I have also added an additional check when playing sounds that you have not downloaded, as some people reported crashing if you did not download music
Yes. Yes. and Yes.
No more shall there be people complaining because they were (as is most often the case, but I suppose not ALWAYS) too lazy to download sounds.
(I could not personally duplicate this issue).
Wait, you managed to NOT fall victim to the single thing that happens (seemingly) every time?
I used to have this problem all the time on my old computer. I'd fix it by going inside the bed, dresser, or any other separate interior area. If it is the same, Kitchen should be unbearable lag by default unless you get into the cabinets. I use to have this most of the time, whereas I'd have periods of time without any lag at all for this. You might want to try updating your video drivers, although I'm unsure if this will help. But it would help with other things, I'm sure.
I only get terrible (graphical) lag in servers with A LOT of bricks (i.e., Badspot's block party with 100k+ bricks). In big fat builds like that, I just walk with my camera facing the ground.
On BL, however, I tend to get a graphical lag spike every-so-often (depending on the server). The time between spikes is fine, and time between is almost constant, to the point where it seems
timed.
Running a 128MB integrated vid card. On the upside, 4GB RAM (which I think is the max for XP).
Hell, I lag less in TF2, but I can't render big maps very well there.
Any idea what the constant spikes may be? and yes, I already updated my drivers and realize the card is stuff. But if it were THAT crappy, I think the lag would be constant and not...well, intermittent, I suppose.