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03/30/2010
There has been a lot of posts about if a PC can run BC2 or what to expect from the game. We all know that just about everyone has a different setup from everyone else when it comes to PCs and this makes it harder to know how things will run for you. There are a lot of factors that affect how a game runs on your system from your CPU to the drivers on the system to even the operating system. I thought I would bring some of these more common ones together to help those looking to improve Bad Company 2 performance. This is just for FPS adjustments though some of the ideas may also help with some other issues.
I thought this guide would be helpful for those trying to figure out what they should expect FPSwise from their video cards. I think they did a good job making sure there were no other bottlenecks:
Everyone will be a bit different, but its good to know what your card may be capable of and what you might be able to achieve. I recommend using Fraps to show your FPS in BC2.
This is a list of tips I have pulled together from other posts as well as things I have done myself. You can chose to do them or not, but I personally think most people are better off trying them, besides, nothing in this is permanent and you can change back any time:
NOTE: The "settings.ini" file is located in the following paths:
XP: C:\Documents and Settings\YOURUSERNAME\My Documents\BFBC2\settings.ini
Win7/Vista: C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\Documents\BFBC2\settings.ini
Update Drivers - This sounds like a no brainer, but I dont know how many times I have seen posts where people do this and it fixes the issue. Today's video cards are a lot more complicated and the software that runs them gets fine tuned all the time to bring out their potential. Using drivers five months old can really hurt the performance of any game. Also, when updating drivers, this is not just vidoe drivers. You should also look at updating chipset drivers, sound drivers, and NIC drivers. If you are worried about your system and updating all these things, make a restore point first or be sure you have the previous version of driver available to roll back to. Many people do not believe in ever touching drivers if the system is working. Of course, if it was working, you probably wouldnt be reading this right now.
Video Resolution - If you have an older video card and its just not keeping up with BC2 and all the settings are low, you may have to think of lowering the resolution. Older systems with newer games sometimes have a hard time keeping up. By lowering your resolution you can get back some FPS to play the game without the hiccups.
DirectX Change - BC2 has the option to play in DX9, 10, or 11. This is great for those that have those lower end cards or want to get more FPS out of the system. BC2 can be manually changed in the "settings.ini" file. You want to change your string to something like this; "dxversion=9". Some have reported changing this from AUTO to the version they want has also improved how BC2 acts.
Advanced In-Game Settings - Changing the settings options in BC2 to advanced allows you to control more of the graphics than simply selecting, say, medium. By choosing advanced you can adjust items like AA and Shadowing, which the higher all these options are, the more your video has to work.
Field of View - FOV is very important in any game. The more you see the better chances you have to react. The problem in BC2 is that the FOV is a bit more complicated in settings. The only way to adjust these settings is in the "settings.ini" file. Also, the FOV setup in BC2 is a bit different and putting in a normal number that we are all used to, like 80, simply will not work like expected. Fortunatly for us, some kind soul has made a website that will calculate what you should make the field of view you are wanting:
Adjusting the FOV correctly will save a lot of headache all around for a number of different reasons, not just FPS.
Sound - Bad Company 2 has some of the best sound effects I have ever heard in an FPS. One thing they did though was make it so that sound relied more on CPU instead of soundcards. Now I know there is some debate about this and how much it really affects the game, or doesnt, but you can test this yourself when recording your FPS simply by changing the sound quality in the game. The setting "War Tapes" is the most CPU intensive and going backwards from that lowers it. Try playing with this setting to help boost not just FPS but also overall game performance. Again, if you dont like it or it doesnt make any difference for you, you can change it back. Also, be sure to pay attention to your settings when restarting BC2 as the game does not remember how you setup the sound.
RenderAheadLimit - The "RenderAheadLimit" should be a line found in your "settings.ini" file. If it is not there you can add it. The default setting is 2. What this command does is allow the CPU to render ahead so many frames from the GPU. It has been warned that setting this to 1 is not a good idea. Setting this command to 0 will disable the feature. Some have had a lot of success setting this command to 3. You will have to test it on your own PC and see how it works. What is also important is that your graphics card drivers may also have a renderahead limit. If so, you want to set it the same as the game. Some have found no difference in changing the setting.ini, but was able to fix the problem when they matched it with their video card software settings. These will be 3d settings.
Being Realistic - As stated earlier, there are many different PC setups out there and even though you may have the same video card as your neighbor and he is getting high FPS and you are not, does not mean you have the same system. There are all kinds of variables in PCs that can affect performance If you have done everything in this post and even more from other posts throughout the internet, then you have probably done all you can with the system and setup that you have. People have shown issues with things like 64bit operating systems and onboard sound as well as the model of their CPU though overclocked at a high GHz. Sometimes things are out of your control and there is not much you can do without getting drastic.
I hope you found something helpful in this. As I find more information or if people have something to add, I will update this post. Again, not all this information is mine and you can find it all over the place. Thanks to everyone for contributing and posting up links to sites and also sharing what worked for you.
