Random FPS drop bad sign?

I was playing half life 2: episode 2 on my laptop. It was loading the next part of the game, which was taking very long, the loading screen began to emit odd stutters of sound effects and then the game suddenly started. However, the FPS was very very low, at about 3-8 FPS.

My video card is an 8600M GT DDR3 and it normally runs the game fairly smoothly on maximum settings, so I came to the conclusion something went wrong somewhere. I exited the game and restarted it. However, this did not fix it, so, thinking it was an error with the game itself i loaded up half life 2: episode 1, which i had finished without any problems. This ALSO had FPS problems, the menu screen was almost unresponsive and the 3d background was just as slow and stuttery.

However, when i rebooted my computer, the game ran well again (though i have a feeling there has been an ever so slight performance decrease [though i tend to be paranoid about these things]).

Does anyone know if this is a sign of a damaged card? or if anything wrong has gone permanently with my computer? thanks very much for any help...

 

Maybe your computer got too hot and the CPU automatically throttled down to a lower speed? Get a temperature checking program ready in case it happens again and check your CPU/GPU temperatures at that time.

 

Download HWMonitor and stress your gpu out. Post back your temps here after.

 

just to answer your question:

it doesn't sound like you damaged your card at all... i wouldn't worry about that. this sounds almost like a software problem, or maybe minor overheating and throttling...

or maybe you are on the battery, or like some kind of power saving mode on your laptop...

just throwing ideas out there. but i'm just going to reaffirm you that you aren't really a candidate for permanent gpu damage.

 

have you tried the sleep fix?

 

If I remember correctly the "sleep fix" is specific to Asus G1S owners and doesn't work at all for the OP's XPS 1530.

 

when i used to play HL TFC excessively, i sometimes had lag problems which required me to reboot. i don't think the card is damaged in any way. just make sure you don't have any programs running in background.

 

I use HW moniter and once i exit out of the game and click onto it the temps are often around 72, so probably maxing out at 75,76 degrees C (taking into account the cooling during the time it takes me to check the temps). I didn't actually check the temps when the slowdown occured, but i see no reason for it to climb passed 80 or 90 with the same conditions as i usually game with.

The Laptop was plugged in and running on high performance, it can't of changed to power saver during gameplay surely?

cheers for the input though.

most likely candidate is maybe a glitch with the source engine or steam, because i only retested the video adaptor with steam games. And they only started to play well again when i restarted...

Any thoughts?

 

without more information, its going to be impossible to get a more accurate diagnosis.

still, if you reinstall the operating system that should solve any software problem. and thats what it sounds like.

 

Try setting your power plan to 'high performance', because i got a an average fps of 65 when it was on 'power saver', it's normally supposed to have 130 fps on css

 

Can you check half life 2 FPS in game? my game is definately not running on 130FPS on high performance

 

you cant have 130FPS I think the max is 60 FPS!!!

 

nah the max is 60 if Vsync is on

 

Type cl_showfps 2 on the console

 

I have the same problem with FSX and Test Drive Unlimited. Is very frustrating, although the problem only lasts about 15 seconds. Same laptop, same GPU.... hmmmm

 

Hello there, im having a similar issue, im a WoW player, and my laptop has always worked very good with it (steady 60 FPS, 35-40 in crowded areas), but now, sometimes after some hours of playing, my game start getting "choppy", it starts with a very subtle FPS reduction, and as minutes pass, it gets more and more choppy, doesnt matter if im in a crowded or a relatively empty area.

Now, ive tried different things:
-Diff. drivers, from dells factory default, to 174.97, 174.74, 174.93 and 169.xx, andthou ive gained some FPS with 174.97 and .93, the problem still persisted.

-Then, thought it might be a heating issue, so i opened my lappy and cleaned the airflow with compressed air, then checked the temps while playing (opened gpu-z, ran in background), temps where never above 75 (which ive been getting since always, and never failed even ith those temps before)

-wierd thing is that, when im getting 30-40 FPS due to heavy crowd, it seems fluid anyway, and when i get the "choppy" effect, even if im not on a crowded area, my FPS counter displays 30-40 FPS, but the game is at like 10 FPS, so i have to close the game and restart it again, it seems to fix things, sometimes for little time, sometimes for long periods.

-The only things that have changed are
-Ram: switched to 4Gb kingston ram (same just more, 667)
-Drivers: I switched drvers before, never had the issue, even tried the ones that i used before and new ones, so its NOT the drivers.
-Had some "WoW.exe problem" before, and it wouldnt let me start the application, just restarted pc and it worked again....

Im still trying to figure things out, but yeah, a faulty 8600mgt has crossed my mind too, thou i havent been able to find how to know if mine is faulty or not......your thoughts?

 

Hi there,
I have exactly the same problem. I am owner of ASUS G1s notebook and also wow player. I have this problem since I have this notebook. Once, my lappy was on RMA amd they returned to me brand new piece but the problem is still here :'( Please guys, if somebody can help I will be very happy.

Thanks