Bad Company 2 runs like poop on new system

Homer Simpson

Senior member
Oct 10, 1999
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cliffs: system ran BFBC2 fine. did an upgrade anyway (to keep up with my friends, im lame like that). now BFBC2 stutters like a mofo on faster hardware and clean install of windows. wtf?

detailed:

ok, game ran great on my system until hardware change.

old sys:
c2 quad 9450 @ 3.2ghz
gigabyte ep45-ds3r (P45)
4gb ocz ram (cant recall specs off hand)
BFG GTX285OC
X-fi fatility 64mb xram
WD Black 1TB
1920x1080 monitor
win 7 ultimate x64

new sys:
i7 920
evga 3x SLI x58
6gb corsair pc1600
the rest is the same parts as above

i really didnt expect any difference with the new hardware since the game already ran great. but to my suprise is now stutters terribly in multiplayer. it doesnt appear to be lag, there isnt rubberbanding and warping, everything is herky jerky. it stutters. single player seems to run ok tho. happens on multiple servers, friends on the same server as me report no issues of lag or stuttering. seems limited to me.

my old parts ended up in my 2nd system with a gtx260 216. for giggles and grins, i loaded the game on it and when i go to the same game server that is stuttering on my new setup, it plays fine. so its definitely related to my machine.

things ive tried inlclude,

video drivers. 196.21 WHQL (the non frying ones), and 196.86 betas. no help.

NIC drivers (onboard realtek). tried windows default, evga and straight from realtek (dated mar 4, 10. nice and fresh). no help.

NIC ports, tried both onboard ports, tried different switch ports. no help.

disabled xfi in device manager. no help.

removed xfi, enabled onboard realtek crap audio. no help.

tried a spare NIC (another crappy realtek. same chip as mobo or atleast same family). no help.

BIOS settings completely stock/default settings. zero overclocking. ram even at lowly 1033. no help.

overclocked the crap out of it using someone elses settings from evga forums (3.6/3.9GHz base/turbo). no help.

swapped my gtx260 in place of the 285. no help.

moved my machine into my router's DMZ. no help.

re-installed windows yet again and re-tried some of the above. no help.

Ive played with game settings. i have a backup of my settings ini files from before the upgrade. i noticed a few differences like it setting high audio quality whereas before it was medium. similar with sound size (wtf is that?). i changed everything to match what i used to have when it worked. initially thought the audio change helped but stuttering returned after a few minutes. tried lowering the gfx settings to 1x AA and AF, no help. also, for some reason my FOV settings changes from 64 to something weird like 63.99993. dunno why. didnt do that previously. changed refresh to 60hz on monitor to match game setting (windows was initially set to 59hz). no help.

played with NIC advanced settings. turned flow control off. again, thought this helped initially, but no. stuttering returned.

ive checked temps. cpu cores idle about 30C and in game are upper 40's. have verified with eleet that cpu speed is ramping up correctly. using gpuz, verified the video card is x16 mode and correctly ramping up speed in-game. temps in 70's and eventually 80's after a really long session.

oh, and L4D2 runs just dandy online. other games seem to run normally as well.


i have run out of ideas other than returning my $600 in parts and going back to my old reliable q9450
 

GullyFoyle

Diamond Member
Dec 13, 2000
4,362
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In your BFBC2 settings.ini file, try playing with your "RenderAheadLimit=" setting. If it's 2, try zero. If it's zero, try 2?
 

raygunpk

Member
Jan 23, 2005
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could be a driver issue, some people were reporting around 8% GPU use while the game was up... probably got put to power saving mode as the game is fairly new, and nvidia hasn't worked out all the kinks. maybe try an older driver set or custom ones.
 

Homer Simpson

Senior member
Oct 10, 1999
584
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0
Is it allowed through firewalls and anti-virus software and all that?
as noted in OP, moved to DMZ to elimintate router/firewall issues. also, on 2nd windows reinstall, i played it before any a/v installed (im using avira). windows firewall currently appears identical between the two systems.

