Low-end graphics performance after I17 - drivers?

My wife's laptop's framerate for City has dropped substantially with the release of Issue 17. It's fairly old now - the graphics card is Nvidia 7000M.

My first thought was drivers - it has the 179.48 drivers at the moment. Is there anything more recent for the 7000M?

Is there anything else that I could try to improve things for her (short of a new laptop)?

NVIDIA drivers can be found on their webpage

http://www.nvidia.com

We have the settings as low as they'll go, and 179.48 is the latest driver I can find on nvidia.com.

Okay, that was weird. Logged in to check if it was still happening - 20-25 fps for the first couple of minutes, but now, in the same place without moving, down to 7-8 fps, and I can't see anything graphical happening to cause that.

Update:
-logging out and back in to the same character in the same place - same 7-8fps
-QUITTING out and reloading the client - same character, same place - 20-22fps (watching it now to see if/when it drops)

Which it does, down to 7-8fps again.

On my GeForce 6600FX, I found that if I have Shader Quality on any of the three lowest settings, my framerate plummets. Actually setting Shader Quality to medium or high fixed this.

Having the exact same problem here with my 7900 GS, but as detailed in this thread, I am unable to actually update my drivers past the ones I'm currently using due to a critical flaw in newer nvidia drivers.

I notice that every time the framerate momentarily dies, it's in time with a (green, not getting any yellow or red) peak on the netgraph, no matter how small. And this happens even when running around the same small area or just panning the camera around.

After a google search and using GPU-Z to monitor the GPU, I think it might be a heat thing.

The CPU temperature was in the 60s(C) idling at the desktop, then climbed slowly up while running City - when it hit 90C the GPU Core Clock went from 350MHz to 100MHz and the framerate dropped like a stone.

The info I found also included some advice on clearing out the fan and heatsink, so I might give that a go.

(Not sure why I-17 would cause this, though - I certainly haven't invoked Ultra Mode!)

Here are my settings in the Graphics Options reading from the top:

----
1280x1024
1280x1024
60
100%
Off
Enabled
Customized
----
Stenciled Shadows
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
----
Enabled
N/A
Medium
High
Very High
100%
100%
50000
Enabled
Color
Stencil Shadows
N/A
N/A
Enabled
4x
Smooth
Low (with world bumpmaps)
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A

It turns out at least some of the problem was heat - apparently this model of Acer laptop is known for accumulating dust. When we opened it up it had the most dust I've ever seen inside a PC, and when we cleaned it out and fired up City again, it ran about 15C cooler.

Possibly the cooling finally given up coincided with I-17's release.

I run a Gateway MT3423 Laptop with a Nvidia GeoForce Go 6100, and I have seen a very noticable hit on framerate as well. Even with all the options for Ultra Mode disabled, it seems the 'upgrade' is still doing the opposite for me.

I've tried everything I can think of sort of -lowering- my setting below the point they were at before I17 (which I feel would bring the game's quality down to the point it would hardly be worth playing anymore....some upgrade). I've even tried adjusting the Shader Quality upward as one poster suggested, but that had the predictable result of making things worse, not better.

My settings before I17 were (and remain):

Screen/Ui Res: 1280 x 80
3D Scale: 1140 x 712
Refresh Rate: 60
Gamma: 100%
Advanced Graphics: Enable

Suppress Player FX: Disable
Suppress Player FX when Close: Enable
Particle Quality: None
World Texture Quality: High
Character Texture Quality: High
World Detail: 76%
Character Detail: 100%
Max Particle Count: 50000
Vertical Synch: Enable
FSAA: Off/Disable
Shadows: Enable/Stencil
Geometry Buffer: Disabled
Antisotropic Filter: Off
Texture Crispness: Smooth
Shader Quality: Low (No World)
Water Effects: None
Depth of Field Effect: Disabled
Bloom Effects: None
Desaturation Effects: Disabled

I've checked for updated drivers, and have the most current one (same as before I17) from Gateway (Nvidia refuses to support the Go 6100, and does not list it on their website, requiring users to gain any updates from the computer manufacturers).

I'm more or less at my wits end trying to think of anything to do that won't lower my graphics further. Currently operating at about 3-4 fps in most areas of the game. Tried adjusting Shader Quality, Shadows, Max Particle Count, all without beneficial effect.

Any ideas?

Revamped graphics engine so give the buffers thing another try.

Thanks for the advice, but I'm afraid neither reducing the Max Particle Count or using the Geometry Buffers had any effect on the fps of the game. Still getting 2-4 fps on many parts of the game (though at least using the geometry buffers doesn't give the old vector graphics problem it used to).

It just irritates me that the devs couldn't leave the non-ultra mode graphics alone, and impacts the gameplay of those unable to use it. EVE Online went this way, and forced alot of players out of their game in favor of catering to those with top-teir systems. I'd hate to think CoX is going this route.

They were trying NOT to make a change in the experience for those with older systems, but sometimes things occur that aren't planned.

They are working to get this resolved but they need the players to work with them in order to find all of the problems and HOW to resolve them.