I’d like to thank the Admins for making this a sticky thread I’ll be updating this thread from time to time and answering questions.
The reason why I proposed a thread like this is it seems like there are a lot of questions about
"How should I upgrade my computer? Or should I just get a new 939 with PCI-e, etc..."
These are generally posted by people with something similar to the following:
CPU: 3.2-2.6 Ghz-P4 or Socket-A Athlon
Memory: Generally 512MB or some mishmash where they are no longer running dual channel at 400MHz
Harddrive: Either SATA non-raptor or some IDE
Sound: Generally not mentioned (Assuming on-board in all these cases)
Graphics: Almost always AGP with something like a 9700 or a low 6-series or less.
Perhaps your computer matches the above description and you are getting choppy performance, lag, and long load times… you want something better...
Something better that's a pretty broad description if you want to get cutting edge today your going to spend some $$$... The major issue is you have AGP and everyone is convinced that PCIe is better. Well PCIe with SLI is certainly better but it a huge investment for some. You might be able to put off that huge investment by purchasing components what work with your current system and that dual core SLI box of tommorrow, such as good memory, fast hard drives, sound cards. Heck those upgrades may even allow you to put off that purchase for a few months or a year. Let those dual cores come down in price etc.
Well you have several options but consider my suggestions before going all out.
FIRST LETS COVER THE FREE STUFF< WHAT YOU HAVE MAYBE ENOUGH FOR WHAT YOU NEED
First hold your horses are you getting the most out of what you have? If your not maybe you don't need to spend $1000+ dollars on a new system?
For your reference here are some of my current rigs.
My current rig:
- Barton 2.438G (11.5*212Mhz)
- 2G of ram 2x1G OCZ (2-2-2-5 @ 212 MHz)
- x850pro (500/500) will overclock to 560/630 but I generally don’t stock setting are enough for me
- On-board sound
- 15K Fujistu SCSI U320 Drive on Adaptec 39160 controller
My load times are insanely fast, verification only takes a few seconds, frame rates around 80 with ultra-settings on some, 100% distance, sound software on high. Generally the first person in game.
My backup rig: (For friends etc.)
- XP1800 1.53Ghz (11.5*133)
- x850pro (500/500)
- 756Mb ddr
- 7200 rpm drive
- onboard sound
Frame rates around 70, longer load times, verification takes a while, not much in game lag, sound on low software. Sometimes the last one in… but in game performance is reasonable once it’s started.
P4-3.2G 200 fsb, 9800pro, raptor Raid-0, 1G dual channel (2x 512Mhz, 2-3-2-5), great machine fast load and verify, 50 fps with some medium graphics.
From this point forward I’m going to break this thread up into sections. The first section will be making the most of what you have.
1. OPTIMIZING YOUR CURRENT RIG AND UNDERSTANDING THE SETTINGS AND THEIR EFFECTS.
First will be optimizing your current rig.
Optimizing your system doesn’t only include BF2 but your operating system as well. MS products generally have a lot of hidden tasks running in the back ground, generally this doesn’t have much of an effect but if your memory limited with a slow drive… that’s a different story. There are several websites out there dealing with optimizing your system using “manage” to turn off un-necessary services “regedit – to stop task such as quick-time, office start-up, adobe, etc…”, switching to classic view. Simply looking under the startup tab to stop your adobe download manager. Although this is relatively easy I suggest you do your homework, editing the registry can be dangerous to your systems health. Try uninstalling programs you don’t use removing those expired demos etc.
After this try run an anti-spyware program such as spybot or ad-aware. These are both downloadable from www.download.com. Follow this by emptying your temporary folders and cleaning out your temporary Internet folder. Under folder show all files and folders, you can safely delete a lot of stuff, including office update and windows update.
If you have Norton, run windoctor, and de fragement your drives.
If you have two similar drives in your system move your page file on to the second drive.
SECOND CONSIDER OVERCLOCKING
Most computers and graphic cards will do an extra 5 to 10% if not more. Overclocking your system includes reducing your memory timings, increasing your fsb and or multiplier, overclocking your video card, etc.
When overclocking it’s important to try to get the fsb as fast as possible first then up your multiplier.
Example if you have a 2400XP it is a 2Ghz chip. Buy default these chips ran at 15x133.
If you can adjust your multipler to 10x and fsb to 200Mhz you’d still have a 2Gz chip. This technically isn’t overclocking the processor doesn’t care what fsb it runs at just the total speed. As long as your motherboard supports 200fsb you are good to go. A quick web search will tell you what your motherboards max FSB is (perhaps the manual is good for something)
In order to do this, try reducing your multiplier to 10x first. If it works your system will boot with a 1.3Ghz chip. Reboot set the fsb to 200 voila a nice healthy performance gain without really over clocking. If 200 doesn’t work try 12x166, (remember your memory might not support 200fsb!!!, is it PC3200?).
Graphics Card Overclocking
Atitool http://www.techpowerup.com/atitool/ is a great program for overclocking your ATI card it will automatically find your best settings. On a 128Mb card’s I suggest getting the most out of your video memory then try your GPU. (I was able to get an extra 10 fps out of my 128MB 9800pro)
Nvidia cards have similar tools but often times you can do it straight from the control panel.
HERE COMES THE BF2 PORTION
The best guide on the Internet can be found right here…
http://www.tweakguides.com/BF2_1.html
I suggest you read it cover to cover it really helps out a lot, but in short here are my suggestions.
BF2 is very memory hungry, when the game loads a lot of files are put into system memory, these include files for sounds, graphics, maps, weapons, and the game interface.
The more you ask out of the game such as multi-language files the more your hard disk has to load into memory and the more memory you need. If your memory runs out these files are often “paged” back to the hard drive(slow creating in game lag).
Here are the highlights:
THE VERY FIRST THING TO DO:
Delete all the movie files from your bf2 game folder probably something like:
C:\program files\EA Games\Battlefield 2\mods\bf2\Movies
There are a bunch, intro, legal, etc… delete them all or simply create a sub directory within this folder and move them into that folder. (They won’t load this way, by far this is one of the best improvements for load times)
Followed by deleting you cache folders since your going to be changing your video settings
c:\My Documents\Battlefield 2\mods\bf2\cache
SOUNDS:
Under the sounds tab click “English Only” this limits the number of files loading at start-up and reduces load times and memory requirements. (This is really recommended even on fast computers with no issues, besides is your Chinese better than your English???)
