Dawn of War 2 Retribution from 186 fps to 6

[Scaleo]

Today I made a similiar thread to this one on another forum, but no answers yet, so I thought I try this forum as well.
About 3 weeks ago I got a new hard drive on the pc, with the same specs as before (GTX660, Core I7 3770 3.40GHz and 8GB RAM).
Note that the hard drive is the same as the last one but serves as a replacement (product guarentee).
DoW 2 Retribution used to run flawless maxed out settings, but ever since I installed back on the new hard drive I noticed that the game freezes from time to time (every 15 to 30 seconds) and than it can go flawless for like 5 minutes and than it freezes frequently again.
The load times seem to be longer than they used to be as well.
Any ideas what could be causing this and how to fix this?
I will provide the screenshots with the settings and the performance test below.

Thanks in advance.

Settings:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=295132473

Performance test results:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=295132380

 

[Greybeard Croft]

Maybe you got a worse HDD.
If you could detail which HDD you had and the one you recently got it might help move this along.

 

[Scaleo]

Maybe you got a worse HDD.
If you could detail which HDD you had and the one you recently got it might help move this along.

Well since it got replaced free of charged cause of my warranty, I am pretty sure it's the HDD I had before.
As for what kind of HDD it is, I am not sure how to find out myself, maybe you can tell me?

 

[Scaleo]

What I have noticed as well is that the game mainly freezes when I go from one view of the map directly to another side of the map via the mini map.
Maybe that tells something about the problem.

 

[James Mason]

You're probably missing some drivers, or you had an older version of a driver/directx/ect that was working correctly and now the newer one isn't.

 

[Scaleo]

You're probably missing some drivers, or you had an older version of a driver/directx/ect that was working correctly and now the newer one isn't.

I think you might be right cause each time I choose to validate my file DoW 2 Retribution files via Steam it asks me wether I want to delete the game or not, after I choose no it tells me it's downloading DirectX for Windows or something.
The download is 7MB according to Steam, but this validiting does not fix it since I have to do it everytime

 

[Scaleo]

I just check my installed programs in configuration and it showed me no signs of DirectX installed, should I install it manually? And if so what source is most reliable?

 

[Greybeard Croft]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/179113

 

[Scaleo]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/179113

I tried to download DirectX with the instuctions given as in, I went to Windows update, downloaded optional updates (there were 2 and 1 important one) and restarted the pc as was asked.
Ran the performance test on same settings again, and got a minimum of 20fps and maximimum of 196fps, wich is better than it was before.
But the thing is now I have a old GPU driver, 331.65.
Wich is like 1 year old if I am right, so should I keep this one or download the new one again?
And also, I still can't find DirectX in the programs in the control panel.

 

[Greybeard Croft]

I mean you could try and install the latest directx and if it's giving negative results, switch back to the driver that you said has helped a bit.

I'm not sure about the not finding directx though..

 

[Scaleo]

I mean you could try and install the latest directx and if it's giving negative results, switch back to the driver that you said has helped a bit.

I'm not sure about the not finding directx though..

Well the game has been running without problems after the update anyway.
Thanks both of you for your support

 

[Greybeard Croft]

You're welcome, but it was mainly James Mason with the solution, he suggested the drivers.