You do pay for Dynamic Shadows

[QWFreak]

My new rig just set sail today. BF2 auto detects Medium for me. In-game, there is jerking for whichever maps I played. I figured it must be the Video settings so I went and tried switching "Dynamic Shadows" to "Low" instead of "Medium". It helps.

I have already got 1GB already, man what more do you asking for? I find Battlefield 2 is a memory eater also. The more you give it, the more it sucks. When I was using 768MB RAM only, it used 678MB roughly. Now that I have 1024MB, it uses 940MB. I really need to upgrade my memory when my salary comes in this month.

[ActiveMatx]

Re: You do pay for Dynamic Shadows

I got 2 gigs of ram,

and a x1900xtx. I got everything on HIGH.

and 1680 x 1050 resolution.

Doesnt jerk at all. I think the ram helps a lot and speeds up the loading times. Just dont go higher than 2 gigs, because then u sacrifice performance for higher memory space.

[Zefram]

Re: You do pay for Dynamic Shadows

I got 2 gigs of ram,

and a x1900xtx. I got everything on HIGH.

and 1680 x 1050 resolution.

Doesnt jerk at all. I think the ram helps a lot and speeds up the loading times. Just dont go higher than 2 gigs, because then u sacrifice performance for higher memory space.

Any AA?

[ActiveMatx]

Re: You do pay for Dynamic Shadows

Any AA?

4x on AA..... I know I have it enabled..... I think it is 4x.... Its not 2x, so its either 4x or 6x. I will confirm after playing (which im doing right now).

I am debating whether I should play a round at wake island and fight for the chopper and jets, or go play a round of karkland or shaqui...

i think ill go forwhatever pings lowest in the browser.

[Rambo]

Re: You do pay for Dynamic Shadows

battlefield needs approx 1.5 gig to run error free
you may find ur pagefile maxed out
if you can get away with it good for you
they didnt tell anyone this and 2142 will be worse u would think

[QWFreak]

Re: You do pay for Dynamic Shadows

Shortly prior to the upgrade, I was having 3 sticks of 256MB RAM modules of different brands inserted. Since my current motherboard P5P800 SE is dual channel built, I must purchase 1 more 1GB DDR400 memory module to complete the upgrade.

A bit tight on my wallet right now, but things shall be soothed out by the end of the month when I get the wages.

By then, I should have a system running with 2GB RAM! Right now, I should rely on the pagefile.

[imported_TheDragon]

Re: You do pay for Dynamic Shadows

I got 2 gigs of ram,

and a x1900xtx. I got everything on HIGH.

and 1680 x 1050 resolution.

Doesnt jerk at all. I think the ram helps a lot and speeds up the loading times. Just dont go higher than 2 gigs, because then u sacrifice performance for higher memory space.

absolutely NOT true
went to 4gb ram
BIG improvement on load times and non-jerk/snag/lag in game start

[*FMJ*Power]

Re: You do pay for Dynamic Shadows

absolutely NOT true
went to 4gb ram
BIG improvement on load times and non-jerk/snag/lag in game start

yea, cant have to much ram. if its load times that you guys are trying to increase get a raid setup and it will take you all of 10 seconds to load a map.

on anothe note, i run a x1900xtx crossfire setup and i dont even use the dynamic shawdows and i put my lighting on low but i like to actualy see what im not shooting at, not some ghost in a shadow somewhere. dynamic lighting may look pretty but your fragrate will thank you when you turn it off.

[ActiveMatx]

Re: You do pay for Dynamic Shadows

absolutely NOT true
went to 4gb ram
BIG improvement on load times and non-jerk/snag/lag in game start

The biggest problem with going over 2GB is the hardware. Right now, on the majority of PC boards ram will not run at full speed with more than 2 sticks installed on the motherboard, or with multiple 2GB sticks. Running over 2GB total most oftem means dropping the ram speed by up to 50% and backing down the timings (espeically the command rate from 1T to 2 or more) - which takes an AWFUL toll on system performance. If you need a large ram machine, the best option is a mac, unfortunately. And no, simply adding 1GB more of addressable ram to your system (3GB limit) would not improve things significantly for you anyway. Going to 4 or 8 addressable (mac) would though. From your limited description of workflow needs though, it doesn't sound like you need to do anything. You might be spending $10,000 to save a couple minutes.

I would first consider a faster file system if you have bottlenecks reading and writing. The best value right now is a SATA2 RAID0 array with drives supporting NCQ such as the new Maxtors.