Software sound: Unless you have a good add-in sound card such as the Audigy 2, 4, or X-Fi your going to have to set this to software without checking EAX.
I suggest starting off with low if your having major problems, after you get your frame rates up you might try medium. Medium gives quite a bit better sound you hear a lot more, necessary in game sounds, like “artillery coming in!!!” without a lot of additional CPU load (I wouldn’t use Medium with less than 1G of memory). With 2G of memory on my barton machine I can’t tell the performance difference between low, medium, and high (on board nforce2 software sound). With the xp1800 and 756MB medium makes a difference.
If your not having serious issues playing BF2 just start at medium and leave it there until your done then try high.
NOW EXIT THE GAME AND DEFRAGEMENT!!!
Reboot and load into BF2
NEXT ARE YOUR VIDEO SETTINGS:
Here, I’m going to try to help you setup something that’s playable not necessarily looking great. Settings that will make you PAWN as opposed to being pawned. Try my settings first then gradually increase them.
First, unless you like spending most of your time looking up as the seconds count down from 15
SET YOUR VIEW DISTANCE TO 100% (This is a must always keep 100% don’t use less, this should be the last thing you reduce once everything else is off or at low with the smallest resolution.)
Second, set you’re in game resolution to something low to start, 800x600 or 1024x768 at the highest refresh rate your monitor will handle.
There is no point in having a 90fps ingame when your refresh is at 70Hz that’s 70 refreshes per second. (Are you not missing 20 frames?, it doesn’t really work this way but you get the point)
Frame rates.
It’s important to know what your framerate is while your optimizing your computer, this can be done in game as follows;
While playing a round enter the console by typing ` (top left key on your keyboard) you’ll get a command type prompt.
Next type exactly the following into the window.
renderer.drawFps 1
Magically a red ### / ### appears in the top left corner, this will show you your average frame rate, you can close the console by pressing ` at this point.
Run around get into some combat bunny hop around some people while they shoot at you etc. As long as this number stays above 30 at all times your doing good, not great but good. What ends-up happening is your frame rate will be really good say 60 but as soon as you’re near people and in fire fights it will drop. It’s during these drops that frame rate generally matters and you get pawned. I’d suggest that you use video settings such that you never see a low 30 frame rate.
HERE ARE THE BIG PERFORMANCE KILLERS FOR FPS
Anything that’s dynamic in your video settings. What dynamic means is anything that sort of changes in game like muzzle flashes, shadows that follow people around etc. You don’t really need them and it’s tough on your video card and CPU.
Besides if an enemy is pointing thier gun at you, shoot first ask questions later… do you really need to see the flash? It’s the little flashes and bullet holes that cause most of the lag and poor frame rates in close quarters combat.
SECOND BIG PERFORMANCE KILLER:
Shadows, and terrain detail… sure some people say turning shadows off or to low is cheating. Well let them explain it to you 15 seconds at a time.
Turning off shadows and terrain details not only makes your frame rates go up but you can also see more since they can't hide in the shadows and behind grass etc.
Sometimes it’s funny b/c snipers with 7800GTX-sli’s will be hiding behind grass that does not exist. (If you can walk through it… bullets can pass through it.) If your hiding in the shadows you’re an idiot. All too often I see people crawling along side a building (in the grass with high-detail) (right the the open with nothing hiding them, low detail)
SO CERTAINLY USE CUSTOM SETTINGS.
View distance 100% (a must)
Max refresh
Lighting (low and keep it low, this removes shadows of building increasing your ability to see people, ???Cheat???…well, certainly an advantage )
Terrain – low (This is the amount of “FAKE” bushes, grass, and trees)
Dynamic Shadows- OFF (and stay off)
Effects – low
Dynamic Light: (OFF – this you will increase later and last if you can)
Texture: low(This sucks up a bunch of video memory keep this in mind you might have to skip it with a 128MB card)
Antialiasing: OFF (This doesn’t help much at low levels of resolution, geometry and texture filtering)
Resolution: 1024 (or 800x600)
Geometry: Medium
Texture Filtering: Medium
Now load it up see what you get for a frame rate!!!!
Hopefully your getting decent frame rates in the 50-60’s or higher. If you are try increasing from the bottom up, those are the most important. (Did you increase the sound to medium yet??? You should!!!)
Try to get your geometry and texture filtering to high first (This helps you see people in the distance faster), remember your trade off is always frame rates vs quality distance and amount of detail. Leave the fluffy stuff like grass and muzzle flashes till later it's not going to help your actual game play. (You want to win right, if you just want to see stuff take your girlfriend to the park).
So you have high geometry and texture filtering, still getting decent in game performance… now try upping your resolution to 1280 or better. Beyond 1600 you don’t see much more (At 1600 the FN2000 scope cross hairs are no longer fuzzy).
Just keep upping the settings until your play becomes choppy. Once your happy (or got the most your going to get) delete the cache folder again and defrag. What you may find is you'll start getting load issues and lag but your frame rates are decent other wise. Guess what it might not be your video card... Could be your system memory. Load times have nothing to do with video cards, they do depend on video settings but not the actual card.
This concludes the BF2 optimizations hopefully you have a optimized your system to a playable level and understand the effects of the settings.
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BUT I STILL WANT MORE, BETTER, AND FASTER!!!!
Really what does more, better, and faster mean? What is the definition of more?
There are really three different aspects, and you have to know what you want and more importantly what you need…
1. Faster frame rates with better picture quality.
2. Eliminate the in game lag I’m getting
3. Decrease load times and faster verification I want to be in the round first.
Well if you’ve already done the above you are going to have to do something with your system at this point but what?
PART II – UPGRADE BUY A NEW ONE, SURE EASIER SAID THAN DONE, UPGRADE WHAT?
