Hardware help with Battlefield 1942...advice needed please

[Confused]

More memory and better GFX card (GF3/4, 8500 or better) and you'll be fine!


Confused

 

[oldfart]

Click here for your answer!!

 

[bozack]

Hey all, yeah I have two sticks of memory (well one currently and one on the way) One stick of PC2100 DDR Kingston 256mb and another PC2700 Crucial 512mb which is on the way....I am planning to run them both at the same (lower) speed that the chip was designed for as I am not into overclocking it. I just hope they play nice as it does not like two sticks of PC133...

I will post back when I get the memory on monday, also I was looking at the 8500 Radeon card...maybe I will opt for that also.

Oldfart, my work PC does not have sound so I cannot hear that now but I will listen when I get home.

 

[Insidious]

I don't know guys...

This thread made me curious, so I stuck an additional stick of 256 into my machines. (Total of 768 now.......)

I didn't see a significant difference in loading times on BF1942 between maps. My kid will have to give the final

apprasal though.... he will notice better than I if there is a difference or not. (he plays it more)

Perhaps we have differing ideas of what a 'quick' load of a map is.... takes around 15 to 20 seconds or so here (estimate)

I've been calling that slow....

-Sid


Task Manager reports a peak memory usage of 428MB after a short game. (on-line)

My 'Pooter

 

[Lord Evermore]

Even on my system with 512MB dual-channel PC2100 an an XP 2100+ (at 2200+ speed with memory matched), maps take 30 seconds or more to load (Barracuda ATA IV hard drive). I tried it with 768MB as well, in 3 slots, and there wasn't an immediately noticeable difference. Don't have the money to see what 1GB might do.

 

[Insidious]

So it's not just me....

Don't buy into the more RAM RAM RAM thingy. If you have 512 or better, you are fine on BF1942. Spend that money on a decent video card.
CPU matters too, but that MoBo/CPU upgrade takes a few more $$.

-Sid


edit:

LordEvermore,

I'm guessing my estimation of loading was through the ol' rose colored glasses if you are seeing 30 seconds.... you and I should be about the same
with me on the slower side.

 

[chizow]

I made some significant upgrades since I first bought BF1942 when it was released.

The biggest difference I noticed for load times was going RAID 0. It cut my load times by more than 1/2. I was running one 80MB 8MB Maxtor Ultra on a 1700MHz XP with 512MB of RAM and my load times were nearly a minute. RAID 0 cut that down to about 25 seconds.
I know many people have achieved similar results by increasing their RAM as well, but the STR and large buffers (8MB) on my drives really seemed to minimize any swaps occurring during map loads with only 512MB RAM.

My next major upgrade was @ 700MHz worth of CPU with my XP 2100+, but it didn't have that much impact on load times b/c the HDD is clearly the bottleneck. Change in load time wasn't very noticeable.

I then tossed in 1GB of XMS3200LL...which cut down load times to my current 5-10 sec loads. I get the map load screen, hard drives blasting full throttle, progress bar goes to 1/3..stops for 2 seconds, and I'm in the game. The biggest difference I noticed with more RAM was that in-game play was much smoother. Once something is loaded, my HDD rarely spins up as everything is cached. You can run clear from once side of the map to the other and never see a single stutter or jitter from a HDD swap. Once you've played a full round of maps, there's no load time at all. I'm always the first one spawned and usually blasting spawn points before most people make it out of the load screen...its great!!! :evil:

Chiz

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: Lord Evermore
Even on my system with 512MB dual-channel PC2100 an an XP 2100+ (at 2200+ speed with memory matched), maps take 30 seconds or more to load (Barracuda ATA IV hard drive). I tried it with 768MB as well, in 3 slots, and there wasn't an immediately noticeable difference. Don't have the money to see what 1GB might do.

maps don't take 30 seconds for me hm. i'll try later when i do a clean reboot. busy downloadin right now winblows xp claims ionly have 540 mb free right now. and i'm just running ie/word/kazaa and some download apps. last time i tried monitoring it 1942's ram usage with taskmanager on my 2nd monitor, i had ie-16mb and kazaa 10mb open. after 2 minutes of desert combat taskmanger said i had 175mb free physical out of 1gb well that wasn't with a clean reboot, but still.

