lowered frame rate lately

[alwSmokE]

system specs:

3.4 ghz P4

2 gig ram

ATI x800 xl PCIepress 256 MB (catalyst 6.6)

228 gig hard drive 135 gigs free

Nod 32 says no viruses

adaware, spybot and xoftspy say no spyware

defragged

running in high priority mode (now as a suggestion but doesn't help)

This is a new problem for me. I used to never get lag. I run the game with all settings maxed out at 1280x1024x16. Now, I'm getting a lot of lag when there are many vehicles on screen. Especialy at start of races. And every 10-15 secs or so a slight dip in frame rate too. Usualy down to like 20 then back up. When there are a lot of other vehicles on screen and can drop down to 5-7 fps.

I've tried using catalys 6.6, 6.5, 6.4, 6.3, omega and ngo drivers. This is only happening to me for MTA. Every other game I play still runs great. I play CoD2, Bf2, Prey, and other cpu intensive games with no problem.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I am baffled and have run out of ideas for fixing this issue.

[Jani]

Lag at the start of the race when there's 20 other cars on the screen is normal. As for every 10-15 seconds, could it be another process running which does something every 10-15 seconds, such as anitvirus checking update server, something checking something else anyway?

[alwSmokE]

Thanks, but this is new super-lag. I usualy play on a server that's close to full a lot (32 people). I've been playing this game since it came out in Feb I think. I never had this lag before.

Also, I have tried to adjust my video and audio card settings to performance. And I stop any unneeded processes before playing.

I'm sure losing a few fps at start of a race with 32 people is normal. What I'm talking about is not normal.

[darkdreamingdan]

Could be some sort of spyware or viruses. They tend to hog CPU. Try running a few scans

[Leviathan]

he allready did that.

what about too much background processes? try shutting down a lot. including explorer.

and why do you play @ 16bit colors?

[alwSmokE]

I end all unneccesary processes, and 16-bit runs better than 32-bit for mta. GTASA runs fine maxed out though.

[alwSmokE]

I took apart my pc and cleaned the hell out of it. There was about 2.5 tons of dust INSIDE my vid card alone. I never thought to blow out the inside of it. The seat was also covered in dust. Then I took off the cover between my fans.

There is a peice that covers the front fan and goes to the heat sync for the processor. Then the other side of the heat sync is exposed and the air is pushed out through the back. The inside of the cover was packed with dust. It was truly unbelievable the amount of dust that was in there. My fans were on full blast all the time and it was loud. Now, it's as quiet as it can be and my pc is performing better than it ever has.

I thought I kept it clean inside there. I vacuum it out every few weeks 'cause I have a clear case and you can see dust in there. I never thought to take everything apart and clean it until today. I'm glad I did 'cause there's no telling what woulda' happened if I continued to let it build up in there.

This came out of what I though was a clean pc. The vacuum was cleaned out almost right before I cleaned out my pc. So, most of it is from inside my vid card and heat sync. eughhhh!

[erorr404]

So the game is running fine now?

[alwSmokE]

better than ever before!!!

1280x1024x32 maxed out no loss!

[Jani]

Lol, dust.

[Slothman]

a lesson for us all.

[Leviathan]

yeah I've cleaned out my cpu fan some months ago, then my temperature was about 10 degrees lower.

the next pc cleaning time will be next week when I unplug my pc to go to a LAN-party, open the side and remove the dust.