A lot of people talk about upgrading their system but in all reality what they are doing is buying a new system. A lot of new systems simply have a lot of mediocre parts that give you mediocre performance, or some really good parts held back by bottlenecks… (512MB or 1G of slow memory, slow hard drives, x700’s, but hey it’s a 4400+)
You have a couple options
Junk your current rig (sell, donate, family etc.) and buy a totally new computer such as the dell-renegade or an Alienware system. (This works well but it's expensive, but hey you have no computer skillz and tones of cash right!!!). Or build your own from scratch (Quite a bit better but more money than an upgrade.)
You other option upgrade what you have to make it work for now... Replace that AGP Card with newer AGP card or buy 1G of memory. (This is certainly the cheapest solution but you may still want more in the near future or you don't get the increase you were expecting. Now your screwed b/c you can't re-use those parts you just purchase 6 months ago?)
Here’s what I recommend, upgrade particular portions of your current computer with parts you can use in your next computer such as ram, hard drive, sound card. Sure that insane fast memory is over kill in your current rig but you would have purchased it anyways and can still use it when you do.
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So what should I upgrade?
You may or may not know that a lot of the in game lag is actually caused by lack of memory, and switching files into and out of memory from the hard drive. As you ask for more graphics higher resolutions the actual amount of data increases.
Memory is a tough call, if you have 2x512MB sticks of decent memory running at 200Mhz (fsb) it might not be your best upgrade. However if you have less than 1G it’s the major option for an upgrade.
This is good news since you can buy stuff that will both work in your current computer now and potentially your next computer (You have ddr right).
Don’t get me wrong a video card is probably the number one bang for the buck, assuming you have enough memory. But, take that x850XT PE put it in a system with 512MB generic single channel ram and a slow drive, you certainly made a nice laggy system with slow load times. You can probably play medium resolutions and settings but it’s going to lag at much more.
Why not a video card? First and foremost you probably have AGP, AGP is a thing of the past it’s dying but not dead. Investing 300 bucks in a new AGP card probably isn’t your best bet, I’d hold off on the card if you don’t have a decent harddrive and memory for now. If you have something like a 9200 ATI or a 5700FX that’s a different story, perhaps a cheaper used card is in order more on this later. Lets talk memory first.
1. MEMORY THE BEST UPGRADE
Best part about memory? DDR will be around for a while and ddr2 isn’t that much better (As of Spring 2006). And more than likely good ddr will work in your next system. It’s pretty hard to talk about ddr2 when AMD doesn’t sell DDR2 boards yet, maybe next year things will be different.
If you have less than 1G of memory currently, the only way to go is 2 x 1G sticks period, search the whole 1G vs 2G. It's pretty much a given that 2G is what you should get. Get some very nice stuff such as OCZ or Geil with very low timings (More on this later).
Why 2G? Memory always seems to be something machines are lacking it wasn’t long ago that 512MB was enough, wow dual channel 1G that’s insane…
With Vista coming out everything is pointing towards requiring more memory, initial reports suggest to get the full benfit of vista you’ll need 2G. For BF2 if you have enough memory BF2 won’t page anything back onto the hard drive no in game lag periods.
Here’s where people start to get a little confused. They currently have 1G of memory (2x512MB dual channel) thinking buying another 2x512MB would be a good investment. Nope!!!
What happens on many boards is running 4 sticks results in the memory running at 166Mhz as opposed to 200Mhz, or you’ll have to reduce the latency from cas2 to cas2.5. In some cases (arguably) running 4x512MB is worst than 2x512MB. The key is getting memory to run as fast as possible first (high MHz) then as quick as possible (low latency).
This is a very detailed subject one of the best reviews on-line IMHO.
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm? … amp;page=1
If you don’t care about the details let me sum up by saying MHz is most important (i.e. 200MHz PC3200, PC3700, PC4000) followed by cas latency such as 2-2-2-5 or 2-3-2-6 etc.
Page 4 show what I’m talking about best.
Comparing 4 sticks to 2 sticks, even if you could get the memory to run at the same cas, 2-2-2-5 and your board defaults to 166mhz.
200Mhz 2-2-2-5 = 5519 MB/s
166Mhz 2-2-2-5 = 4904 MB/s (11% slower)
Another good article an oldie but a goodie…
http://www.lostcircuits.com/memory/latency/4.shtml
Basically think of it this way, 200MHz memory will do 200 cycles in the time it takes 166mhz to do 166 cycles. (THIS IS MHz)
Now in order for a memory execution to take place in 2-2-2-5 latency memory it must consume 2+2+2+5= 11 cycles.
Same CAS different MHz how many executions?
200 cycles / 11 = 18.2 (Higher is better, more through put)
166 cycles / 11 = 15.1
Same MHz different CAS (200 MHZ, cas 2-2-2-5 vs 2.5-3-3-6
200 mhz / 11 = 18.2
200 mhz / 13.5 = 14.8
In this instance you would think that 200fsb at 2.5-3-3-6 would perform equally well to 166 at 2-2-2-5. However that is not the case latency has less of an effect than MHz does. The 200MHz even at slower timings out performs the 166 at tighter timings by about 5%.
Lets compare PC3200 2-2-2-5 vs PC4000 3-4-4-8
200 Mhz x cas 2-2-2-5 = 200 / 11 = 18
250 Mhz x cas 3-4-4-8 = 250 / 19 = 13.1
Here you would think that the 200 MHz would stomp the 250Mhz… This is not the case the 250Mhz will actually beat the 200 by about 10%.
So why do we care? What do we get????
To make a longer story even longer, that best memory is the stuff with low cas and fast MHz (duh!!! That doesn’t help me).
O.K. look at it this way, Generally the 250 MHz 3-4-4-8 will run at 200 Mhz 2-2-2-5, but the 200 has less chance of running 250Mhz at 3-4-4-8.
Best bet is buy based on price, since Mhz is most important buy the fastest MHZ first as long as the timings are not all that bad, stay away from PC3500, PC3700 etc with 4-4-4- and PC3200 with 2.5-3-3-X or worse latency.
Buying decent brands such as Geil, OCZ, Patriot, while avoiding terms such as Value, or even performance. Go to the websites and check what their top model is try to buy that if you have the cash.