In your BFBC2 settings.ini file, try playing with your "RenderAheadLimit=" setting. If it's 2, try zero. If it's zero, try 2?
havent played with this yet... though i would think this would affect single player as well which works fine. its currently at the default of 2 and is at 2 on the working second system and was 2 on my old build. but i guess i can try fiddling with it after work today.

could be a driver issue, some people were reporting around 8% GPU use while the game was up... probably got put to power saving mode as the game is fairly new, and nvidia hasn't worked out all the kinks. maybe try an older driver set or custom ones.
as noted in OP, tried a couple diff drivers and also verified with gpuz that the gpu is ramping up correctly
 

Homer Simpson

Senior member
Oct 10, 1999
584
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0
so after exhausting all the obvious and not so obvious options, i started looking for really obscure things like IRQ sharing and things like that. i know IRQ sharing is common but every mobo ive had handled it just fine set to auto (abit, asus and gigabye). this is my first evga mobo. i noticed a usb root hub or something sharing with the vid card. no biggie, my other machines is the same. but in the interest of trying EVERYTHING possible, i moved my lone usb device (2.0 hub for my mouse/kb which wont reach the case) to a different usb port on the back of the mobo. no more stuttering all night last night. wtf?? how dumb is that? all this grief the past week all because of using a certain usb port. argh!! i plan to verify my no more stuttering again tonight just in case it was a fluke though.
 

Homer Simpson

Senior member
Oct 10, 1999
584
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so the usb shenanigans was just that. still stutters like a mofo. ive eventually determined that setting renderahead to 1 in both the ini and nvidia control panel helps a lot. any other number and it runs like poo. also did some testing with fraps. seems im getting great framerates, 50-75 on average with an occasional dip to high 40's on really intense scenes. nothing like 60fps and stuttering. and no, im not using vsync. its off in the ini and nvidia drivers are set to application controlled. so not a framerate issue and also not a lag issue. i overclocked my 920 to back to 3.6 and still no help. lowered sound quality and no help. others on EA forums seem to report similar issues with highend systems just dropping frames while maintaining high framerates giving the appearance of stuttering. im at a loss as to the cause. those with this issue dont have any common component that i can tell. so frustrating. atleast with the renderahead set to 1 its tolerable most of the time. :(
 
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ViviTheMage

Lifer
Dec 12, 2002
36,189
87
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madgenius.com
I had this exact, same problem Homer Simpson...I had a similiar setup, but I had a E8400....I had a Q9550 laying around, so I swapped Just that, and whamo, I was fixed. The game ran like a movie after that...on all high, 8x MSAA, etc.

Did you reinstall OS, or did you just copy it over? When I was researching my problem, I also saw a lot of problems with i7's, I am not sure why. Maybe you can force windows to use only 4 cores, and not '8' ?
 

ViviTheMage

Lifer
Dec 12, 2002
36,189
87
91
madgenius.com
Have you tried manually shutting off the 4 virtual cores, kind of a PITA, but worth testing. You can do it in windows.

MSCONFIG --> BOOT --> ADVANCED OPTIONS --> Number over processors

I would test it with only 2 cores, then only 4.
 
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40Hands

Diamond Member
Jun 29, 2004
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I had some similar problems and I solved it by lowering my windows 7 sound quality. I couldn't really tell the difference in the sound after doing it so I just left it that way. Just a thought.
 

Homer Simpson

Senior member
Oct 10, 1999
584
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ive already flat out disabled sound in device manager and it didnt help. but ive also tried lowering from 48khz to 44khz with no help as well. tried using the onboard realtek instead of my xfi and no help.
 

Homer Simpson

Senior member
Oct 10, 1999
584
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well, i tried disabling HT so i only had 4 cores rather than 8. it seemed to help some. today i tried the new 197.13 beta drivers and no probs whatsoever. i even turned HT back on, upped my AF to 8x, returned the windows sound quality back up to 48khz, and returned the rendered ahead setting back to the default 2 in the .ini and the default in nvidia control panel. ive been playing all night and its been great. dunno why, but atleast im back to the level i was at before the hardware change.
 

gorobei

Diamond Member
Jan 7, 2007
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try: nv control panel/adjust desktop size and pos/ set to "use my display's built in scaling"