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Windows Forum / Windows Vista / Games / February 2007Battlefield 2: Swapping extreme
Hi there, regarding to the frame rate BF2 runs fine here, but it swaps like death... any idea what could be the problem? It occurs no matter if the session is a "fresh" one (reboot before playing) or not, even without any other programs running. My System is a A64 4000+ with 2 Gigs of RAM, what should be enough, especially because friends with similar systems don't have this swapping problems. So... any hints/tweaks/known issues? Greets, Arne Yip im getting this as well with BF2 and BF2142, got 2Gigglybits of RAM as well, im thinking 2Gig aint enough have a gander at this webpage, tips for reducing BF2 mem used, gonna try it out http://www.tweakguides.com/BF2_1.html > Hi there, > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > Arne well ,removing the videos did squat > Yip im getting this as well with BF2 and BF2142, > got 2Gigglybits of RAM as well, im thinking 2Gig aint enough [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] >> >> Arne I'll have to go back and play some more BF2. I have 2GB of ram, and the G15 keyboard which allows me to see CPU and memory usage while playing. And the most I've seen BF2 and BF2142 uses was around 75-80%, which is a bit high, but still leaves me with about 512mb free. But I also did notice that if I run less than a 768mb pagefile, that after a certain amount of time, BF2142 will crash and I'll get a Low virtual memory error.. Under XP, I run just a 256MB pagefile and have never gotten a low VM error. > Hi there, > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > Arne Just a follow up. I ran BF2 and actually watched and I did noticed a fair amount of disk activitiy. I'm guessing it hadn't hurt my performance too much, because I have it on a fast sata drive, seperate from my system disk. I am a bit surprise, since I was only using 62% of 2GB of memory, on why Vista felt the need to hit the pagefile so much. Maybe Microsoft is planing on buy Seagate or some other companies, because if my my hard drive stats active the whole time I'm playing games, I'll probably kill hard drives faster than ever. I did set my pagefile to 0 and the game ran and I didn't get the Virtual memory errors I got with BF2142, but I did notice little video hiccups that I wasn't getting before. Of course, this is where there is that part of me that says, leave vista lone until Crysis comes out as there are just to many little annoyance with it, but then where is the fun in that ? :) > I'll have to go back and play some more BF2. I have 2GB of ram, and the > G15 keyboard which allows me to see CPU and memory usage while playing. [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] >> >> Arne My G15 is showing 75-85% when playing BF2142, pretty much the same amount in XP Still seems to be alot disk activity, like alot of swapping. game runs smooth, but once the disk activity kicks in the game starts to lag going to try a few other games to see if the same happens > Hi there, > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > Arne Here some information about BF2, BF2142, I just upgraded to 4GB ram on Vista64, I have the multimeter gadget that shows the cores and memory usage. When I run BF2142 I use 48 percent of my ram, when I run BF2 I use 54 percent of me ram. I do have NIS 2007 installed and a total of 6 gadgets, but I havent really installed much else. Fear plays great though... System is a E6600 with 4GB ram M.B. > Hi there, > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > Arne You never mentioned if going up to 4 gig of ram improved the performance?  SignatureFleishman Hi and thanks for all your responses. After reading all this there seems to be the swap file and the partition the game is installed to as a speed factor. I noticed that my swap file is located on an other partition at the same drive, so I'll try if it helps to move the swap file to the second drive. Don't know why, but must have been a mistake when setting up the system. Thank you for pointing me to this, my, fault. Do you have some experiences with the right size of the swap file? At the moment I would set it to 3gb fixed size, as my system has 2 gigs of ram and I think this will be a good choice. But if you can tell me about (Vista based) empirically better sizes please tell me. :-) Greetings, Arne Well, the right size seems to be a little different under Vista than under XP. Under XP, I could and did run without swapfile whatsoever, this was back when I only had 1GB of ram. Then I