If you shop around you can get 2G for 200 dollars or less pretty easy. I’m talking good memory here not junk. Generally I avoid Corsair since I can never get it to overclock very well in dual channel.
I read an article a while back it said that the majority of bluescreen’s computer crashes for home users is bad memory. This mean cheap stuff!!! Don’t scrimp on memory.
So, try out that 2G memory upgrade first you might not get higher frame rates. But you might get reasonable frame rates at that higher setting now. You’ll certainly remove a lot if not all of your in game lag.
Best thing you were probably going to buy that new box anyways. But now you can wait a while until that dual core to drops in price. You basically purchased the ram you going to use in that dual core FX later. Take out those 256MB sticks and keep them in your desk for later.
UPGRADE #2 HARDDRIVES:
The good news is no mater which drive you have the interface to the computer is not the bottleneck. The slowest of the three types of drives is ATA at 133MB/s, no single drive can achieve 133MB/s yet, except for very rare $$$ cases.
What hard drive do you have?
There are three types of interfaces:
ATA (flat cables about 2” wide, same cable that goes to your CD-ROM)
SATA narrow thick cable generally colored with a black end.
SCSI You probably don’t have this.
SO IS MY HARDDRIVE ANY GOOD?
The difference between a so-so hard drive and a good hard drive is FIRST access time. Which is related to the interface ATA, SATA, SCSI, and the rotational speed of the drive (5400RPM, 7200RPM, 10000RPM or 10K, 15000RPM or 15k) and, SCSI.
And SECOND transfer rate.
Generally these two go together.
So what makes a hard drive upgrade worth while?
This is quite simple really, easier to understand than memory. You have two issues with harddrives
SEEK TIMES and TRANSFER RATE
Transfer rates are quite simple move more data per second. Seek Times are equally easy to understand, hard drives are not that fast they take time to find that file before they start transferring it.
Should I upgrade my drive? Which ones are best?
The best drives on the market are 15K SCSI, they have access times in the 3ms range and transfer rates of ~85MB/s. However they are SCSI so most computers don’t have the SCSI interface, even your next computer probably won’t have SCSI. This means $$$ top of the line SCSI drives cost $500+ dollars new, add a 40-50 dollar cable and a $200 adapter card. That’s a little excessive for the best hard drive… but what I have in my machine.
http://www.storagereview.com/articles/2 … 7L0_1.html
Rant:
If you think about it this way… the only portion of your computer that stores all your vital information is the hard drive. It’s what doesn’t forget from one day to the next. If your computer crashes what have you lost?
AND WHAT DO PEOPLE ALWAYS ASK?
When did you last back up? Was there anything important?
No, no, nothing at all that’s why I’ve been on hold with dell since 3am. Hoping that click click click weeerrr click click can be solved over the phone.
So what do you do pay $2000 (TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS) to recover those digital baby pictures, or your financial records? Don’t laugh 2K isn’t an unreasonable amount for data recovery.
Makes you re-think that 200G 50 dollar hard dive with a mail in rebate.
SCSI drives have 7+ year warranties, a lot of newer drives only have 2 year, why? I personally think drive manufactures should be responsible for data recovery on drives less than 2 years old under warranty.
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Now there is nothing saying you can’t buy used scsi drives, a decent used 3-4ms access time 15K setup can be purchased for less than $300. IMHO used SCSI (Seagate, Fugitsu) is better than new no-name drives.
A very close alternative is the 150G SATA Raptor 10K drive. They are also about 300 bucks 5-7ms access times and very respectable ~80Mb/s transfer rates. The 72G versions are slower since they use an older technology.
Again www.storagereview.com is the place to go for benchmarks etc.
Why is access time so important? Think about it this way a normal hard drive 7200rpm has about a 10ms access time. A 4ms to 6ms disadvantage compared to raptors or 15K respectively. This generally means that each file that’s loaded has a lag before it starts transferring. How much data is transferred in 4 or 6 ms? About 300-500kb of data. So if your loading a bunch of small files such as NF2 or normal computer operation… your probably spending more time seeking than you are reading and transferring.
WHAT”S THE RECOMMENDATION?
After all that here it is.
If you have SATA connections on your current motherboard, buy a single 150G Raptor 10K drive the 150G is worth the extra money IMHO.
The 72G Raptor sounds similar but it’s not, it’s slower than the 150G but certainly better than anything non-Raptor.
If you don’t have ATA or you really want the best. Consider SCSI with an add-in card. You won’t be disappointed with 15K SCSI once you try it you’ll never go back.
Besides $400 bucks for a hard drive isn’t that much compared to $200 dollar memory, $400 dollar video cards (and you need two right), $800 dollar processors.
Also a good hard drive will last you several years so the cost per year of service isn’t really that bad.
Also fast hard drives turn relatively slow computers into what seems like a fast machine. My dual P3-800 with 15K SCSI was just put out of service last year.
CONVINCED OR NOT ON HARDDRIVES BESIDES A VIDEO CARD YOU LAST OPTION:
SOUNDCARD ADDIN’S UPGRADES:
Alot of people are saying that the x-fi or audigy cards both increase your ingame performance (frame rate reduced CPU overhead etc) and give you better sound at the same time.
I'm not an audio-nut but it makes sence, your taking some of the load off your struggling CPU. In return your getting faster frame rates and better sound because of it! Sounds like a win win situation and you can transfer this card to your next computer.
Only problem is I’m not convinced…
I’ve looked for reviews on-line documenting performance increases, ACTUAL IN GAME performance increases with frame rates and benchmarks!!!
HUMMM….
Well I can’t find much… sure it’s going to sound better you just spent $250 on the 64MB Creative X-Fi. But shortly after the review starts I just start seeing a bunch of hippies smoking pot stoned around the turn table saying “yeah man I can hear the difference dude… tubes sound so cool man…”
Sure the sound should be clear, you will certainly have a better directional awareness. Foot steps, echos, voices, a tank will actually sound like a tank.
But will adding an Audigy 2 zs to your current rig help out the video?
I’d have to say, Yes, since it makes sense. But I certainly wouldn’t spend 200+ dollars on a sound card if I didn’t have a decent video card.
NEXT UP – VIDEO CARDS – I’ll also add more links.
