Hello all,

Recently whilst playing Fallout 3, I run into a massive drop of fps, going from atleast 20-30 to around 1 or 2! I further investigate this and discover it's not just Fallout that is plagued with this mega performance drop, it is all my games. Everytime I play fallout, i can go atleast 30 seconds before the drop, which gives me enough time to run from Megaton to Springvale before I cannot move from the lag. This will last for atleast a minute or two, and then I'll have a brief 30 seconds of smooth gameplay before the lag returns. In the meanwhile, audio is not affected, it still plays smoothly, and when I pause, the fps returns to normal and it is smooth. I've cleaned out my computer, I've updated my drivers and recently defragged my computer too, I cannot work out why it does not work now, when all of my games have worked perfectly. I've even closed all background programs that can be possibly closed and prioritised memory to the current running game.

I'm well adjusted with computers but I'm not all that familiar with the hardware etc, so forgive me in any mistakes here, I have:

Windows Vista 32 bit
Intel dual 1.60GHz processor
2GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT

My tower is kept in a generally cool place with little to non dust build up, and I have had the computer for 3 years (4 soon) with little to no problems other than the odd replacement here and there. Games have worked perfectly untill recently and was advertised as a Gaming PC when I bought it.

With my only console dying on me recently and Skyrim coming out very soon, I am keen to get my computer playing games again without this drop in FPS.

Many Thanks!

Random thoughts/guesses:

Since it's not limited to only one game:
--your GPU is on it's last legs/time for a replacement
--your GPU is over-heating for some reason (even if overall pc looks non-dusty, could still be a lot of dust inside the card you can't see)

Could try running gpu-z and check your temperatures there,and that everything is running as it should regarding speeds and such,just to rule that out eventually.
Otherwise could try different drivers,or if you recently installed a program or put new hardware in your pc that can explain the drop (from when it worked to it isn′t kinda).

Had to go back in drivers my self recently since I got a minor drop too,back a few versions to one I know works solved it.