[Bungalow_Bill]

Re: You do pay for Dynamic Shadows

The best value right now is a SATA2 RAID0 array with drives supporting NCQ such as the new Maxtors.

QFT. I got two of the newest 80gig seagate SATA2 7200 RPM drives for 40 bucks a pop, set them in a Raid 0 configuration and I must say that those two cheapo drives eat load times for breakfast. It's almost too fast to be useful because on the majority of servers I load up in under 25 seconds and for 10-20 seconds I sit staring at the "Game starting in.." screen. Thought that's kind of nice because it gives you a little prep time for you pick your kit and select a spawn point.

To the OP: 1gig of ram is plenty for BF2 as long as you're at medium settings. Dynamic shadows and how well it runs on your system depends mostly on your video card and resolution and not on the amount of memory you have. None of my hardware specifications is all that impressive with a standard 1 gig of dual channel Corsair ValueSelect memory with custom timings, a 3000+ AMD64 Venice OCed @ 2.8ghz and a 7600GT OCed 684/1724 and running at a 1920x1200 resolution (which hurts overall performance a lot in some games) and I'm able to keep all my settings at medium with high geometry and maintain 60+ FPS on a 64 player server. I'd credit that kind of performance mostly to my high overclocks so maybe that's something worth considering for you.

[BigRedRat]

Re: You do pay for Dynamic Shadows

Shortly prior to the upgrade, I was having 3 sticks of 256MB RAM modules of different brands inserted. Since my current motherboard P5P800 SE is dual channel built, I must purchase 1 more 1GB DDR400 memory module to complete the upgrade.

A bit tight on my wallet right now, but things shall be soothed out by the end of the month when I get the wages.

By then, I should have a system running with 2GB RAM! Right now, I should rely on the pagefile.

I'm running the same MB,an Asus.If you use unmatched memory,ie,dif latency or clock speeds,the MB will default to the slowest latency,clock speed.I found it best to buy 2 1gig sticks of mem by the same vendor to insure dual channel operation.Hope this helps.

[imported_TheDragon]

Re: You do pay for Dynamic Shadows

I use my 4gb for game loads
and yes = raid 0 would be better
but my MB does not have raid
(yes - i could get a card - but just waiting to upgrade whole system soon)
and the 4g does great for my multi app use in my "day time"

and I totally disagree with speeds and other performance degradations
I have done considerable testing to verify
only BAD thing done , was when I had only 3gb
(2 1gb stick and 2 .5g) - it caused loss of dual channel operations
which did hurt performance
so I bought all matched ram

often times we beet in the clan guys that have 2gb ram and raid 0
(but not the ones with 10k raptors in raid 0)

[Dearmad]

Re: You do pay for Dynamic Shadows

yea, cant have to much ram. if its load times that you guys are trying to increase get a raid setup and it will take you all of 10 seconds to load a map.

on anothe note, i run a x1900xtx crossfire setup and i dont even use the dynamic shawdows and i put my lighting on low but i like to actualy see what im not shooting at, not some ghost in a shadow somewhere. dynamic lighting may look pretty but your fragrate will thank you when you turn it off.

This depresses me and is an oversight by DICE. I had a thread on this somewhere... should be forced on people to have this on, the game lacks a lot tactical fun with this off. Sorta like in CoD how the stun effect cannot be turned off by anyone, as it's integral to the game.

[Blades]

Re: You do pay for Dynamic Shadows

Before you buy the RAM, make sure your motherboard posts with the RAM. My friends RAM (OCZ) doesnt work with my motherboard (because my mobo is a piece of ****).

[imported_Wasp]

Re: You do pay for Dynamic Shadows

I use my 4gb for game loads
and yes = raid 0 would be better
but my MB does not have raid
(yes - i could get a card - but just waiting to upgrade whole system soon)
and the 4g does great for my multi app use in my "day time"

and I totally disagree with speeds and other performance degradations
I have done considerable testing to verify
only BAD thing done , was when I had only 3gb
(2 1gb stick and 2 .5g) - it caused loss of dual channel operations
which did hurt performance
so I bought all matched ram

often times we beet in the clan guys that have 2gb ram and raid 0
(but not the ones with 10k raptors in raid 0)

I think you need to extend your "considerable" testing because it's standard for most motherboards to reduce command rate to 2T if you have 4 mem sticks installed. If you have older AMD 64 versions and motherboards you can also expect a reduction in memory speed to 333Mhz. This is the reason I put my expensive Patriot XBL 2x512MB on the shelf and bought 2x1024 OCZ.