The reason why I proposed a thread like this is it seems like there are a lot of questions about
"How should I upgrade my computer? Or should I just get a new 939 with PCI-e, etc..."
These are generally posted by people with something similar to the following:
CPU: 3.2-2.6 Ghz-P4 or Socket-A Athlon
Memory: Generally 512MB or some mishmash where they are no longer running dual channel at 400MHz
Harddrive: Either SATA non-raptor or some IDE
Sound: Generally not mentioned (Assuming on-board in all these cases)
Graphics: Almost always AGP with something like a 9700 or a low 6-series or less.
Perhaps your computer matches the above description and you are getting choppy performance, lag, and long load times… you want something better...
Something better that's a pretty broad description if you want to get cutting edge today your going to spend some $$$... The major issue is you have AGP and everyone is convinced that PCIe is better. Well PCIe with SLI is certainly better but it a huge investment for some. You might be able to put off that huge investment by purchasing components what work with your current system and that dual core SLI box of tommorrow, such as good memory, fast hard drives, sound cards. Heck those upgrades may even allow you to put off that purchase for a few months or a year. Let those dual cores come down in price etc.
Well you have several options but consider my suggestions before going all out.
FIRST LETS COVER THE FREE STUFF< WHAT YOU HAVE MAYBE ENOUGH FOR WHAT YOU NEED
First hold your horses are you getting the most out of what you have? If your not maybe you don't need to spend $1000+ dollars on a new system?
For your reference here are some of my current rigs.
My current rig:
- Barton 2.438G (11.5*212Mhz)
- 2G of ram 2x1G OCZ (2-2-2-5 @ 212 MHz)
- x850pro (500/500) will overclock to 560/630 but I generally don’t stock setting are enough for me
- On-board sound
- 15K Fujistu SCSI U320 Drive on Adaptec 39160 controller
My load times are insanely fast, verification only takes a few seconds, frame rates around 80 with ultra-settings on some, 100% distance, sound software on high. Generally the first person in game.
My backup rig: (For friends etc.)
- XP1800 1.53Ghz (11.5*133)
- x850pro (500/500)
- 756Mb ddr
- 7200 rpm drive
- onboard sound
Frame rates around 70, longer load times, verification takes a while, not much in game lag, sound on low software. Sometimes the last one in… but in game performance is reasonable once it’s started.
P4-3.2G 200 fsb, 9800pro, raptor Raid-0, 1G dual channel (2x 512Mhz, 2-3-2-5), great machine fast load and verify, 50 fps with some medium graphics.
From this point forward I’m going to break this thread up into sections. The first section will be making the most of what you have.
1. OPTIMIZING YOUR CURRENT RIG AND UNDERSTANDING THE SETTINGS AND THEIR EFFECTS.
First will be optimizing your current rig.
Optimizing your system doesn’t only include BF2 but your operating system as well. MS products generally have a lot of hidden tasks running in the back ground, generally this doesn’t have much of an effect but if your memory limited with a slow drive… that’s a different story. There are several websites out there dealing with optimizing your system using “manage” to turn off un-necessary services “regedit – to stop task such as quick-time, office start-up, adobe, etc…”, switching to classic view. Simply looking under the startup tab to stop your adobe download manager. Although this is relatively easy I suggest you do your homework, editing the registry can be dangerous to your systems health. Try uninstalling programs you don’t use removing those expired demos etc.
After this try run an anti-spyware program such as spybot or ad-aware. These are both downloadable from www.download.com. Follow this by emptying your temporary folders and cleaning out your temporary Internet folder. Under folder show all files and folders, you can safely delete a lot of stuff, including office update and windows update.
If you have Norton, run windoctor, and de fragement your drives.
If you have two similar drives in your system move your page file on to the second drive.
SECOND CONSIDER OVERCLOCKING
Most computers and graphic cards will do an extra 5 to 10% if not more. Overclocking your system includes reducing your memory timings, increasing your fsb and or multiplier, overclocking your video card, etc.
When overclocking it’s important to try to get the fsb as fast as possible first then up your multiplier.
Example if you have a 2400XP it is a 2Ghz chip. Buy default these chips ran at 15x133.
If you can adjust your multipler to 10x and fsb to 200Mhz you’d still have a 2Gz chip. This technically isn’t overclocking the processor doesn’t care what fsb it runs at just the total speed. As long as your motherboard supports 200fsb you are good to go. A quick web search will tell you what your motherboards max FSB is (perhaps the manual is good for something)
In order to do this, try reducing your multiplier to 10x first. If it works your system will boot with a 1.3Ghz chip. Reboot set the fsb to 200 voila a nice healthy performance gain without really over clocking. If 200 doesn’t work try 12x166, (remember your memory might not support 200fsb!!!, is it PC3200?).
Graphics Card Overclocking
Atitool http://www.techpowerup.com/atitool/ is a great program for overclocking your ATI card it will automatically find your best settings. On a 128Mb card’s I suggest getting the most out of your video memory then try your GPU. (I was able to get an extra 10 fps out of my 128MB 9800pro)
Nvidia cards have similar tools but often times you can do it straight from the control panel.
HERE COMES THE BF2 PORTION
The best guide on the Internet can be found right here…
http://www.tweakguides.com/BF2_1.html
I suggest you read it cover to cover it really helps out a lot, but in short here are my suggestions.
BF2 is very memory hungry, when the game loads a lot of files are put into system memory, these include files for sounds, graphics, maps, weapons, and the game interface.
The more you ask out of the game such as multi-language files the more your hard disk has to load into memory and the more memory you need. If your memory runs out these files are often “paged” back to the hard drive(slow creating in game lag).
Here are the highlights:
THE VERY FIRST THING TO DO:
Delete all the movie files from your bf2 game folder probably something like:
C:\program files\EA Games\Battlefield 2\mods\bf2\Movies
There are a bunch, intro, legal, etc… delete them all or simply create a sub directory within this folder and move them into that folder. (They won’t load this way, by far this is one of the best improvements for load times)
Followed by deleting you cache folders since your going to be changing your video settings
c:\My Documents\Battlefield 2\mods\bf2\cache
SOUNDS:
Under the sounds tab click “English Only” this limits the number of files loading at start-up and reduces load times and memory requirements. (This is really recommended even on fast computers with no issues, besides is your Chinese better than your English???)
