FPS problems

I know my laptop is a little old, but back when i first bought it, i was able to play crysis on medium settings with no problems at all. Now, i cant even play dungeon defenders. I dont understand whats wrong. all of a sudden, my laptop went from being able to play most games flawlessly to barely running lower end games. My specs are:
Core 2 duo P8400 @ 2.3 GHz
Nvidia Geforce 9600M GS
4 gigs of ram
Windows 7 32 bit
i know the OS cant even use all of my ram, but i dont think thats the problem. I'm hoping that there is a solution to this that doesnt involve buying a new laptop.

 

This game is more demanding than it seems. At least, maybe for some users, look at my specs and I had trouble running this game for some reason... Lol.

First of all use this to check your system is up to it: Can You RUN It

Then try updating programs/drivers.

Nvidia: Nvidia Update
DirectX: DirectX Update

Try doing the same for your sound drivers.

Also, Win 7 32bit can recognize up to 4GB of RAM I believe.

 

well, its not just that game, league of legends also. i used to be able to play the game at 60 fps on low settings, then all of a sudden i had to lessen the resolution and set the framerate cap to 25 just to be able to play it smoothly. i just dont understand, games that should run completely fine on low settings have just as much trouble as if i were playing them on high settings.