COD: Black Ops Terrible PC Performance

Page 5 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar

Do you experience stutter, framerate issues, and/or crashes in COD:BO

  • Yes

  • No

Results are only viewable after voting.
BeauJangles

BeauJangles

Lifer
Aug 26, 2001
13,941
1
0
CVSiN said:
ok took the 360 version back traded it in towards the PC version..

not having any bad issues at all.. SP and Bots run like glass.. MP very playable but every once in a while it lags..
watching system monitor only during loading does the CPU really work hard..
this is a i7 920 with dual EVGA 460s FTWs
and it could be optomized better but its 100% playable with no horrid lag or hesitations.

glad I traded in.. too bad BO basically cost me 100 bucks though.
Click to expand...

Most people's MP stuttering issues have zero to do with their own PCs. The most plausible theory that I've heard is that the MP server suffers from the 100% CPU use some people have experienced. Considering that there are multiple dedicated servers on the same physical box, all of them clamoring for 100% of the CPU would lead to the kind of weird lag, delays, and dropped frames that almost everyone has been seeing.

Then again, there are clearly issues with the game code itself -- the 100% CPU usage on the SP menu, the consistently choppy killcams, etc.

Hopefully they'll care enough to fix it.
 
Miklebud

Miklebud

Platinum Member
Nov 20, 2002
2,459
1
81
BeauJangles said:
Most people's MP stuttering issues have zero to do with their own PCs. The most plausible theory that I've heard is that the MP server suffers from the 100% CPU use some people have experienced. Considering that there are multiple dedicated servers on the same physical box, all of them clamoring for 100% of the CPU would lead to the kind of weird lag, delays, and dropped frames that almost everyone has been seeing.

Then again, there are clearly issues with the game code itself -- the 100% CPU usage on the SP menu, the consistently choppy killcams, etc.

Hopefully they'll care enough to fix it.
Click to expand...

Odd thing for me is that I had my Task Manager open on my 2nd monitor last night during Multiplayer, and my CPU was only at 100% for seconds during the loading screens. Other than that, it was around 50-60 during gameplay. I still got the stutters everyone else is having though. :( Single player ran perfectly smooth for me, with a CPU around 50-60% as well.
 
BeauJangles

BeauJangles

Lifer
Aug 26, 2001
13,941
1
0
Miklebud said:
Odd thing for me is that I had my Task Manager open on my 2nd monitor last night during Multiplayer, and my CPU was only at 100% for seconds during the loading screens. Other than that, it was around 50-60 during gameplay. I still got the stutters everyone else is having though. :( Single player ran perfectly smooth for me, with a CPU around 50-60% as well.
Click to expand...

Same issue with me. Computer isn't under super strenuous load, but games stutters, that's why they're looking into the server code... which they probably didn't test that much considering their focus was on the Xbox version.
 
pontifex

pontifex

Lifer
Dec 5, 2000
43,804
46
91
Update on Steam

Hey PC community.

We are listening and have been working on updates. We have deployed a few already below, with more to come. Stay tuned here.

11/10

* gameservers.com has bumped sv_maxrate to 25000 across all servers to reduce lag
* gameservers.com continues to improve official server distribution


11/11

* Friends fix for join in progress and Friends tab in server browser.
* Performance improvement for dual and quad core.
* Improved connectivity with Black Ops Rcon tool.


no change for me. still runs like crap.
 
Last edited:
Jschmuck2

Jschmuck2

Diamond Member
Jul 13, 2005
5,623
3
81
Same here - almost seems worse post-patch. The review is up on Ars for the PC version and they say "don't buy." Nice to see my poor purchase is being validated, at least.
 
pontifex

pontifex

Lifer
Dec 5, 2000
43,804
46
91
Jschmuck2 said:
Same here - almost seems worse post-patch. The review is up on Ars for the PC version and they say "don't buy." Nice to see my poor purchase is being validated, at least.
Click to expand...


My friend said that it only applied to the MP version, not the SP. I only tried SP so far and it didn't work there.
 
pontifex

pontifex

Lifer
Dec 5, 2000
43,804
46
91
minmaster said:
only PC.
apparently everything is smooth as butter on the consoles
Click to expand...

why would i be talking about the console versions on a PC gaming forum? :hmm:

anyway...now when i try to load the SP it comes up completing installation and then says incomplete installation of call of duty: black ops (20)


MP loads without a problem though....sigh...
 
minmaster

minmaster

Platinum Member
Oct 22, 2006
2,041
3
71
has anyone read this?
saw it on another site

I spent all day yesterday trying to identify the problem here, and it finally came down to Black Ops Live Stat Streaming.