Software sound: Unless you have a good add-in sound card such as the Audigy 2, 4, or X-Fi your going to have to set this to software without checking EAX.
I suggest starting off with low if your having major problems, after you get your frame rates up you might try medium. Medium gives quite a bit better sound you hear a lot more, necessary in game sounds, like “artillery coming in!!!” without a lot of additional CPU load (I wouldn’t use Medium with less than 1G of memory). With 2G of memory on my barton machine I can’t tell the performance difference between low, medium, and high (on board nforce2 software sound). With the xp1800 and 756MB medium makes a difference.
If your not having serious issues playing BF2 just start at medium and leave it there until your done then try high.
NOW EXIT THE GAME AND DEFRAGEMENT!!!
Reboot and load into BF2
NEXT ARE YOUR VIDEO SETTINGS:
Here, I’m going to try to help you setup something that’s playable not necessarily looking great. Settings that will make you PAWN as opposed to being pawned. Try my settings first then gradually increase them.
First, unless you like spending most of your time looking up as the seconds count down from 15
SET YOUR VIEW DISTANCE TO 100% (This is a must always keep 100% don’t use less, this should be the last thing you reduce once everything else is off or at low with the smallest resolution.)
Second, set you’re in game resolution to something low to start, 800x600 or 1024x768 at the highest refresh rate your monitor will handle.
There is no point in having a 90fps ingame when your refresh is at 70Hz that’s 70 refreshes per second. (Are you not missing 20 frames?, it doesn’t really work this way but you get the point)
Frame rates.
It’s important to know what your framerate is while your optimizing your computer, this can be done in game as follows;
While playing a round enter the console by typing ` (top left key on your keyboard) you’ll get a command type prompt.
Next type exactly the following into the window.
renderer.drawFps 1
Magically a red ### / ### appears in the top left corner, this will show you your average frame rate, you can close the console by pressing ` at this point.
Run around get into some combat bunny hop around some people while they shoot at you etc. As long as this number stays above 30 at all times your doing good, not great but good. What ends-up happening is your frame rate will be really good say 60 but as soon as you’re near people and in fire fights it will drop. It’s during these drops that frame rate generally matters and you get pawned. I’d suggest that you use video settings such that you never see a low 30 frame rate.
HERE ARE THE BIG PERFORMANCE KILLERS FOR FPS
Anything that’s dynamic in your video settings. What dynamic means is anything that sort of changes in game like muzzle flashes, shadows that follow people around etc. You don’t really need them and it’s tough on your video card and CPU.
Besides if an enemy is pointing thier gun at you, shoot first ask questions later… do you really need to see the flash? It’s the little flashes and bullet holes that cause most of the lag and poor frame rates in close quarters combat.
SECOND BIG PERFORMANCE KILLER:
Shadows, and terrain detail… sure some people say turning shadows off or to low is cheating. Well let them explain it to you 15 seconds at a time.
Turning off shadows and terrain details not only makes your frame rates go up but you can also see more since they can't hide in the shadows and behind grass etc.
Sometimes it’s funny b/c snipers with 7800GTX-sli’s will be hiding behind grass that does not exist. (If you can walk through it… bullets can pass through it.) If your hiding in the shadows you’re an idiot. All too often I see people crawling along side a building (in the grass with high-detail) (right the the open with nothing hiding them, low detail)
SO CERTAINLY USE CUSTOM SETTINGS.
View distance 100% (a must)
Max refresh
Lighting (low and keep it low, this removes shadows of building increasing your ability to see people, ???Cheat???…well, certainly an advantage )
Terrain – low (This is the amount of “FAKE” bushes, grass, and trees)
Dynamic Shadows- OFF (and stay off)
Effects – low
Dynamic Light: (OFF – this you will increase later and last if you can)
Texture: low(This sucks up a bunch of video memory keep this in mind you might have to skip it with a 128MB card)
Antialiasing: OFF (This doesn’t help much at low levels of resolution, geometry and texture filtering)
Resolution: 1024 (or 800x600)
Geometry: Medium
Texture Filtering: Medium
Now load it up see what you get for a frame rate!!!!
Hopefully your getting decent frame rates in the 50-60’s or higher. If you are try increasing from the bottom up, those are the most important. (Did you increase the sound to medium yet??? You should!!!)
Try to get your geometry and texture filtering to high first (This helps you see people in the distance faster), remember your trade off is always frame rates vs quality distance and amount of detail. Leave the fluffy stuff like grass and muzzle flashes till later it's not going to help your actual game play. (You want to win right, if you just want to see stuff take your girlfriend to the park).
So you have high geometry and texture filtering, still getting decent in game performance… now try upping your resolution to 1280 or better. Beyond 1600 you don’t see much more (At 1600 the FN2000 scope cross hairs are no longer fuzzy).
Just keep upping the settings until your play becomes choppy. Once your happy (or got the most your going to get) delete the cache folder again and defrag. What you may find is you'll start getting load issues and lag but your frame rates are decent other wise. Guess what it might not be your video card... Could be your system memory. Load times have nothing to do with video cards, they do depend on video settings but not the actual card.
This concludes the BF2 optimizations hopefully you have a optimized your system to a playable level and understand the effects of the settings.
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BUT I STILL WANT MORE, BETTER, AND FASTER!!!!
Really what does more, better, and faster mean? What is the definition of more?
There are really three different aspects, and you have to know what you want and more importantly what you need…
1. Faster frame rates with better picture quality.
2. Eliminate the in game lag I’m getting
3. Decrease load times and faster verification I want to be in the round first.
Well if you’ve already done the above you are going to have to do something with your system at this point but what?
PART II – UPGRADE BUY A NEW ONE, SURE EASIER SAID THAN DONE, UPGRADE WHAT?