went to 2GB. It wasn't until I came across the game Company of Hero that told me I had to have at least 768MB of Virtual memory in order to run. At least that's what it said at the install screen and I never went back to see if I could play it without the VM. Personally, I don't think the majority of people who have over 1GB of ram, really need a pagefile 1.5x the size of RAM a 3GB pagefile is just ridiculous. Except for the heavy hitters doing 3D cad work or maybe Movie work, I can't see how anyone is using 5GB of ram (2GB ram + 3GB Pagefile) They are the exception and not the rule. Personally, I would say if you have over 1GB of ram, then you only need a 1GB pagefile. Obviously, the easy answer is to setup a pagefile and run for a while and see how it works. My current pagefile is 768. That's the size I needed to keep BF2142 from crashing every so often with a low virtual memory error. Under XP, If I have a pagefile, it's no bigger than 512MB. Short answer, unless you're doing some other kind of heavy lifting, I'd be pretty shocked if you needed more than 1 GB pagefile. Especially since you have 2GB of actual ram. > Hi and thanks for all your responses. > [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > > Arne When running BF 2, I get LOADS of disk activity for the first 2-3 minutes of every round. I am running a 3.0GHZ Pentium D with 2 GB 667MHz Ram, and a 1GB Pendrive with the Speedboost technology. The graphics are smooth as silk, however, the game stutters when reading the disk. > Well, the right size seems to be a little different under Vista than under > XP. Under XP, I could and did run without swapfile whatsoever, this was back [quoted text clipped - 36 lines] > > > > Arne I've been running BF2 on Vista x64 for 3 months and it ran fine, except that I often had some stuttering when I entered a new map for maybe 30s at the start of the first round. Plus I had a 1-2min wait at the 'Verifying Client...' stage as well. I also had a nightmare ALT-TABbing out of BF2 and some other games. It would take 3 or 4 mins to return to the desktop and return control to me. For a while I just accepted it; just figured it was a quirk of Vista. The Verifying Client problem is well documented but nobody could seem to agree on a reason. Anyway, I came across a good deal for the performance RAM I already had, so I doubled up; I now have 4 x 1GB GeIL Ultra PC6400 RAM. Suddenly gaming in Vista is a completely different experience. I can switch out of BF2 at will in a secoind or two (literally). No more stuttering at the start of a nw map. And Verifying Client takes seconds and I'm one of the first on the server. I hoped for a general improvement in my Vista experience, but I was blown away... I think the key amount is 3GB; if you can get to 3GB you'll find Windows and BF2 can coexist without overlapping and thus SuperFetch can anticipate which BF2 files to load next to smooth yout gaming experience. Another smaller (but cheaper) improvement is to get yourself a cheap flash disk (for the record I got a 2GB Kingston DataTraveller from Amazon for £12) and use it for ReadyBoost. This put a copy of the pagefile on flash disk which means when Windows need to retrieve a smaller file from cache it can access it quicker that via the HDD. This won't help at all with some of the large files used in BF2, but it helps out elsewhere. Performance gains for from 1 or 2% to 20% but for those with 2Gb or more memory, I reckon that the general performance boost will be somewere in the region of 2-5% [estimate]. For the record, my ReadyBoost hit-rate is 71% in a typical session. I'm going ot have to look at your fix.I Played for about 2 1/2 hours tonight and I hooked up a second monitor, so I could watch resource monitor on it while i played. I wanted to see where all the disk activity was. After watching that, I'm not sure it's completely a pagefile issue. Everytime my system would lag, it wasn't the page file getting hammered, but files like Common_client.zip and objects.client.zip. This would happen about 5 mins into the game and would last for 15 mins after the load of a map. The whole time my max CPU was at 75% and max memory was 1.38GB out of 2GB. I'm also wondering of some of the stuttering is video card related why it loads up the textures or something. The game seems to be a tad more jerky the first 2-3 mins of map and then smooths out. It was really odd that 10-15 mins into the game, I see those two zip files getting a very high read rate on them. Not sure if that's a punkbuster check or not. I have that folder excluded in my anti-virus, as well