BF2 Performance Tuning Tips needed

[GenFranco]

Hi all,

I am trying to play BF2 on window mode so that I can see my chat window and my email while I play.. (especially at work :) My machine is pretty beefy: intel 840, 2 GIG RAM, nvidia 7800GT with two fast drives. But none of this seems to matter when trying to switch from BF2 to any other app and back again. It always lags a few seconds leaving and coming back in, making it not worthwile to leave the BF2 window. Is there any setting that controls it? I noticed on the task bar the the virtual memory (hard disk) used is always identical to the physical memory--about 430megs for each, leaving me a ton of free memory. For you game programmers out there, do you think this is hardcoded into the game? I noticed other games do this too, is it a Direct X limitation? Any way around it?

BTW, as a point of interest.. when try to play on windows vista beta I don't seem to have this issue, but that is a mute point bc. I can't get my v-card drivers to work right

Thanks in advance,

GenFranco

[Zefram]

Re: BF2 Performance Tuning Tips needed

Sometimes I minimize BF2 while I wait for some friends to come online to play. Of course I'm not on a server during this time so there isn't a huge burden on my video card... but I notice than when I watch a video or something with BF2 minimized, sometimes the video starts to lag.

But I'm also surfing with 5-10 web pages tabbed with AIM going with a few IMs on too.

[GenFranco]

Re: BF2 Performance Tuning Tips needed

Thanks for the feedback Z,

Do you ever get any lag when you go back to the minimized BF2? For me, it is like 8 seconds!

My dream would be to able to still play and quickly switch out and in when I need to. Somehow, I need to figure out to go this game using only my RAM (I think). But I think there are a lot of us out there like us that enjoy using other windows (like to read this forum while waiting for someone to take a base on Wake..)

Gen.

[m0nsterm@sh]

Re: BF2 Performance Tuning Tips needed

GenFranco:

Thanks for your reply on my RAM post a bit earlier. I'll do the same for you!

I stated my computer specs earlier-- they're impressive. I think you and I are having the same kinds of problems: we have great systems but are getting a bottleneck somewhere along the way. I have a feeling the bottleneck might be in the video card.

Try this:
Right click "My computer". Go to properities.
Click hardware tab
Click device manager button
Click view "resources by type"
Open Interrupt Request (IRQ)

You should see a series of devices and the priorities listed (0-22 or so). I have my graphics card at #16 along with 3 other devices. My understanding is that this is a bottleneck and a problem.

Download the huge tweak guide .pdf from tweakguides.com and take a look. We can private message to try and work it out some more.

MM

[Xanthias]

Re: BF2 Performance Tuning Tips needed

I had this same problem with my old video card (6600 GT OC), but now with my 7800 GS, I can switch very easily back and forth! I don't play windowed, so I'm not sure how much of a burden this is.