Once something is loaded, my HDD rarely spins up as everything is cached. You can run clear from once side of the map to the other and never see a single stutter or jitter from a HDD swap. Once you've played a full round of maps, there's no load time at all

yup, it doesn't touch the hd after load

 

[Insidious]

You are right about the striped Raid array helping.

I'm only on IDE Raid (onboard HPT372) and even it made a difference. I'm sure a nice SCSI array would really help.

We usually land in the map at the beginning of the period when players are arriving. never the first.... but always among them though.

-Sid

 

[0roo0roo]

ok clean reboot. nothing running of importance. after 10 minutes of play on 26 person net game, i was left with 189mb. i started the map with ~220free it just kept dropping. i didn't use any vehicles, just run and gun.

monitored with taskmanager running on 2nd monitor.

so i guess 768 isn't quite enough to see the difference. the game takes anything u give it hah!

 

[Insidious]

i started the map with ~220free

I think I am misunderstanding your post.....

you started the game with only 220MB free out of 1,000MB.... ???

that can't be right.... what the ferk else was running to eat up 780MB before hand?

Also, after you do a trial run, open up task manager (cntrl^alt^del) and select the performance tab.
In the lower part of the window look at the Commit Charge (K), the peak value..... this will tell you immediately
what the maximum RAM usage of your machine has been since your last re-start.

I'm very curious..... Might have to go shopping.... (gee that would break my heart

)

-Sid

 

[BigFatCow]

BF1942 takes up alot of ram, i looked at the windows task manager while i was playing and it said BF was using 330 MB of ram... when i went from 512mb of ram to 1 gig of ram the game actually played alot smoother...

 

[Insidious]

Originally posted by: BigFatCow
BF1942 takes up alot of ram, i looked at the windows task manager while i was playing and it said BF was using 330 MB of ram... when i went from 512mb of ram to 1 gig of ram the game actually played alot smoother...

This is where I am getting confused. I assure you I am not trying to be difficult.... I really don't understand.

Task Manager says ~300MB of ram are being used... But I see enough posts to know people believe they are seeing differences by upping the amount
of unused RAM in their systems.

Somebody help me understand this?

(All I need is a good excuse to go shopping for more RAM!)

-Sid

I also don't understand why upping my RAM from 512 to 768 yielded no casually observable difference in my game play (This may be due to the fact I play at
only 1024X768X32, but all details are on. and it looks smooth to begin with)

My 'Pooter

 

[bozack]

I would be psyched with 20-30 sec load times, heck I am waiting like 1-3 minutes now...it used to be about 1min on win98se but now with XP Pro it just seems like my system needs more memory..oh well it will be here monday so we will see then. Thanks again.

Hey Insid, I only have 256 which is where I think my problem lies, after my 512 comes in I will have a total of 768 megs depending on if they play nice however I think I would be ok with 512

 

[Intelman07]

I don't know if this will help but my system will play it seemlessly. Look at my system rigs.

 

[Insidious]

Thanks bozack and intelman07

I think maybe I was just reading too much into the posts above
(Pronounced: I believed ridiculous claims).

Gameplay here is seamless as well, I was looking at the time for maps to load.... (wishing mine were faster... don't we all )

I think from reading all the above that what I am seeing on my comps. is just fine and normal for BF1942 (as I originally believed) and really isn't going
to improve until the next upgrade of MoBo/CPU. Certainly, I do not believe going from 768 to 1000MB is going to change anything in this particular application.

I am thoughorly convinced that the claims of 1GB being 'necessary' are bunk. Frankly, I doubt if anything over 512 will change much.
Especially since most of the posts above by people who bothered to check their system operation at all indicate that less than 400MB is even being used.