as I stopped my AV while I was playing. So I'm no longer positive more memory would help, since the pagefile access was there, but light. It was the ZIP files that would cause my system to chug along. Wonder what Vista is doing that XP isn't ? > I've been running BF2 on Vista x64 for 3 months and it ran fine, except > that I often had some stuttering when I entered a new map for maybe 30s at [quoted text clipped - 32 lines] > the region of 2-5% [estimate]. For the record, my ReadyBoost hit-rate is > 71% in a typical session. Hi Dale, interesting... do you know if it works to simply unzip those files before playing? I know it works for several games (Quake and UT if I remember correctly), but don't know how PunkBuster would behave then... Greets, Arne http://www.arnekolja.com > So I'm no longer positive more memory would help, since the pagefile > access was there, but light. It was the ZIP files that would cause my > system to chug along. Wonder what Vista is doing that XP isn't ? Doom3 also worked that way, but it doesn't appear BF does. I extracted the files out, but I noticed it still read the zip file. Interestingly enough, I've not been able to reproduce the problem again today. While playing I did have a 5-7 sec stutter, when I looked at the disk activity, it showed a ~M12d312.tmp file being access\created. It went away and so did the stutter. One thing I change from last night to today, is I turned the UAC, guess I'll have to turn i tback on and see if I get the stutter. Though it's possible this problem is limited to servers running Punkbuster, I don't know if the server I was on last night was or wasn't. > Hi Dale, > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] >> access was there, but light. It was the ZIP files that would cause my >> system to chug along. Wonder what Vista is doing that XP isn't ? Battlefield won't work that way because PunkBuster checks for the checksum of the ZIP files. But what I did notice: Windows Defender checks the content of ZIP files per default, maybe this is the problem. I excluded the BF dirs now from Windows Defender (it's an option inside Defender) and am going to test a few rounds now. > Doom3 also worked that way, but it doesn't appear BF does. I extracted the > files out, but I noticed it still read the zip file. [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > possible this problem is limited to servers running Punkbuster, I don't > know if the server I was on last night was or wasn't. I don' even have windows defender installed ( I did a custom install using vlite to remove it) So I would be surprised if that was the case. If it's punkbuster then I wonder why it's pegging the system out, when it's not a problem under XP. Basically, what is Vista doing different. > Battlefield won't work that way because PunkBuster checks for the checksum > of the ZIP files. But what I did notice: Windows Defender checks the [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] >> possible this problem is limited to servers running Punkbuster, I don't >> know if the server I was on last night was or wasn't. CJM;2568010 Wrote: > I've been running BF2 on Vista x64 for 3 months and it ran fine, except > that [quoted text clipped - 52 lines] > [estimate]. > For the record, my ReadyBoost hit-rate is 71% in a typical session. I have been having the identical problems as yourself with 2GB of Corsair PC6400 in Vista 64BIT . I have bitten the bullet and ordered 4Gb of OCZ Platinum revision 2 ( not been happy with the Corsair since i bought it last August ) . I will report back when it's installed , hoping my EVGA 680I does not play up and tell you all my findings . At the momnet i am stuck playing in Servers that have a mapp rotation of 50 rounds as its painfull to load a new map every 2 . SignatureBaldeagle http://forums.techarena.in Did upgrading to 4GB make any difference? > CJM;2568010 Wrote: >> I've been running BF2 on Vista x64 for 3 months and it ran fine, except [quoted text clipped - 64 lines] > At the momnet i am stuck playing in Servers that have a mapp rotation > of 50 rounds as its painfull to load a new map every 2 . Oh yes 4Gb has made the world of difference , it loads very very fast and i m the first in every server . SignatureBaldeagle http://forums.techarena.in Is this something you can help quantify ? I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around the need to have 4GB to play something that doesn't need 2GB. If it does take 4GB to play BF2 without the stuttering, it's another reason not to have Vista, and stick with XP for a while longer Here's a test I