How I Identified it:

My friend was having big lag issues, even though he has a monster of a PC (i7), far better than mine, but was barely pulling 40 fps. I told him my puny Phenom II X2 was getting an average of 80-100 fps. He was as perplexed as I was, until I suggested he bring his PC round to my house and use my connection (50 down, 30 up). Once he was setup on my connection, his PC did much better, with an average of 90+ fps. So, we concluded that it was the connection - he had a meagre 1 meg up at his home, but with the 30 up I have at mine, it managed much better. Why?

Well, from the moment you log into Black Ops it starts live streaming your stats. This is why even the menus lag - it is getting data to display about game events, such as bombs destroyed, wager contracts made and fulfilled, etc, etc. This data is sent every 2 game frames, both up and down. It is constant.

How I Solved the Problem:

I set to work building a program that runs Black Ops in a shell, and wanted to block the port used for the Live stats streaming. However, doing that kills the game dead, as it "thinks" the stats server is offline, and it wont let you play, displaying a "our stats are offline at the moment please try later" type message. So, I "spoofed" it into thinking it was sending and receiving (with a null byte data packet) and that cured the lag. However, it meant no levelling up etc.

What I did next was cache the game data to the side in a holding sub program, and held it for 4 seconds (had to play around with the timing to find the sweet spot), then transmitted it. Bingo! We have a winner. Started pulling better than 125 fps.

All this informed me that this was the reason some people are getting lag, while others aren't getting it nearly as bad, and it all had to do with their up speeds - if you have a good up speed, the lag isn't nearly so bad.

What I did with these Findings:

I sent all this info over to Treyarch, and was pleased to hear they had been working on something similar. I was concerned I may have incurred a VAC ban because of the game shell, so they said they would speak to Valve for me.

Let's hope they rolled this fix out for everyone (console and PC alike) asap.
Click to expand...
 
minmaster

minmaster

Platinum Member
Oct 22, 2006
2,041
3
71
its sad that you need like a 50MB connection to play a fps game smoothly.

it should never require more than isdn speeds
 
C

coxmaster

Diamond Member
Dec 14, 2007
3,017
3
81
minmaster said:
its sad that you need like a 50MB connection to play a fps game smoothly.

it should never require more than isdn speeds
Click to expand...
Who said it does?

I've got 8 down 2 up and I havent had any issues. Everybody complains in EVERY server about how terrible the lag is. Fact is, i've only ever had bad lag in 1 server.

It seems the lag issue is hit or miss, my friends and I seem to have gotten lucky.
 
fatpat268

fatpat268

Diamond Member
Jan 14, 2006
5,853
0
71
coxmaster said:
Who said it does?

I've got 8 down 2 up and I havent had any issues. Everybody complains in EVERY server about how terrible the lag is. Fact is, i've only ever had bad lag in 1 server.

It seems the lag issue is hit or miss, my friends and I seem to have gotten lucky.
Click to expand...

Be happy. I can't tell you how many kills I missed because my game decided to stutter at that instant I was about to shoot.

So yea, most of the time when I mess up, it's because of that damned lag.
 
minmaster

minmaster

Platinum Member
Oct 22, 2006
2,041
3
71
nothing more annoying than the 0.00001% of the guys who don't experience the stuttering bragging about it.

they deserve a cookie for having such awesome internet connection!
 
Last edited:
AznAnarchy99

AznAnarchy99

Lifer
Dec 6, 2004
14,695
117
106
Saw my first hacker today. When you're running around with 100 sensitivity and locking on heads, its pretty safe to say your aim botting.
 
T

Tommy2000GT

Golden Member
Jun 19, 2000
1,832
3
81
I have a e8400 @ 4ghz and 8800GT 512mb. I have the texture quality set to Extra and AA on low. It runs pretty smooth in both SP and MP. So I don't understand how people with i7's and GTX 460's can say it's unplayable.
 
D

duragezic

Lifer
Oct 11, 1999
11,234
4
81
Well what I was looking for in the patch was no crashing then better performance. The patch notes mentioned better performance but nothing about fixing crashes.

So I almost wasn't going to bother but I just tried and of course 1/2 through the 1st mission, it crashed. This time with another blue screen which I haven't seen in years. This was with my CPU overclocked but considering the same thing happens while stock I'm hoping it something that a patch will fix.

If not, it's almost unplayable if I can't have my CPU overclocked. Even at 2.7ghz, 1280x800/no AA/auto is choppy at times but definitely playable. Doesn't seem like dropping from 1680x1050 to 1280x800 even made much of a difference. Unreal. I know my rig is getting older but considering games like Crysis run better at 1680x1050 mid-high details, I don't see how this struggles so much.

Very disappointing. And with BO release, the MW2 multiplayer numbers fell to like 1/5 of what they used to be! :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom