got rid of it all. Speaking of drivers, the most recent driver for a graphics card may not be the one that is best supported by the games you want to play. Just food for thought.

Comodo Pro should only interfere when you try to play in online/multiplayer mode, not when you play locally on your machine. An easy way to test though, is to temporarily disable Comodo, and see if that makes any difference at all. If it does, that stinks. If it doesn't make a difference though, turn it right back on and leave it on. Firewalls are good for the computer.

Also, start by taking down all graphics settings to minimum, and see if you can get smoother gaming that way. Often it's one single setting, like anti-aliasing or light bloom that causes lag. For example, I have a computer with a Pentium III CPU and a 7800 GT OC that runs several modern games just fine--as long as I turn of all anti-aliasing and soft shadows.

If nothing helps, download Everest, get a hardware report and attach it to your next post, and then give me a little bit longer to dig for info.

 

i forgot how useful and pro the pple where here.
cant post now in a hurry, just wanted to mention the above
i`ll get to it asap

 

First of all, does your motherboard have on-board graphics?
>No

(Which motherboard is it, btw?)
>gigabyte GA-965p-DS3

Using a different BIOS version can make a difference, especially if one of the things that changed in the update was "improved support for a number of graphics cards"... It would be worth your while to go over the release notes of the next few BIOS updates and see if they mention anything about graphics support. If they don't, don't worry about it, but if they do mention something that seems to apply to your situation, you may want to consider updating to the version you were using before.
>will do however on the slow down (preformat) the bios was the same as the 1st time where it ran nicely

the most recent driver for a graphics card may not be the one that is best supported by the games you want to play. Just food for thought.
>will check

Comodo Pro should only interfere when you try to play in online/multiplayer mode, not when you play locally on your machine. An easy way to test though, is to temporarily disable Comodo, and see if that makes any difference at all. If it does, that stinks. If it doesn't make a difference though, turn it right back on and leave it on. Firewalls are good for the computer.
>what about smart defrag? could that be affecting it?


Also, start by taking down all graphics settings to minimum, and see if you can get smoother gaming that way. Often it's one single setting, like anti-aliasing or light bloom that causes lag. For example, I have a computer with a Pentium III CPU and a 7800 GT OC that runs several modern games just fine--as long as I turn of all anti-aliasing and soft shadows.
>will do

[/QUOTE]

 

Smart defrag should not affect your game performance in any way, but there is an easy way to check that. Shut down Smart Defrag, kill it in Task Manager if necessary, and then run your game. If that has any effect at all, then that is your problem and solution, right there.

If that doesn't have any effect, we'll just keep digging. Post back with status reports!