Video card help

[AudieMurphy99]

Hello all. I'm having some troubles with my video card relating to BF2 since it's the only game I have that I can't run on high settings with a decent frame rate. Now, I'm not saying I want to have high video settings, but I'd like to be at medium.

My brother's computer has a Sapphire RADEON X700 Pro 256MB, and I have a Sapphire RADEON 9800 Pro 128MB that was flashed to a 9800 XT. I am using Omega drivers, and he is not. When I ran Aqua Mark on both computers, the scores were not very different, his being slightly higher. But, when I load up the game with medium settings, the same as his computer, it lags horribly and it takes a while to get a decent frame rate. Also, when I'm loading the map itself, it takes a considerable longer time to load the map than his computer. About 4 to 8 times longer. I'm wondering if there's anything I can do to increase my performance. If I simply need a new video card, then I'll get a new one. But, I'm surprised that the scores were similar, but in game the performance of each are considerably different.

Thanks for the help, and please tell me if this is the wrong forum. :)

[Rayzn]

Re: Video card help

Load times for maps have to do with ram. I would imagine you have 512mb of ram by the loading times. To be honest, I would get 2 gigs total just to work out all the lag.

[whofriggincares]

Re: Video card help

Yep.
Wrong forum.

[Sir. Shpox]

Re: Video card help

Should be in support mate, but any, it's not just the video card that makes you play the game to the best potential your game can. Don't get me wrong, video cards are important however a good graphics won't give you an edge if your parts aren't above minimum requirements.

Theres no point getting a good graphics card if you processor and ram suck. You won't get the full potential that you could have.

A Processor is not a problem really as most people have around the 2.5 ghz mark, however Ram is, 512 Mb is suitable for the game but in my opinion get another 512, it's just not worth it. The game suggests it as a minimum requirement therefore minimal performace.

What are your specs ? apart from your graphics card.

[redrider]

Re: Video card help

These guys are right. With that being said, the 2 things that helped most people were to have at least 2 gig of ram and raise your page file. Thats virtual memory or temporary memory. I have 3 gig of ram and my page file is set to 4096 M max and 2048 M min. This cut my load times down to less than a minute to start the game and about 30 seconds + or - to load the game maps. Some maps load in about 15 seconds. Hope this helps......Red

[wisedude]

Re: Video card help

how do you raise your page file? also, is it possible for anything bad to happen from raising it?

[Jones[31stMEU]]

Re: Video card help

YEa I messed around with my page file and VM back when I first got the game and my load time is very quick. Can't exactly remember where I went to tweak the settings though

[redrider]

Re: Video card help

To raise your page file you go into control panel (in win XP) its in hardware settings. If you look around there you will find it. The only possible bad thing is trying to set it higher than the space avaible on your hard drive. To set it at 4098 Meg you must have at least 4 Gig free (these 2 numbers are the same) also after changing this number you will get an error message if you dont have that much free space. You should restart your computer when you are finished. Thats it. There are several guides on line that give a more detailed explaination just google them. Hope this helps......Red

[AudieMurphy99]

Re: Video card help

Wow. Thanks guys! I think that memory is the issue. I have an AMD Athlon 64 processor with 512MB of RAM. And since my brother's computer has 1GB of RAM... I figure that's the problem. I'm going to the store tomorrow to get some RAM. Thanks for the help. :)

Btw, sorry for posting in the wrong forum. =/

[wisedude]

Re: Video card help

yeah ram helps a ton, theres a noticable difference between 512 and 1 gig

[=SFTC= SF59]

Re: Video card help

I agree with all of the posts as well, RAM made the biggest difference for me as well. I have 2 gigs of RAM and the load times are significantly faster as well as the smoothness of gameplay.

Also, I would highly recommend you update to an Nvidia card. I had an ATI Radeon HyperMemory x600 SE and I could only run BF2 acceptably on low settings. I now have an XFX Nvidia 6800 GS and the difference is amazing. I can run the game on all high settings with antialiasing on and it looks simply amazing.