[RESOLVED] Psychonauts video problem - framerate drops

I tried out the Psychonauts demo a few weeks ago and liked it enough to get the full game. The demo ran with no probem. The game ran fine too, for a few days, until I downloaded the latest patch. Ever since I am getting sudden frame rate slowdowns during play- from the normal 25-30 fps (measured with Fraps) to 5 fps. This happens randomly, even if the screen character is not moving. After a minute or to the framerate goes back to normal. Aha, I thought, must be the fault of the patch. So I uninstalled the game and reinstalled it without the patch. Same problem! I tried updating video drivers, defragging the drive, stopped running programs with Enditall, nothing has helped. No other games seem to be affected. Anyone else see this problem?

My system:
Athlon XP 3000+
Geforce FX5700 Ultra, 81.85 driver (the latest)
768 mb ram

But are you moving the perspective around? Some people have experience some dramatic framerate drops when Raz in the campgrounds...lots of stuff the card has to render rapidly. Some cards can't keep up. What resolution are you playing at? Do you have antialiasing on? If so, turn it off and see if that makes a difference.

I think I found the problem. The cooling fan on the video card was not working and the graphics chip was overheating when it worked hard. I got the fan to spin again by poking at it, but it still seems slower than it should be. I'll probably get a replacement. Meanwhile, the game seems to be working OK now, so mark this one resolved.

What you might try is pull the card and see if the fan can be removed, just the fan... not the heatsink. Depends upon the fan arrangement you have...
Clean it up real nice and get a drop of 3 in 1 oil in there... might have to peel back a sticker or some such. Put it all back together and that could/should prolong the life of the fan.