GTA IV 100% CPU Usage

[yassarikhan786]

I have recently noticed that GTA IV drops to 1 FPS on occasion and the performance monitor on my G510 keyboard shows the CPU usage at 100% when this happens. I am sure it is because of the game, but I wanted to get a second opinion.

 

[dugdiamond]

test to see if any other apps are running in the background

 

[yassarikhan786]

I only have hardware monitoring software, steam and a few browser windows open. I only have this problem with GTA IV. All of the other games run as smooth as silk. Initially GTA IV ran very smoothly and the frame drops only started recently (1 or 2 weeks). I haven't downloaded any new software that would affect the performance. Do you think it could be my Antivirus software doing automatic updates that is causing the 100% cpu usage and the resulting frame drops.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that the frame drops occur when I'm driving (oddly enough), and never in an intense gun fight with explosions and flying bullets.

 

[Ya93sin]

Some AntiViruses have a 'gaming' mode, but look in reliability logs and see what you installed or changed a couple weeks ago if it's an application