FPS drops when too close to a model/sprite

Hi

The post title pretty much explains everything.
I have a model with about 16 faces, transparent, that is the 'projection' of the light of a light post. and under it,at the ground, a TGA sprite of something that simulates the light that hits the ground.(a circle with transparent edges)
I dont use the light engine at all.. its just simple models and simple sprites that simulates the light of street lighposts.

The game inside the city runs about 50fps. when i get too close of this model and sprite of light, the fps instateneously drops to 30/35...sometimes 40.

And the same happend to a old project/game of mine, the bullets that hitted the wall, created a sprite of a hole. when i get close to the wall and close to that sprite the fps drops.

anyone knows any explanation to that?

thanks in advance!

The transparency forces the 3D renderer to calculate a mix
of the transparent and background parts per pixel. Non-transparent polys can just
draw over the old scene.

Its not unique to 3dgs, I have the same problems everytime a bigger
transparent object gets close, in different games.

hmm..
is there any workaround?

Check the number of polygons that the model is using. It's recommended to use low-poly ones if your video card is weak (eg. intergrated video). Anything over 900 Polys may cause clipping.

it has only 16 polys... and when far enough it morphs to a small size sprite, like LOD.

Yeah, i know this problem. Downloading the latest driver is the solution.

i dont even know if there is a latest driver for my video card.
But the real question is, how does it not even happen with other games in my computer?
Damocles said that it happens in other games too, but i couldnt notice any fps drop in any other game in my computer when i get close to transparent objects.