Thanks to all,

-Sid

 

[Lord Evermore]

I have doubts about claims that hard drives ever hold back performance too. I've watched the LEDs, and my drive is almost unused during map loading. A spurt right at the start and then it seems to be nothing but the CPU processing the map (they really need to make the progress meter more accurate, seems like for everyone, the meter gets up halfway then suddenly it's done). Some of the maps are over 40MB in size, but that only takes a few seconds to copy from the drive, and there's no reason for the system to have to start swapping anything around on the hard drive. Only thing I can imagine there is that the OS is still doing other stuff while it's loading the map for some people, so while the CPU processes the map, it's also having to access things on the hard drive.

Maybe soon I'll get a 512MB module and see how 1GB does. But 512MB is certainly enough for most uses and to make most games playable with good performance.

 

[chizow]

Its also your imagination that people with similar system specs spawn 30 seconds before you and............LOOK OUT!!! MOSQUITO!!!!!!!! :Q:Q:Q:Q

:evil:*Respawn*:evil:

Hi! Like my pre-spawn :gift:???

Chiz

 

[oldfart]

I was just playing some BF1942 Desert Ops. I checked task manager and it showed I had 285 Meg out of my 1 Gig of ram free. Yup 715 Meg used. The more ram, the better.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Desert Ops is a mod though. Does the same thing happen in plain BF1942? Is the bf1942.exe actually taking up more than a few hundred megs of memory, or is the majority of the 715MB taken up by the OS?

 

[0roo0roo]

Also, after you do a trial run, open up task manager (cntrl^alt^del) and select the performance tab.
In the lower part of the window look at the Commit Charge (K), the peak value..... this will tell you immediately
what the maximum RAM usage of your machine has been since your last re-start.

alright, i'll try that later been only lookin at the physical memory part so far. i've heard windows reserves memory? i dunno. bah

you started the game with only 220MB free out of 1,000MB.... ???

well yea, i should have been more clear. i had about 220mb free according to task manager when i first set foot on the map. as i ran around it slowly continued to drop, i'm sure it would eventually level out of course. i didn't have time to check.

Desert Ops is a mod though. Does the same thing happen in plain BF1942? Is the bf1942.exe actually taking up more than a few hundred megs of memory, or is the majority of the 715MB taken up by the OS?

guess someone will have to check. i somehow doubt desert combat uses more memory. its not all that more complex, its just different.
i'll check later wish i had a separate downloadin machine.


are you guys testing online with games full of people? talking 26-30+ u know.

 

[oldfart]

Originally posted by: Lord Evermore
Desert Ops is a mod though. Does the same thing happen in plain BF1942? Is the bf1942.exe actually taking up more than a few hundred megs of memory, or is the majority of the 715MB taken up by the OS?

Right now, I have 818 Meg free. Win2K, Norton AV, Outlook Epress, IE6, Speedfan, etc running.

 

[0roo0roo]

hm yea i guess thats valid, how much free memory do u guys have when just running your os? i doubt you close your instant messaging software to play games. wel u shouldn't have to turn off stuff like that to play games

 

[0roo0roo]

ok, did another reboot and another one of my half baked tests

after xp booted i had a commit charge of slightly over 220mb.



i loaded desert combat, 73 easting about 28 players online.

initial stats as i spawned on map. 626xxxk commit, 166xxxk available physical memory.


after a few minutes the peak commit was 687xxxk but the free available physical memory was only 117mb. tad confusing eh? free available physical mem kept dropping.





i then loaded 1942 nonmod. aberdean map. initial spawn at 519xxxk commit, 408xxxk physical memory avaiable.


after a few minutes it said commit of 548xxxk, peak commit 688xxxk, physical free 378xxxk

seems desert combat uses a lot more physical mem? i didn't account for map differences of course both had more mem used as i went along.

didn't try road to rome.

 

[john433i]

Try turning down the audio quality settings all the way. I have done this on my main two computers (both quite powerful) and this has eliminated the in-game choppiness in BF1942 both cases. If it is still running slowly (in-game) then reduce the texture quality and see if it helps. As for long loading times, those will only be reduced by memory and hard drive subsystem upgrades