Okay, I'm pretty good with computers but this has me totally stumped.
Here's some basic info on my system:
HP computer with AMD Phenom 9750 processor
2.40 Ghz speed
8 GB of RAM
Nvidia GeForce 9100 video card
Windows 7
I know it's not the best video card, but I'm not a huge PC gamer so it's been fine for what I run on it.
I used to be able to play games like Civ 4 and Star Trek Online with no issues on lower settings.
But recently, within the last few months, when I'm playing the games I start having some mysterious 'slowdown' during the game. Everything gets really laggy and slow and hard to run anything. It's like the game will be fine for 5 minutes, then the slowdown hits for 5 mintues, then it runs fine again.
Didn't used to do this until a couple months ago, like I said, and i haven't changed anything on the computer.
I've allready tried totally uninstalling and then re-installing the video driver and I am sure that nothing is running in the background. I've checked during the lag and CPU usage is no more then 20 percent.
I know I've allready run MSCONFIG in the past and pared my system down to running just the barest ammount of stuff. I didn't see anything in Task Manager that I don't reconize, or tying up any resources. The games are also running bare min graphic settings -- I've checked that allready also. And although STO is online, I've had the slowdown hit Civ 4 when running solo as well.
I use AVG (register) as my virus/spyware defense program and it's run a full check and found nothing. Also done a check with two OTHER malware programs and also checked for rootkits. Also defrag the drive once a week.
Been playing some stuff over the last few hours and I can mention the following: older games and any program, like emulators, don't have any issues at all. The problem only seems to happen with more modern games like Civ 4 and Star Trek Online.
During the periods of 'lag' in the game, the ENTIRE computer lags. If I minimize the game (but leave it running) and do things like load web pages, navigate through them, or what not, then it's slow as well. When the game is not lagging, I can do all of that normaly. If I quit the game during a period of lag, then everything clears back up.
And it did NOT always do this. The problem just started a couple months ago.
So something with programs itself is causing the lag. I have allready turned the graphic settings down to their min.
I've looked at the Task Manager during slowdown and confirmed nothing is running that should not be.
Also, my Virtual Memory settings:
Virtual Memory: Total paging file size for all drives -- 7935 MB
Windows is currently automaticaly magazing the memory
Additional Info:
Minmimum allowed -- 16 MB
Recomonded -- 11902 MB
Currently Allocated -- 7935 MB
The only things that I've updated on my computer between then and now was the video driver and Direct X.
And I don't see one hint of malware or something tying up the PC during high perfromance games either.
I don't know what else I can try, but it sucks, cause it basicaly makes the games unplayable now for some weird reason.
