Slow/Stuttery Half-Life 1 Performance.

[mingsoup]

I would think that my rig could put out a 60fps constant HL1 performance, and I'm pretty sure that my older systems did, but I'm having trouble with my current computer.


E2160 @3.2 Ghz. (~E6750-E6850)
2 Gig DDR2400 Ram
7800GTX stock
P35-DS3L Gigabyte mobo.



I'm trying to run Natural Selection through steam. I've got it set to 1920*1200 Open GL 32 bit. However, I'm getting frequent dips down to 30 and 20 fps. This shouldn't be happening. Say an enemy gets close and starts attacking. Or just many people around at once. Also, If I open up the menu while playing, the FPS also goes south to 30 and 20fps, which I can feel while navigating the server browser.
I've grabbed the latest Nvidia, Creative Audigy, and P35 Intel drivers. Defragged in the last 2 months at least. Checked my Half Life 1 files for both integrity and defragmented them in steam. Microsoft Security Essentials hasn't picked up anything, if that counts for anything.

I'm running Windows 7, which I have never really gamed seriously on before. I've got as much stuff disabled as I can in the background. Indexing is definitely off.

I'm thinking about just reformatting to XP? Would that be a good idea?

 

[mingsoup]

Turns out to be a strange priority issue in Windows 7 or something.


On the Natural Selection Forums, I found that setting hl.exe's priority to low fixes this problem, which it did for me. Now I'm solid 60fps like I remember.

Very Very Odd.