A lot of people talk about upgrading their system but in all reality what they are doing is buying a new system. A lot of new systems simply have a lot of mediocre parts that give you mediocre performance, or some really good parts held back by bottlenecks… (512MB or 1G of slow memory, slow hard drives, x700’s, but hey it’s a 4400+)
You have a couple options
Junk your current rig (sell, donate, family etc.) and buy a totally new computer such as the dell-renegade or an Alienware system. (This works well but it's expensive, but hey you have no computer skillz and tones of cash right!!!). Or build your own from scratch (Quite a bit better but more money than an upgrade.)
You other option upgrade what you have to make it work for now... Replace that AGP Card with newer AGP card or buy 1G of memory. (This is certainly the cheapest solution but you may still want more in the near future or you don't get the increase you were expecting. Now your screwed b/c you can't re-use those parts you just purchase 6 months ago?)
Here’s what I recommend, upgrade particular portions of your current computer with parts you can use in your next computer such as ram, hard drive, sound card. Sure that insane fast memory is over kill in your current rig but you would have purchased it anyways and can still use it when you do.
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So what should I upgrade?
You may or may not know that a lot of the in game lag is actually caused by lack of memory, and switching files into and out of memory from the hard drive. As you ask for more graphics higher resolutions the actual amount of data increases.
Memory is a tough call, if you have 2x512MB sticks of decent memory running at 200Mhz (fsb) it might not be your best upgrade. However if you have less than 1G it’s the major option for an upgrade.
This is good news since you can buy stuff that will both work in your current computer now and potentially your next computer (You have ddr right).
Don’t get me wrong a video card is probably the number one bang for the buck, assuming you have enough memory. But, take that x850XT PE put it in a system with 512MB generic single channel ram and a slow drive, you certainly made a nice laggy system with slow load times. You can probably play medium resolutions and settings but it’s going to lag at much more.
Why not a video card? First and foremost you probably have AGP, AGP is a thing of the past it’s dying but not dead. Investing 300 bucks in a new AGP card probably isn’t your best bet, I’d hold off on the card if you don’t have a decent harddrive and memory for now. If you have something like a 9200 ATI or a 5700FX that’s a different story, perhaps a cheaper used card is in order more on this later. Lets talk memory first.
1. MEMORY THE BEST UPGRADE
Best part about memory? DDR will be around for a while and ddr2 isn’t that much better (As of Spring 2006). And more than likely good ddr will work in your next system. It’s pretty hard to talk about ddr2 when AMD doesn’t sell DDR2 boards yet, maybe next year things will be different.
If you have less than 1G of memory currently, the only way to go is 2 x 1G sticks period, search the whole 1G vs 2G. It's pretty much a given that 2G is what you should get. Get some very nice stuff such as OCZ or Geil with very low timings (More on this later).
Why 2G? Memory always seems to be something machines are lacking it wasn’t long ago that 512MB was enough, wow dual channel 1G that’s insane…
With Vista coming out everything is pointing towards requiring more memory, initial reports suggest to get the full benfit of vista you’ll need 2G. For BF2 if you have enough memory BF2 won’t page anything back onto the hard drive no in game lag periods.
Here’s where people start to get a little confused. They currently have 1G of memory (2x512MB dual channel) thinking buying another 2x512MB would be a good investment. Nope!!!
What happens on many boards is running 4 sticks results in the memory running at 166Mhz as opposed to 200Mhz, or you’ll have to reduce the latency from cas2 to cas2.5. In some cases (arguably) running 4x512MB is worst than 2x512MB. The key is getting memory to run as fast as possible first (high MHz) then as quick as possible (low latency).
This is a very detailed subject one of the best reviews on-line IMHO.
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm? … amp;page=1
If you don’t care about the details let me sum up by saying MHz is most important (i.e. 200MHz PC3200, PC3700, PC4000) followed by cas latency such as 2-2-2-5 or 2-3-2-6 etc.
Page 4 show what I’m talking about best.
Comparing 4 sticks to 2 sticks, even if you could get the memory to run at the same cas, 2-2-2-5 and your board defaults to 166mhz.
200Mhz 2-2-2-5 = 5519 MB/s
166Mhz 2-2-2-5 = 4904 MB/s (11% slower)
Another good article an oldie but a goodie…
http://www.lostcircuits.com/memory/latency/4.shtml
Basically think of it this way, 200MHz memory will do 200 cycles in the time it takes 166mhz to do 166 cycles. (THIS IS MHz)
Now in order for a memory execution to take place in 2-2-2-5 latency memory it must consume 2+2+2+5= 11 cycles.
Same CAS different MHz how many executions?
200 cycles / 11 = 18.2 (Higher is better, more through put)
166 cycles / 11 = 15.1
Same MHz different CAS (200 MHZ, cas 2-2-2-5 vs 2.5-3-3-6
200 mhz / 11 = 18.2
200 mhz / 13.5 = 14.8
In this instance you would think that 200fsb at 2.5-3-3-6 would perform equally well to 166 at 2-2-2-5. However that is not the case latency has less of an effect than MHz does. The 200MHz even at slower timings out performs the 166 at tighter timings by about 5%.
Lets compare PC3200 2-2-2-5 vs PC4000 3-4-4-8
200 Mhz x cas 2-2-2-5 = 200 / 11 = 18
250 Mhz x cas 3-4-4-8 = 250 / 19 = 13.1
Here you would think that the 200 MHz would stomp the 250Mhz… This is not the case the 250Mhz will actually beat the 200 by about 10%.
So why do we care? What do we get????
To make a longer story even longer, that best memory is the stuff with low cas and fast MHz (duh!!! That doesn’t help me).
O.K. look at it this way, Generally the 250 MHz 3-4-4-8 will run at 200 Mhz 2-2-2-5, but the 200 has less chance of running 250Mhz at 3-4-4-8.
Best bet is buy based on price, since Mhz is most important buy the fastest MHZ first as long as the timings are not all that bad, stay away from PC3500, PC3700 etc with 4-4-4- and PC3200 with 2.5-3-3-X or worse latency.
Buying decent brands such as Geil, OCZ, Patriot, while avoiding terms such as Value, or even performance. Go to the websites and check what their top model is try to buy that if you have the cash.
If you shop around you can get 2G for 200 dollars or less pretty easy. I’m talking good memory here not junk. Generally I avoid Corsair since I can never get it to overclock very well in dual channel.
