BF2 freezing issues...

[PrISM506]

I'm posting this here because this is probably the place with the most mature people around. So anyway...

I've got a freezing issue with BF2. I have an Athlon 64 3500+, BFG 6800GT and 1GB of RAM. If I update the 6800GT drivers to the latest (77.72) OR try to increase any of the graphics options BF2 starts to stutter and freeze. I haven't updated BF2 because I've heard the update is ass. The best I've been able to do is run it in 800x600 with the minimum settings and rollback the nVidia drivers to 66.93 I think it is. The freezing goes down to about 5-10 seconds every 10 minutes or so. With the 77.72 drivers and updated video settings it's utterly unplayable.

I don't think it's a problem with BF2 because it happens in Brothers in Arms and EverQuest 2 as well to varying degrees. Anyone have any suggestions?

 

[imported_FishTaco]

First I'd check for and remove virii and spyware.

Second, I'd make sure my drivers were up to date and cleanly installed. By cleanly, I mean removing the driver, running a driver cleaner, then a fresh driver install.

Then I'd turn off any program that uses memory or processor time. Watch your processor usage and see if anything makes it spike every 10 minutes. Check your baseline memory usage, how much memory is being used before you start BF2?

Finally, I'd turn off unneccessary Windows Services.

If I still had stuttering problems, I guess I'd check my hardware for defects with stress tests on my memory/cpu/gpu.

Your hardware should be able to run with a mix of high/med settings at high resolutions.

 

[PrISM506]

Can you recommend me any particular driver washers?

 

[MemberSince97]

Have you tried fast writes off?

 

[linjy2]

i think its just bf2, its freezes occasionally while loading the multiplayer screen. doesnt even freeze, the mouse still moves but nothing happens. this is a normal problem though.

 

[CVSiN]

upgrading to 2 gigs of ram solved all my problems...
this is rediculous

 

[luigi1]

I second the ram upgrade. Solved most of my problems. AMD64 3400+ on NV3 mobo 6800GT I went from 1 gig to 2 gig and can run on high video settings.

 

[Stuxnet]

OP: You and I have identical systems in terms of specs, and I'm able to run BF2 with pretty much any settings I desire up to and including 1600x1200.

At 1024x768, I run everything on high except for Dynamic Shadows, which are turned off. I turned them off because, honestly, I think they look like trash in some cases, with all of the blocky edges (I really hope they fix that, because aside from that, they look great). Anywho, I'm usually at the FPS cap (100) with a few exceptions where it dips into the mid 80's.

Make sure your paging file is the proper size and, if possible, move it to a separate drive from BF2. I'm running Norton (please don't shun me), and if I don't unload the service prior to running BF2, I get some pretty frequent stuttering.

Lastly, like CVSiN said, upgrading to 2GB has helped quite a few people. I'm going to be doing that, too.

 

[imported_FishTaco]

Originally posted by: PrISM506
Can you recommend me any particular driver washers?

I use Driver Cleaner 3.3

 

[PrISM506]

Well I tried fiddling around with the paging file. I tried not using it (have 1GB RAM) altogether and I just get memory errors. So I tried moving it to an alternate (unused) hard drive with no real improvement. I was able to play with some of the settings turned up but within fifteen minutes my machine just hard locked.

My next step is to try cleaning the drivers.

 

[1ManArmY]

What values did you set your swap file to initial and max?

 

[PrISM506]

I seemed to have narrowed down the problem a bit. I cleaned the drivers and installed the lastest version (77.72). No fix. The game is choppy at every resolution and quality settings. So I wiped them again and installed the 66.93 drivers. So far so good. I'm slowly increasing the settings to see where it starts to get bad.

As for the paging file, I set the min/max to 1534 on my second hard drive. Not really sure if that is right or not.

 

[imported_FishTaco]

How much memory is being used before you start BF2?

 

[PrISM506]

PF Usage: 249MB

 

[grohl]

OP: Just saw this thread while searching these forums for some help.

As above, your specs and problems are identical to mine. I'm not thrilled at the RAM upgrade but lit looks like I will bite the bullet soon. I find it ridiculous to have a pretty decent rig and not be able to run this game with above average performance.

BTW I was at Quakecon yesterday and Dell had like 10 7800GTX SLI rigs playing BF2, I was pwning the group before I had to come home to my "crappy" machine. Sigh. It did look awesome when running smoothly.

Will be following this thread for any more help you can supply.

 

[luigi1]

I up graded from 1 gig to 2. Started noticing crashes , ran memory diag, had errors. Put my 1 gig back in RMA'd the 2 gig. It's real noticable. I've got 2 gig back from the RMA process. I load much faster, I dont get the inital stutter when game starts and dont stutter when the game gets busy. I still suck but thats ok, thats just me. You can tell a difference with EQ2 but you can really tell a difference with BF2. Your giving your opponent an advantage running with 1 gig. Having said that let me say there are bad servers, and playing the game with high ping is no fun. But with a low ping decent server the game runs very fluid. Ya even during arty strikes and arty loves me it followes me everywhere.

 

[Kaspian]

Originally posted by: PrISM506
Can you recommend me any particular driver washers?

Datonator Rip

 

[Kaspian]

Originally posted by: PrISM506
I'm posting this here because this is probably the place with the most mature people around. So anyway...

I've got a freezing issue with BF2. I have an Athlon 64 3500+, BFG 6800GT and 1GB of RAM. If I update the 6800GT drivers to the latest (77.72) OR try to increase any of the graphics options BF2 starts to stutter and freeze. I haven't updated BF2 because I've heard the update is ass. The best I've been able to do is run it in 800x600 with the minimum settings and rollback the nVidia drivers to 66.93 I think it is. The freezing goes down to about 5-10 seconds every 10 minutes or so. With the 77.72 drivers and updated video settings it's utterly unplayable.

I don't think it's a problem with BF2 because it happens in Brothers in Arms and EverQuest 2 as well to varying degrees. Anyone have any suggestions?

I had the same problem with BF2 in my system. Uninstall the nvidia drivers....Run detonator rip......then install the new drivers and turn fast writes off at the bios. I spent about 2 weeks dealing with that problem and that was the only thing that fix it. Good luck.

 

[Chaotic42]

Turn AGP fast writes off if you have them on. It will help, but probably won't solve the problem.

 

[bustacaptx]

Do what the folks have told you about cleaning/reinstalling drivers. Reinstall the game from scratch. Patch to 1.02 (important: do NOT install the 1.01 patch first ... it'll kill any benefits the reinstall may have given you).

It's also preferred to install BF2 on C:. For some reason, it likes C: and has fewer errors when installed there. Have no idea why, but empirical evidence from dozens of users all points to that direction.

But if you don't wanna do the BF2 reinstall, at least do this http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1028097438&postcount=6 (from my Hardforum post).

1. Shut down BF2 & everything else.

2. Delete everything in "My Documents\Battlefield 2\mods\bf2\cache"

3. Completely defrag your hard drive (using a good tool like O&O Defrag or something)

4. Crank up BF2 again and go into a single-player game. It'll reoptimize your shaders, which will take a few minutes.

5. Shut down BF2 and restart it.

This should give you great BF2 benefits. This worked wonders for me even before I upgraded from 1gb to 1.5gb; I'd say the stuttering was cut by 75%. Now I get veeeerrrrry minor jerkiness for like 2 seconds in a new map. Once I get it up to 2gb, I expect that'll be gone as well.

BTW, for best results, repeat this after you change video settings in BF2.