4 months ago, I could play TF2 at high quality with no lag. Now, I cannot. Nothing visible has changed--I'm running the same system, I have the same internet connection, and I'm playing the same servers. Not only do I now have lag, it's very strange lag.
The Symptoms: Every time a player on my team gets inside of my field of view, I get slideshow-level lag spikes. The closer they are to me, the worse it gets. It specifically only occurs with friendly players-I can fight enemies with no problems. If I'm not looking at them, there is no lag.
What I've tried:
- Uninstalling/Reinstalling the game
- Restarting Steam
- Restarting my PC
- Restarting my internet connection
- Going through every graphic setting in advanced options and turning them down (including model graphics)
I know someone will ask, so here are specs:
Processor: Intel Core i5-6300HQ 2.30GHz
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 940MX
Video Card #2: Intel(R) HD Graphics 530
RAM: 8.0 GB
OS: Microsoft Windows 10 (build 14393), 64-bit
The worst part about this situation is that everything was fine 4 months ago. It all ran smoothly with no problems.
Anyone have any ideas about how to fix this problem?
Edit: after posting, I went back and realized that the lag only happens when a friendly player is in my cross-hair. Now that I know this, I can avoid it, but it's still annoying and I have no clue what's causing it.