Totally frustrated with some sort of freak choppiness/lag. Plz advise

2010-10-09 08:48:44

#1

Beats: Member; +2|6684

Hey guys, hoping for some help here. Let me try and describe my issue a bit for you.

Just got back into playing BF2 after a very long absence. I have always played this game with all the graphics settings on as high as possible and always had flawless gameplay as far as performance goes. Running 2 gigs ram and a 7800 gtx video card.

Well, since I started playing again I have been having this absolutely frustrating issue where the gameplay is perfect, as it always was, except now for some puzzling reason the game goes EXTREMELY choppy for about 45 seconds every 3 mins or so and then all of a sudden snaps out of it back to perfect gameplay again. Its enough that I can't play anymore, it ruins the game. Can't fly or do anythign because I know at any second im going to have insane lag for 45 seconds or so.

At first I figured it was lag, then ruled that out since my ping never changes. Then figured it must be some sort of background program since the choppiness is so regular and always the exact same.. kinda though maybe it was some program checking for updates or something.. but can't figure it out. I closed all my virus stuff, MSN, bittorent(obviously) and nothing seems to help. I have no idea what is different on mycomputer from when I used to play and this never happened.

I even updated my nvidea drivers and that didn't help. When I do the FPS command in BF2 it shows my FPS at about 90 most of the time and then all of a sudden every few minutes it plummets to 15 or so and is unplayable for 45 secs or so and then it just snaps right back up to 90.. I dont get it.

Any ideas? I wanna play so bad and im really enjoying the game again except this issue is ruining it for me. It must be something on my end since it doesnt appear to be server lag, it appears to be FPS on my end.. im fairly convinced that something is taking up a ton of CPU usage every few mins but if i close the game and watch the task manager performance bar nothing really stands out. Only seems to come up when in BF2. Is this related to the new patch? Punkbuster? I just cant figure it out!!

Thanks.

2010-10-09 19:50:54

#2

AussieReaper: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°); +5,761|6154|what

I'd say it's a ram problem.

Get more ram.

2010-10-10 00:34:51

#3

unnamednewbie13: Moderator; +2,053|6773|PNW

I'd say Punkbuster, off the top of my head. I remember having similar issues way back when.

2010-10-10 05:20:10

#4

presidentsheep: Back to the Fuhrer; +208|5963|Places 'n such

unnamednewbie13 wrote:
I'd say Punkbuster, off the top of my head. I remember having similar issues way back when.

I'd say this. Punkbuster fucks up my COD4 for the first 5 seconds of online play whilst it boots up in an identical way to how you desribe.

I'd type my pc specs out all fancy again but teh mods would remove it. Again.

2010-10-10 07:18:09

#5

Beats: Member; +2|6684

Thanks for the replies. I guess if its PB then Im kinda screwed on fixing the issue. Ah well. I'll just keep playin and see if it eventually goes away perhaps with a PB update.

2010-10-10 07:55:32

#6

Beats: Member; +2|6684

So I thought I had this beat.. I unchecked the PB box in the Multiplayer menu and joined a server I like. I went about 10 mins with no issue at all and figured that it must have been PB. Then it happened again. It's less frequent but still happens the same way and for the same duration. Perhaps I should either uninstall PB or update it (if it isn't automatically upgraded).

I don't really understand the advantage of having PB running on my computer anyway. I would think the server running it would do all the work. Anyway, just gonna keep playing around and see what happens.

2010-10-10 07:59:06

#7

Finray: Hup! Dos, Tres, Cuatro; +2,629|5790|Catherine Black

presidentsheep wrote:
unnamednewbie13 wrote:
I'd say Punkbuster, off the top of my head. I remember having similar issues way back when.
I'd say this. Punkbuster fucks up my COD4 for the first 5 seconds of online play whilst it boots up in an identical way to how you desribe.

That's just Vista disabling a process (something to do with Aero iirc), happens on Win7 too.

E: Beats have you tried changing the pb_sleep option?

Last edited by Finray (2010-10-10 08:00:08)

2010-10-10 08:04:37

#8

bugz: Fission Mailed; +3,311|6314

If you download this program (pbsetup) from evenbalance, you can manually update your punkbuster files.

http://websec.evenbalance.com/downloade … php?file=1

Download it, run it, add BF2 to the list, then click update.

Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/id/ebug122

2010-10-10 08:25:06

#9

The_Sniper_NM: Official EVGA Fanboy; +94|6115|SC | USA |

Unchecking the PB box only changes the filters. If the server you like runs PB, (which all ranked severs are required to do) you will still be scanned every 180 secs (IIRC is the default).

2010-10-10 09:29:44

#10

Beats: Member; +2|6684

The_Sniper_NM wrote:
Unchecking the PB box only changes the filters. If the server you like runs PB, (which all ranked severs are required to do) you will still be scanned every 180 secs (IIRC is the default).

180 seconds sounds about how often Im having this issue. Thats kinda reassuring that its most likely PB causing this. I downloaded and ran the manual PB updater and updated BF2 with it. Ran the game and changed the pb sleep to 500. Played a round with no slow downs!

Think this may have done it. I'll have to play some more later tonight on a few different servers to make sure it fixed it, but so far I think the issue has been eliminated.

Thanks for all the suggestions and I'll be back if it pops up again. Thanks.