ran. I started BF2, made sure all my textures were optimized. Rebooted. Started BF2, went to Multiplayer, created a game, I choose the man Songhua Stalemate 64 (since I wanted a big map with lots of textures) Once I click the start button, I click the stop watch. Once I get the Join button, I click stop. Here's what I found so far. On XP, it takes 57 secs to load a map from a freshly booted system. After that, all other maps load in 17-20 secs On Vista32, it takes 43 secs to load a map from a freshly booted system. After that, all other maps load in 14-18secs On Vista64, it takes 43 secs to load a map from a freshly booted system. After that, all other maps load in 14-18secs. Connecting to a live server, is a different story, it took 1min 2 secs to connect. that additional 20 secs was mostly at the verifying client data screen. This is why I ran the test localling, depending on latency and such, live server connects will vary. Anyways, Could you run the above test with 2GB of ram and then again at 4GB ? I'd really be surprise if teh 4GB made any different at that stage, since most of the load time is reading the harddisk. Though Superfetching may skew those numbers as well > Oh yes 4Gb has made the world of difference , it loads very very fast > and i m the first in every server . > Anyways, Could you run the above test with 2GB of ram and then again at > 4GB ? I'd really be surprise if teh 4GB made any different at that stage, > since most of the load time is reading the harddisk. Though Superfetching > may skew those numbers as well I haven't been quite so scientific, but I've seen enough. On my machine, I had 1-2mins verifying client... Double the RAM up to 4GB it takes between 5s & 30s. > I haven't been quite so scientific, but I've seen enough. On my machine, I > had 1-2mins verifying client... Double the RAM up to 4GB it takes between > 5s & 30s. I guess this is where I'm really confused. I see an extra 20 secs to verify a client on a internet server vs. local and you're taking 1-2 mins to verify the client. Maybe it's the way prefetch does something, I just don't know why it would take 1-2 mins to begin with or why more ram would fix it. Again, I'm just having trouble wrapping my mind around the need for 4GB of ram, when I can't see 2GB being fully used. I guess if I was seeing 1-2 mins client verifies I could follow, but since I'm not, I'm wondering what the heck is going on on your system at 2GB, that's isn't going on with mine. (maybe because I run superfetch and readyboost off, I'm not wasting ram loading stuff I'm not using, to where you are having to swap out. I dunno > I guess this is where I'm really confused. I see an extra 20 secs to > verify a client on a internet server vs. local and you're taking 1-2 mins [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > readyboost off, I'm not wasting ram loading stuff I'm not using, to where > you are having to swap out. I dunno I admire your will to understand what is actually going on, but for the time-being I don't share it. I've got enough on my plate to worry about. I've been running Vista since the end of the first weekend in November. it's been great, but I've had enough of the bleeding-edge problems that I'm just gratefull I don't have the problem any more. The only suggestion I have is that maybe the file-checking that goes on in the Verifying Client stage is improve by nature of the fact that SuperFetch has already pre-fetched the files by the time they are needed. Say BF2 + OS needs around 2GB combined, if BF2/PunkBuster wants to check various files for tampering, it needs to swap some of its current memory out so it can load each file t be checked. With 4GB, this can be pre-fetched and no swapping out is required... Oh, I understand. Funny enough the past 2 weeks I've spent more time in these forums, helping with trouble shooting and other things, than I have actually gaming. So far, other than some first hand knowledge of different problems, there has been zero ROI with using Vista and gaming. It's really been a whole bunch of seeing what will run, and learning what runs well . Overall, it's everything I've tried so far runs under vista, it just runs better (sometimes alot better) under XP >> I guess this is where I'm really confused. I see an extra 20 secs to >> verify a client on a internet server vs. local and you're taking 1-2 mins [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > out so it can load each file t be checked. With 4GB, this can be > pre-fetched and no swapping out is required... |
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