Crunch
There has been a lot of posts about if a PC can run BC2 or what to expect from the game. We all know that just about everyone has a different setup from everyone else when it comes to PCs and this makes it harder to know how things will run for you. There are a lot of factors that affect how a game runs on your system from your CPU to the drivers on the system to even the operating system. I thought I would bring some of these more common ones together to help those looking to improve Bad Company 2 performance. This is just for FPS adjustments though some of the ideas may also help with some other issues.
I thought this guide would be helpful for those trying to figure out what they should expect FPSwise from their video cards. I think they did a good job making sure there were no other bottlenecks:
Everyone will be a bit different, but its good to know what your card may be capable of and what you might be able to achieve. I recommend using Fraps to show your FPS in BC2.
This is a list of tips I have pulled together from other posts as well as things I have done myself. You can chose to do them or not, but I personally think most people are better off trying them, besides, nothing in this is permanent and you can change back any time:
NOTE: The "settings.ini" file is located in the following paths:
XP: C:\Documents and Settings\YOURUSERNAME\My Documents\BFBC2\settings.ini
Win7/Vista: C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\Documents\BFBC2\settings.ini
Update Drivers - This sounds like a no brainer, but I dont know how many times I have seen posts where people do this and it fixes the issue. Today's video cards are a lot more complicated and the software that runs them gets fine tuned all the time to bring out their potential. Using drivers five months old can really hurt the performance of any game. Also, when updating drivers, this is not just vidoe drivers. You should also look at updating chipset drivers, sound drivers, and NIC drivers. If you are worried about your system and updating all these things, make a restore point first or be sure you have the previous version of driver available to roll back to. Many people do not believe in ever touching drivers if the system is working. Of course, if it was working, you probably wouldnt be reading this right now.
Video Resolution - If you have an older video card and its just not keeping up with BC2 and all the settings are low, you may have to think of lowering the resolution. Older systems with newer games sometimes have a hard time keeping up. By lowering your resolution you can get back some FPS to play the game without the hiccups.
DirectX Change - BC2 has the option to play in DX9, 10, or 11. This is great for those that have those lower end cards or want to get more FPS out of the system. BC2 can be manually changed in the "settings.ini" file. You want to change your string to something like this; "dxversion=9". Some have reported changing this from AUTO to the version they want has also improved how BC2 acts.
Advanced In-Game Settings - Changing the settings options in BC2 to advanced allows you to control more of the graphics than simply selecting, say, medium. By choosing advanced you can adjust items like AA and Shadowing, which the higher all these options are, the more your video has to work.
Field of View - FOV is very important in any game. The more you see the better chances you have to react. The problem in BC2 is that the FOV is a bit more complicated in settings. The only way to adjust these settings is in the "settings.ini" file. Also, the FOV setup in BC2 is a bit different and putting in a normal number that we are all used to, like 80, simply will not work like expected. Fortunatly for us, some kind soul has made a website that will calculate what you should make the field of view you are wanting:
Adjusting the FOV correctly will save a lot of headache all around for a number of different reasons, not just FPS.
Sound - Bad Company 2 has some of the best sound effects I have ever heard in an FPS. One thing they did though was make it so that sound relied more on CPU instead of soundcards. Now I know there is some debate about this and how much it really affects the game, or doesnt, but you can test this yourself when recording your FPS simply by changing the sound quality in the game. The setting "War Tapes" is the most CPU intensive and going backwards from that lowers it. Try playing with this setting to help boost not just FPS but also overall game performance. Again, if you dont like it or it doesnt make any difference for you, you can change it back. Also, be sure to pay attention to your settings when restarting BC2 as the game does not remember how you setup the sound.
RenderAheadLimit - The "RenderAheadLimit" should be a line found in your "settings.ini" file. If it is not there you can add it. The default setting is 2. What this command does is allow the CPU to render ahead so many frames from the GPU. It has been warned that setting this to 1 is not a good idea. Setting this command to 0 will disable the feature. Some have had a lot of success setting this command to 3. You will have to test it on your own PC and see how it works. What is also important is that your graphics card drivers may also have a renderahead limit. If so, you want to set it the same as the game. Some have found no difference in changing the setting.ini, but was able to fix the problem when they matched it with their video card software settings. These will be 3d settings.
Being Realistic - As stated earlier, there are many different PC setups out there and even though you may have the same video card as your neighbor and he is getting high FPS and you are not, does not mean you have the same system. There are all kinds of variables in PCs that can affect performance If you have done everything in this post and even more from other posts throughout the internet, then you have probably done all you can with the system and setup that you have. People have shown issues with things like 64bit operating systems and onboard sound as well as the model of their CPU though overclocked at a high GHz. Sometimes things are out of your control and there is not much you can do without getting drastic.
I hope you found something helpful in this. As I find more information or if people have something to add, I will update this post. Again, not all this information is mine and you can find it all over the place. Thanks to everyone for contributing and posting up links to sites and also sharing what worked for you.
Crunch
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