2010-10-10 09:32:41

#11

Finray: Hup! Dos, Tres, Cuatro; +2,629|5790|Catherine Black

BF2s to the rescue! \o/

2010-10-10 19:50:18

#12

Beats: Member; +2|6684

Well... It's back! FML! lol,jk. After my last post I was feeling pretty good about beating this thing. Was gone all day for Thanksgiving (CDN) and when I returned I booted up the game and boom! its back. Was flying around and then it just shoots back down to 15 fps for 45 secs or so. Man, I was almost banging my head out of frustration. Typed the pbsleep 500 command in again and its not doing anything that I can see. I really don't get this. Ill have to send some emails or something to try and get to the bottom of this.

2010-10-10 20:36:20

#13

bugz: Fission Mailed; +3,311|6314

There's another command that you have to type after the pbsleep or else you'll have to do it for every new server you join.

I believe it's pb_writecfg

If the pbsleep command doesn't make a noticeable difference in the first place though, I don't think this will do much

Happy Thanksgiving btw

Last edited by ebug9 (2010-10-10 20:36:41)

Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/id/ebug122

2010-10-10 20:41:29

#14

Dilbert_X: The X stands for; +1,810|6107|eXtreme to the maX

presidentsheep wrote:
unnamednewbie13 wrote:
I'd say Punkbuster, off the top of my head. I remember having similar issues way back when.
I'd say this. Punkbuster fucks up my COD4 for the first 5 seconds of online play whilst it boots up in an identical way to how you desribe.

Something does that to the first five seconds of BF2 for me.

Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!

2010-10-10 20:58:01

#15

Beats: Member; +2|6684

ebug9 wrote:
There's another command that you have to type after the pbsleep or else you'll have to do it for every new server you join.

I believe it's pb_writecfg

If the pbsleep command doesn't make a noticeable difference in the first place though, I don't think this will do much

Happy Thanksgiving btw

THx, I did use that 2nd command as well. Sent a ticket into PB site and a msg on the EA forums as well. Been watching youtube videos but can't say Ive seen anything like my issue. Tons of just as bad issues out there though

Ill keep at it.

2010-10-11 03:05:53

#16

RDMC: Enemy Wheelbarrow Spotted..!!; +736|6567|Area 51

Are you playing on high GFX settings?

I remember back in the day when I upgraded to the then awesome 7600GT that I had put my settings to high, but only had 2GB of RAM. Result: overall choppiness. I then switched back to medium, which in BF2 makes fuck all difference to high settings and the game ran smooth again.

2010-10-11 07:09:14

#17

Beats: Member; +2|6684

RDMC wrote:
Are you playing on high GFX settings?

I remember back in the day when I upgraded to the then awesome 7600GT that I had put my settings to high, but only had 2GB of RAM. Result: overall choppiness. I then switched back to medium, which in BF2 makes fuck all difference to high settings and the game ran smooth again.

Im playing on high settings for everything. Always have and its always been absolutely perfect game play. Since 2005. Im using a 7800 gtx. Its not a graphics settings issue since other than this predetermined "hiccup" of choppiness, the game runs as smooth as ever. Its as if ever so many minutes PB (I assume thats what it is now) takes like 95% of my cpu usage and zonks out the game play. One minute im in the little bird chopper strafing ppl at a flag and then, like clockwork, my fps drops from 90 or so to 15 for most of a minute and I do everything I can just not to crash. And then with the blink of an eye it snaps out of it instantly shooting back to 90 fps. IT is definitely something running behind the scenes thats doing it. I patched bf2 to 1.5 when it came out but I wasn't really playing the game at that point anymore so I never really tested it out. Quite possibly, this was introduced to me with patch 1.5. It definitely never came up with prior versions. Im still working on this via EA forums as well so I will just keep at it for the moment.
.

2010-10-11 07:31:06

#18

RDMC: Enemy Wheelbarrow Spotted..!!; +736|6567|Area 51

Ok ok, just checking it out.

2010-10-11 10:09:40

#19

Finray: Hup! Dos, Tres, Cuatro; +2,629|5790|Catherine Black

Tried reinstalling?
Deleting your BF2 profile?

2010-10-11 10:57:46

#20

Beats: Member; +2|6684

Finray wrote:
Tried reinstalling?
Deleting your BF2 profile?

Im waiting to get a reply from PB at which time if they can't really suggest anything I will uninstall and install from scratch. Perhaps going straight to the 1.5 patch with the XP's might help. Hopefully I hear from them in the next few days.

2010-10-11 11:47:28

#21

JahManRed: wank; +646|6630|IRELAND

sounds like background programmes running. You have probably installed more shit since you last played. check your task bar. I use game booster which turns off all background process while you game.
http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html

2010-10-11 15:13:42

#22

Beats: Member; +2|6684

JahManRed wrote:
sounds like background programmes running. You have probably installed more shit since you last played. check your task bar. I use game booster which turns off all background process while you game.
http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html

Thanks for the link. Downloaded that and also another System tool via that program. Defragged my whole computer and fixed up registry, Malware scan etc. Did a BF2 scan to optimize it and put the program into gaming mode.

Ran BF2 and guess what? Still there! Lol, I really do think its gotta be PB. I gotta say though that since changing the pb sleep command to 500 it does seem to crop up less giving me larger intervals of uniterrupted gameplay in between each interference which is nice. But it is still every couple minutes and still just as annoying.

2010-10-14 09:50:42

#23

Beats: Member; +2|6684

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/ … ge#9332817

Fixed it. Not 100% how.

BF2S Forums Totally frustrated with some sort of freak choppiness/lag. Plz advise

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

presidentsheep wrote:

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

The_Sniper_NM wrote:

presidentsheep wrote:

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

ebug9 wrote:

RDMC wrote:

Finray wrote:

JahManRed wrote:

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