It seems like as my comp gets older my fps gets lower, i started out with my gfx card (nvidia geforce 7600gt) getting 100 fps on autox layouts, and over about 1-2 years, now im getting like 5 fps , all settings low , everything like shadows, skid marks etc, off, user LOD all the way low, and my game will look like a piece of crap, im not even running any processes that arent nescessary. is this lfs or my computer?

Specs :

Intel Pentium 4 Dual Core 2.4GHz Processor
Nvidia Geforce 7600GT Graphics
1 GB Ram
200 GB SATA HD

Try defragging harddrive / clearing internet cache / a bunch of other maintenance you obviously ignored. You must take care of your baby

Just search on interweb, there are tons of articles explaining how to clean computer (virtually)

i usually do clean my computer regularly , but i guess ill try some more

Edit: yea erm i feel stupid, half of my files are fragmented LOL

Wow, thanks for making this thread lol. I also found why my LFS was getting slower and slower. >.<

:] np i guess haha

gfx card overheating cause of the dirt in the fan/rad?

No no no, not even a badly fragmented drive can cause this, once the textures and everything are loaded into memory, the hard drive won't affect fps, it may cause slow load times, but once the game is running, everything will be in memory, and he has plenty for LFS. In fact, with his system, he should have no trouble running the fps he mentioned he was getting originally.

Something else is wrong, I recommend uninstalling you video card's drivers, then use a driver cleaner, reboot and install the newest drivers from nvidia.com . From there, if that doesn't help, well, I'd start with this, is LFS the only game that does this? If so, backup skins, setups, etc etc, and reinstall the game entirely. If all games are doing this, you've either got a corrup driver somewhere, or you're overheating somewhere and the machine is throttling back.

Post a DXDiag if all else fails, there's just no way a fragmented drive could cause this, unless you're getting extreme disc thrashing, running out of virtual memory, and the swap file is going nuts trying to keep up, and a fragmented drive from there can make it worse, but, still LFS uses very little memory, and since you don't have anything else running in the background, I find that unlikely. Like I said, even the worst fragmented drive in the world shouldn't effect fps, because once the game is loaded, and you're in the race, everything should be in system and video memory.

Maybe someone else can help if my few tips don't, but I can almost certainly say it woudln't be your drive, because, I mean, once it's loaded(and a fragmented drive will cause terrible load times, and eventually errors on the drive) the hard drive serves little function, on an otherwise healthy system.

If you haven't cleaned out your case in a while, start there, and make sure your fans are functioning. Good luck.

I actually had a similar system a while back, and the 7600 is just, a powerhouse in terms of LFS, heh, it doesn't need much power, you should be able to run a nice high resolution with AA and AF with little trouble.

I believe it's his CPU overheating. Nearly all (MODERN) Intel and AMD CPU's will actually run without a CPU cooler. There was a video on Tom's Hardware, where they took the coolers off. The (old P4) Intel just cut back to around 1 or 2 FPS on whatever FPS game they were playing.

Open up your case, check the CPU fan for any major dust build up. Even a thin covering on top of the fins is enough to cause it to overheat. Made my old P4 idle at 55 degrees till I caught it.

Do what DHRammstein said, it's pretty solid advice

Don't tell me that after those 2 years, you still have your original Windows installation