low fps on team fortress 2

[imhungry]

Right, first off computer specs:

OS - Windows XP (32bit i think) SP2
CPU - AMD 2.21 ghz X2 4200+
RAM - 3 GB (2x Crucial and 1 Kingston)
Motherboard - Foxconn WinFast 6100M2MA-RS2H
GPU - xfx 9600 GT (latest drivers)

Secondly the problem: I get really low frame rates while playing Team Fortress 2.

This is how TF2 usually ends up for me:
Find server with 50~70 ping.
Spawn with 50-60 FPS.
Run into the battle, FPS drops to 10-15/20.

I have no idea why this happens. I tried putting TF2 on the lowest settings, nothing changes, still the same low FPS. Then I tried running TF2 on my old 7600 GT, lowest settings, no improvement (sounds redundant yes).

So after that it leads me to believe that its the CPU that's causing the low frame rate. Nothing else eats any CPU or RAM power while TF2 is running and even then TF2 takes most of the CPU/RAM.

I'll post some screens later, but for now thanks for any replies.

[Elegance]

I had the same problem. xD For some reason, any steam game I run tears my fps. If you don't mind the game looking a little worse, type -dxlevel 81 into the launch options. It gives me about 40fps and I'm running a way junkier heap than yours.

[imhungry]

Yeah I did try running it at even lower settings through some FPS improvement scripts I found.

Barely an improvement, only jumped up from 10-25ish max, in heavy fights around 19ish and it goes down.

But I'll give the dxlevel a shot later on.

Here are some screens (ran in 1024x768 windowed):
The ones with the Task Manager show hl2.exe using around 50-60% of CPU power with Steam and System Idle using at least 10-20%.

[Sakumo]

CPU is the issue. TF2 is a heavily CPU dependent game, so is any other source engine game. But, first of all, what settings are you using, and did you enable multicore support?

[Sakumo]

Well, if you really cant raise your fps at all, i really recommend using an fps config. Definitely as a last resort only though. The graphics are ruined, in exchange for a leap in performance.

Also, all source-engine games are Ghz whores. So a really high clocked processor can get you adequate fps ingame.

Pretty much what I said, but explained.

[imhungry]

Yeah I already mentioned I had tried using an autoconfig FPS script. Very minor FPS gain.

I'm going to attempt to overclock as after doing some research on overclocking the AMD X2 4200+, it seems to be a pretty good CPU to overclock with just regular cooling fans.

Though with that said, any tips or advice before I try to overclock?

Explaining vcore to me would help greatly (read a bit of it on ocforums..kinda got it).