Hello all,

Sorry for what may be a dumb question, but I'm all out of ideas. So my game will run nicely at the outset, but will begin slowing and shuddering to the point of unplayability within a matter of minutes; what can I do to deal with this?

Some background to this question: I was running FNV on my PC flawlessly for 160 hours before I had to restore my machine to factory settings, losing everything. Now I've got my computer in it's fresh state with unnecessary programs deleted and drivers updated, so I figure this game would run better than it had when the machine was full of junk and fluff. At first recognition of this problem, I thought it could be a patching issue, but Steam thinks I'm up to date. I did the d3d9.dll thing to no avail. I've also reduced the effects to the very minimum, eliminated all unnecessary running background programs, and have formatted my graphics card to operate for best performance, but the issue persists. Additionally, the RAM allotment has been increased. I've reached the limit of my meager PC knowledge and really don't know what to do at this point.

If my solution is overly obvious or if my googling efforts were too little, I apologize. That said, I greatly appreciate any input and assistance.

Edit: I should mention that there seems to be no real trigger for this slowdown. It has even occurred in the middle of conversations and while using menus.