Slow down in games, possible since win 7 install?

[Slinger]

Lately since being home for xmas, I've wanted to play a few rounds of l4d and that but performance has really gone down.

I used to be able to play l4d ok at a resonable frame rate, I think it used to be around 25 to 30, with the very occasional noticable dip, but it was playable.

But lately, theres just worse and it makes the game really irritating, I mean it used to be fine even when there are loads of hordes of zombies coming !

I have played with the video settings, setting most of low and also putting it down from the native res, still no reall improvment.

I have a Dell studio 15, with the radeon hd 3450 256mb.

I mean even if I stick that trials 2 game on, (the one on sale on steam) using the highest settings, but runing windowed 1024x768 ... i get around 10fps. surely that game cant run that bad on my system ?

all games just seem to be running worse, I'm not sure if its the fact ive upgraded from vista to win 7 since I last played or that I updated drivers.

I did clean and reinstall the latest ati drivers from the dell website yesterday and still the problem is there. I cleaned the drivers properly too using driver cleaner etc etc.

Wierd, wondering if you guys know what it could be, hopefully easily sorted !

I know my laptop isnt great, but it just does seem to have dropped in performance.

Now that I think about it, I have had CPU spikes in windows, something new thats been happening, maybe thats cuasing it and its not the GPU ?

 

[Lyon85]

You mentioned windowed mode there, if you are using the Windows Aero theme then Windows will force vsync on to eliminate tearing in Windows, vsync will only disable if you enter a full screen application (and that application is not using vsync). If you play in windowed mode then you get vsync whether you want it or not.

Given you are gaming on a laptop I would advise against using vsync, it will only hurt frame rate. Either game in fullscreen or right click the games exe, properties, compatibility and Disable Visual Themes. This will disable Areo while that application is open. This won't make a difference to L4D however unless you game in windowed mode, or borderless window like I do. I just thought it was worth mentioning.

 

[richiesimms]

I have a problem with left 4 dead 2 as well.The first round the graphics run as they should.On the second loadup of any round they have degraded.
As a short term fix ive found that changing one of the graphics options like aa fixes it till next round.Don`t know what is causing this though.