Problems with fps

[darin1992]

Well heres the deal, I play tf2 a ton and recently my framerate has been dropping to around 40 whenever I engage in combat which has never happened on this pc before. I don't think it should be dropping frames like that because its still a relatively nice pc, and it has always had 100+ fps since i got it.
Can having low amounts of HDD space cause lag or is it something wrong with my video card? Any help is appreciated.

Specs are as follows
-M/B- ASUS Rampage Formula x48
-CPU- Intel 8400
-RAM- G. Skill 4gb 1066
-HDD- WD 150gb Raptor/WD 500gb Barracuda
-GPU- EVGA GTX 280 SSC Edition
-DISP- Acer 24"
-PSU- PC Power and Cooling 750W
-CASE- Xclio Windtunnel
-HS/F- Tuniq 120 Tower
-O/S- Vista Ultimate 64

 

[entens]

its probably dust in your computer is making your card hotter which kills performance.

your mention of disk space also may have a roll. do you have at least double your ram? if you dont, you might not have enough room for a full size windows pagefile.

suggested solutions:
1. clean case
2. delete some files or move them to an external drive
3. defrag your drive

 

[Mediarocker]

entens is on the right track.

I suggest getting a second hard drive and Taking all the crap off the first one and putting it on the second one.

I have a 250GB and a 500 in my rig right now, the 500 is the junk/stuff hard drive while the 250 remains the "Programs and Stuff" hard drive.

Speed increase is notable.

I'm playing with a:

-Intel Pentium 4 HT @ 3.2 GHz
-1024MB DDR2 PC2-6400 Dual Channel
-eVGA nVidia GeForce 8800GTS 640MB SSC Edition
And a Dell Unique Foxconn Motherboard.

I get 40-60FPS Just fine. No lag.

Only lag I get is processor lag. From running a old processor.

TIME FOR AN UPGRADE!

 

[Cut Chem!st]

Sadly, everytime tf2 is patched people have FPS issues in TF2. Dropping to around 40 FPS with everyone fighting on the screen sounds normal. Just have to wait for them to optimize it. I dont drop below 50 fps mainly because of my quad @ 3.0. GPU dosen't matter that much in tf2, all about the CPU. Really I dont see 40 FPS being bad anyway, it isn't that noticeable and it is usually over after a few people die.

Also with that heatsink, why dont you try some OCing.. that is if you haven't already. If you can OC and have a aftermarket cooler, probably should.