Lag Problems

[Penguin]

Another pc problem here, hope someone can help, although i think it will be tricky

Recently me and my brother decided to buy BF2 so we upgraded our graphics cards to GeForce 6800's - We're twins and with these things tend to do it the same way Same system spec etc.

2GHZ Processor
512 MB RAM
GeForce 6800 LE

I've never had any problems with my PC but my brother has had a fair few, sevral times his hard drive had been wiped and he had to reinstall windows etc.

Last time the hard drive broke for good so he bought a new one, today he reinstalled everything, (he's a pro at that now ) including the new card, everything seemed okay.

However, even though we have the same spec, when i play BF2 it runs fine, for my brother it's really laggy, we have no idea why, he installed the nividia drivers which came with BF2, so did I. Before that ofcourse we installed the drivers which came with the graphics cards, the BF2 drivers overwrote the origionals i think.

One slight difference in our spec is that our cards are made by different companys ( if i understand this right ) Mines made by LeadTek his is Neolus.

I would have thought that his pc having everything reinstalled etc. (as if brand new) would have no problems what-so-ever.

Thing is we've not had the chance to test it with other games yet but theres no lag outside BF2 currently.

Any suggestions/help much appreciated, it's really frustrating when something like this happens

Penguin.

Edit: It's not network related we don't think, we both had similar pings on the server we were playing on (or atleast trying to play ) around 60 ish.

Edit2: Also pretty sure it's not patch related as we should have the same version, though downloaded from different places we were playing on the same server and you need to have the same ver. for that right?

 

[.Wilier.]

Hi Penguin,

One thing I will say is that your systems are right at the lower end of what is capable of running BF2. Whilst EA says that your within the minimum specs, 512 ram is always going to struggle.

BF2 is a real, memory whore with most people having needed to upgrad to 1 or 2 gig of RAM.

That said, you say it runs fine on your system so perhaps Im wrong.

When you say your brother suffers with lag, is it only for the first 30secs or so of a new map being loaded? This is a fairl common problem, although Im unsure of the fix for it.

You may want to read or even re-post in the Battlefield series forum, some of the guys in there could probably help you more than I.

 

[Jonty]

Hi Penguin

First off, as Wilier says, BF2 is both a demanding and somewhat buggy game. Check you have the 1.02 patch (which it sounds like you have) I would also agree with Wilier about more RAM, but that said if your system is running smoothly then we'll put that aside for now.

The first thing I'd do is check the settings in game and make sure they're the same. Pay particular attention to graphical settings like texture quality, draw distance, anti-aliasing, antistophic filtering. All of these settings, whilst pretty, will put great demands on your system so need to be turned down, or preferably off for the last two mentioning. If that yields nothing, try checking the driver settings (Right click on empty desktop > 'Properties' > 'Settings' (Tab) > 'Advanced' (Button) > {YourCardName} Tab) and make sure that anti-aliasing and antistrophic filtering are not turned on by default ('Application Preference' or '0'/'Off' is what you're after).

If that yields no results, try uninstalling the graphic card drivers on your brother's system, using the aid of something like Driver Cleaner. This ensures no conflicts between different driver versions can exist. Personally, I'd grab the latest Forceware 77.72 Drivers from nVidia and use those. Whilst you're at it, make sure your brother has the latest drivers for his motherboard (for Intel you can find which need on the Chipsets page, if you're unsure just say). If you have a soundcard, you may also wish to check you have the most up to date drivers for that as well.

If that yields no results, make sure that as few applications are running in the background as possible when playing the game, particularly anti-virus and other resource demanding programs (I'm guessing this would be the same for both of you, though). If that doesn't work, and you have the time, try swapping the graphics card over in your two systems. If yours then suffers and his runs fine, that would likely indicate the source of your problem.

Sorry I can't be more specific

Jonty

P.S. If you can, try some other games together and see what happens performance-wise.

 

[Penguin]

Thanks for the replys,

I know how you mean about the RAM - 512MB is minimum, but i'm doing just fine, we have the same graphics settings. I've also read about others with 512MB RAM and they're playing smoothly too.

We do both have the same anti virus software, Norton, i always have it activated and he does too. As for background applications, we don't run any other than anti-virus.

We'll check the drivers, other games, I did think that we should try swapping the graphics cards - Hopefully we'll try that too.

Thanks again,

Penguin.

 

[Jonty]

Hi Penguin

Just one more thing always disable the anti-virus before installing drivers and/or games etc. Probably isn't the root cause of your problem, but it can cause trouble.

Kind Regards

 

[Crossfire]

Whilst you're at it, make sure your brother has the latest drivers for his motherboard (for Intel you can find which need on the

Hi Jonty, I'm pengiuns brother.

I've been trying to determine my motherboard but to no avail. Can you tell me how I must go about finding it?

Thanks for the help so far, I have implemented most of it. However, when using the driver cleaner, must I just select nvidia and choose for it to start?

Much appreciated, Crossfire.

 

[Gat_Decor]

you could try this

SiSoft Sandra

Should be able to determine your mobo, unless jonty has another suggestion (don't want to hijack the thread )

 

[Jonty]

Hi Crossfire

As Gat_Decor says, some utilities such as Sandra will help. Intel also do their own Motherboard Identifier but that sadly seems to be unavailable at the moment (and would only apply if you use a Pentium or Celeron processor, AMD processors use different motherboards). You could also try looking in the BIOS, usually accessible by pressing 'Delete' or 'F2' when prompted straight after switching on your PC.

As for Driver Cleaner, I'm afraid I haven't used it myself. I believe there is some documentation and support forums online, though. If you don't want to use it just uninstall your drivers from the control panel, restart then reinstall. DriverCleaner is merely one of many tools which ensure a thorough job is done.

Kind Regards

 

[Penguin]

Thanks for the help guys. Turns out as i restarted my computer the next day i started having these lag issues too, i can only think that whilst i was fiddeling around with the drivers i managed to install 2 sets perhaps and the second took over when my pc had restarted? Well we turned the settings down a little and everything seems okay now, i may fiddle around with different drivers to see which work the best, perhaps not the most recent

Penguin.