I read an article a while back it said that the majority of bluescreen’s computer crashes for home users is bad memory. This mean cheap stuff!!! Don’t scrimp on memory.
So, try out that 2G memory upgrade first you might not get higher frame rates. But you might get reasonable frame rates at that higher setting now. You’ll certainly remove a lot if not all of your in game lag.
Best thing you were probably going to buy that new box anyways. But now you can wait a while until that dual core to drops in price. You basically purchased the ram you going to use in that dual core FX later. Take out those 256MB sticks and keep them in your desk for later.
UPGRADE #2 HARDDRIVES:
The good news is no mater which drive you have the interface to the computer is not the bottleneck. The slowest of the three types of drives is ATA at 133MB/s, no single drive can achieve 133MB/s yet, except for very rare $$$ cases.
What hard drive do you have?
There are three types of interfaces:
ATA (flat cables about 2” wide, same cable that goes to your CD-ROM)
SATA narrow thick cable generally colored with a black end.
SCSI You probably don’t have this.
SO IS MY HARDDRIVE ANY GOOD?
The difference between a so-so hard drive and a good hard drive is FIRST access time. Which is related to the interface ATA, SATA, SCSI, and the rotational speed of the drive (5400RPM, 7200RPM, 10000RPM or 10K, 15000RPM or 15k) and, SCSI.
And SECOND transfer rate.
Generally these two go together.
So what makes a hard drive upgrade worth while?
This is quite simple really, easier to understand than memory. You have two issues with harddrives
SEEK TIMES and TRANSFER RATE
Transfer rates are quite simple move more data per second. Seek Times are equally easy to understand, hard drives are not that fast they take time to find that file before they start transferring it.
Should I upgrade my drive? Which ones are best?
The best drives on the market are 15K SCSI, they have access times in the 3ms range and transfer rates of ~85MB/s. However they are SCSI so most computers don’t have the SCSI interface, even your next computer probably won’t have SCSI. This means $$$ top of the line SCSI drives cost $500+ dollars new, add a 40-50 dollar cable and a $200 adapter card. That’s a little excessive for the best hard drive… but what I have in my machine.
http://www.storagereview.com/articles/2 … 7L0_1.html
Rant:
If you think about it this way… the only portion of your computer that stores all your vital information is the hard drive. It’s what doesn’t forget from one day to the next. If your computer crashes what have you lost?
AND WHAT DO PEOPLE ALWAYS ASK?
When did you last back up? Was there anything important?
No, no, nothing at all that’s why I’ve been on hold with dell since 3am. Hoping that click click click weeerrr click click can be solved over the phone.
So what do you do pay $2000 (TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS) to recover those digital baby pictures, or your financial records? Don’t laugh 2K isn’t an unreasonable amount for data recovery.
Makes you re-think that 200G 50 dollar hard dive with a mail in rebate.
SCSI drives have 7+ year warranties, a lot of newer drives only have 2 year, why? I personally think drive manufactures should be responsible for data recovery on drives less than 2 years old under warranty.
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Now there is nothing saying you can’t buy used scsi drives, a decent used 3-4ms access time 15K setup can be purchased for less than $300. IMHO used SCSI (Seagate, Fugitsu) is better than new no-name drives.
A very close alternative is the 150G SATA Raptor 10K drive. They are also about 300 bucks 5-7ms access times and very respectable ~80Mb/s transfer rates. The 72G versions are slower since they use an older technology.
Again www.storagereview.com is the place to go for benchmarks etc.
Why is access time so important? Think about it this way a normal hard drive 7200rpm has about a 10ms access time. A 4ms to 6ms disadvantage compared to raptors or 15K respectively. This generally means that each file that’s loaded has a lag before it starts transferring. How much data is transferred in 4 or 6 ms? About 300-500kb of data. So if your loading a bunch of small files such as NF2 or normal computer operation… your probably spending more time seeking than you are reading and transferring.
WHAT”S THE RECOMMENDATION?
After all that here it is.
If you have SATA connections on your current motherboard, buy a single 150G Raptor 10K drive the 150G is worth the extra money IMHO.
The 72G Raptor sounds similar but it’s not, it’s slower than the 150G but certainly better than anything non-Raptor.
If you don’t have ATA or you really want the best. Consider SCSI with an add-in card. You won’t be disappointed with 15K SCSI once you try it you’ll never go back.
Besides $400 bucks for a hard drive isn’t that much compared to $200 dollar memory, $400 dollar video cards (and you need two right), $800 dollar processors.
Also a good hard drive will last you several years so the cost per year of service isn’t really that bad.
Also fast hard drives turn relatively slow computers into what seems like a fast machine. My dual P3-800 with 15K SCSI was just put out of service last year.
CONVINCED OR NOT ON HARDDRIVES BESIDES A VIDEO CARD YOU LAST OPTION:
SOUNDCARD ADDIN’S UPGRADES:
Alot of people are saying that the x-fi or audigy cards both increase your ingame performance (frame rate reduced CPU overhead etc) and give you better sound at the same time.
I'm not an audio-nut but it makes sence, your taking some of the load off your struggling CPU. In return your getting faster frame rates and better sound because of it! Sounds like a win win situation and you can transfer this card to your next computer.
Only problem is I’m not convinced…
I’ve looked for reviews on-line documenting performance increases, ACTUAL IN GAME performance increases with frame rates and benchmarks!!!
HUMMM….
Well I can’t find much… sure it’s going to sound better you just spent $250 on the 64MB Creative X-Fi. But shortly after the review starts I just start seeing a bunch of hippies smoking pot stoned around the turn table saying “yeah man I can hear the difference dude… tubes sound so cool man…”
Sure the sound should be clear, you will certainly have a better directional awareness. Foot steps, echos, voices, a tank will actually sound like a tank.
But will adding an Audigy 2 zs to your current rig help out the video?
I’d have to say, Yes, since it makes sense. But I certainly wouldn’t spend 200+ dollars on a sound card if I didn’t have a decent video card.
NEXT UP – VIDEO CARDS – I’ll also add more links.
Last edited by vjs (2006-04-12 09:24:58)
