Lag

[hetzer]

I am getting frequent "lagging" behaviour (graphical freezing) in single player games. I have read that firewall ports need opened for punkbuster updating etc etc can be a factor ..... BUT will this affect single player games as well???

I have zonealarm pro running on my client machine and also it connects to the internet via a Netgear router!!

I could understand these being a factor in multiplayer internet or LAN games but will single player games also be affected?

[alextaylor29]

Same problem here even playing Single Player. All drivers are up to date.

[NoSoup4You]

It is actually related to sound. I need to know system specs inorder to help you.

Alex, yours will be more difficult to rectifiy, as you have onboard sound which this game usually struggles with so try adjusting the sound settings to get rid of your FPS drop.

[hetzer]

As far as sound is concerned I have an Audigy 2 with the latest OpenAL drivers and have tried the dll swapping trick (putting the latest nvidia / creative OpenAL32.dll renamed as BF2OpenAL.dll in the game folder). Setting Sound to medium and no EAX makes no difference either! SO I am thinking my problem is not sound related!!

Could CachemanXP be the culprit? It seems to co exist with all my other games. Even naughty ones like Doom3 which I initially had problems with before the patch!

Also is anti virus and or anti Spy ware a problem with BF2. I run Avast! and the Ms beta Antispyware thing!

[Merlin]

You have alot of third party software one your machine, are these programs running in the backgroud? If so shut them all down before starting bf2. Aslo give your full system specs as if you only have somthing like 512 MB ram you could be leading us on a wild goose chase coz it could be something simple, If you give us the specs we may be able to highlight your problem better.

[Nomad2k3]

anti virus and 3rd party programs are icky things when playing bf2 shut em down if you can, as for alex, could be a similar thing,
ive also heard rumors that 2 gig of ram can be contradictiry to performance with this game, is it dual channel memory 2x1gig? or a host of 512's?

more info please fellas :)

[hetzer]

My SPec


CPU: Pentium 4 3.2GHz [1Mb F2 cache] Prescott 800MHz FSB
Mainboard: MSI i875P Neo-FISR pcb2 (MS-6758)
Gigabyte 3D Cooler Ultra PCU31-VH 2004 GT Edition.
RAM: 1Gb (2x512) of Corsair TwinX 1024-3200LLPT RAM 2.7V 2-3-2-6-T1 Burst 4
GRAPHICS Card: Creative Geforce FX 5950 256Mb DDR RAM
Monitor: IIyama 22inch Monitor HA202DT
Sound Card: Creative Audigy 2
Speakers: Creative 5.1 Inspire 5700 speakers
H Phones: Zalman Theatre 6 ZM-RS6F 5.1 Surround Sound
HDDs: 3x Maxtor 120Gb HD Diamond Max Plus 9
1x S-ATA & 2xATA133 P-ATA HDDs in alloy 3 fan caddies
S-ATA HDD in CoolerMaster CoolDrive 6
Optical Disks: Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-106D & Panasonic DVD ROM SR-8587
10 Bay Tower. 3 fan 520watt Hiper PSU
+5V|52amp +12V|20amp +3.3V|28amp -5V|05amp -12V|0.8amp +5Vsb|3amp
Epson Perfection 1660 Scanner
Epson Stylus Photo 915 Printer
Saitek Cyborg 3D Rumble Force Joystick
Saitek P2500 Rumble JoyPad
External HDD: 1x Maxtor Diamond Max 10 (250Gb)
in Firewire/USB2 Prolific PL3507 Combo Device
USB Flash RAM PenDrive 64Mb

Software Windows XP Pro build 2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519 (Service Pack2) with all current updates
Ms .NET Framework 1.1 + security hotfix & SP1
Nvidia driver 6.14.10.7184
Creative Sound Driver including latest Audigy 2 updates EAX4DRV_AUDIGY2_1_84_50

[hetzer]

RE last post ...........
OOps nvidia driver is now version 77.30! Tried Det 77.72 but HL2 was a bust so regressed to 77.30 and so far OK xcept for the Bf2 glitching!

I do have a host of TSRs (as they were called in the bad ol days of DoS) and I used to religiously kill them off before starting games. Recently they seem not to have been a problem but I guess Bf2 is one of them apps!!!

I shall try shutting them off although I am loath to run online without antivirus ....

[hetzer]

I am interested in your comments re 2 gigs RAM

"ive also heard rumors that 2 gig of ram can be contradictiry to performance with this game, is it dual channel memory 2x1gig? or a host of 512's?"

I have 1 gig of dual channel Corsair TwinX (2x512Mbs) and was toying with the idea of buying another gig of identical!

Would I still get dual channel performance with 4 DIMMs and all slots filled? And whats the rumour about aberrent behaviour in Bf2 with 2 gigs RAM??

[hetzer]

1.Some progress to report! Using the PCI latency config app I have reduced my Audigy 2 latency to 0 (will also try 64) and the PCI Bridge (AGP controller) to 64 and VGA compatible controller (GeForce FX 5950 Ultra) also to 64. There seems to be a big decrease in the glitching / freezing / lagging whatever its called. There are still the occasional screen and sound freezes but much less frequent than before I ran the PCI latency app! Now once or twice per round before it was every few minutes!!!
BUT
2.The game seems to behave very badly when shutdown. However I quit the sound runs on for up to 2 minutes before quitting and releasing system resources fully!! I have tried quitting using the menu, Disconnecting then logging out then quitting but the behaviour is unchanged! Is this common?

[hetzer]

Hey Merlin does the Athletic Arms (The Gravediggers in Gorgi) still sell the best pint of "heavy" in Edinburgh? I have lived in Merseyside for twenty years at least and still cannot stomach english bitter!!

[hetzer]

Update.
Tried setting Audigy latency to 64 and stopped 1. Avast antivirus, 2. CachemanXP (a useful memory & cache freeing applet), & 3. Ms AntiSpyware, none of which make much difference. The lags are far fewer and farther apart but do still occur from time to time. Either the whole caboodle will freeze for a few seconds OR the graphics freeze and the sound goes into a stutter cycle for a few seconds sounding like a “Slick” crashing or loud door knocking, all depending on what sounds were playing when the freeze initiated!

[hetzer]

Right not getting any replies or answers to my various questions BUT reading other posts here and in other places I have gleaned the following fixes:-

1.Manual Pbupdate running pbweb.exe after latest patch update.
2.Latest Ms updates SP2 etc defrag drives, check BIOS settings, Run antispyware and virus checks!
3.Checking latest Audigy drivers are installed and then fixing OpenAL support by renaming the openAL wrapper supplied by the game and substituting the latest nvidia / creative version of openAL32.dll renamed to bf2openal.dll etc etc etc
4.Using most up to date nVidia Detonator drivers for my system. (My FX card does not like the 77.72 and will not run Steam Source games either HL2 or CS with it installed??!!) so I am using ver. 77.30 and running all my other games fine!
5.Shutdown various TSR background apps including CachemanXP, Avast! Antivirus, Ms AntiSpyware beta and the assorted rubbish allways inserted by each update of Quicktime / itunes and Realaudio!!!
6.Ran PCI Latency config tool and set my AGP VGA and Audigy2 latencies to 64. This made the greatest impact for me!!

IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE I CAN TRY?