And the reason for the LAG is...

SeantheMan

As found on STEAM forums, by a 3d artist

INB4: this post is not whining; this is analysis of the problem from specialist's point of view.

So, as you could guess from topic name, I work a lot with 3D graphics. And I was unlucky to get this game in its current state
Of course, after seeing people with plain stupid - or totally wild-assed guesses - I decided to clear the things a little.



The actual cause for game's overuse of CPU is poor usage of LODs

Every stutter is caused by objects loading right during the game - instead of loading them before the match (hey, fast loading screens are evil!).
To confirm it, take a very fast loadout (Lightweight + Marathon) and go play with bots (exclude server lag) on a big map. You will sometimes notice barrels, boxes and other clutter objects pop out of nowhere right in front of you - or being unable to shoot an opponent behind a not-yet-loaded scenery.


Developers ignored the Time-memory tradeoff for different systems

Game barely uses 1 GiB memory with maximum settings (and usually it's 600 MiB) - with 2 GiB being a minimum requirement. If objects would load immediately into memory (or just at a longer distance), it would put a little extra stress on GPU and memory, but far less on the CPU - you will only load each object once and before the round.
It's an optimisation for consoles: XBox 360 and especially PS3 have tons of CPU power and little RAM.

"But I have a Quad Core i7!": the cores still share the same system bus and the same HDD to load the data from. Current performance will greatly depend on the chipset and HDD data rates as well


And now for the ugliest. Developers disabled any opportunity to change LOD settings

That's right. The real reason for problems is no longer configurable in the LOD section of game's config: game keeps resetting range multipliers to default values.
So nothing can be done by editing the config_mp.cfg


Quick workaround for now

Set fixed low texture detail (less texture size to handle)... and just wait at the round start until the map is fully loaded. It usually takes about a minute for the basic LODs to load with my CPU far below requirements (Athlon 64 X2 4000+ 1.6 GHz), after which the lag spikes greatly reduce.

Oh, and of course. Wait till the developers disable this console-designed optimisation
Maybe someone can repost it on the official game forum? I'm a little too busy for that



TL;DR: the problem is a non-configurable engine option. Wait for a fix

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1577906

KilOit

Would be nice to link to the original post,
but how does it explain stutters for the whole match after i run around the whole map.

SeantheMan

KilOit wrote: »

Would be nice to link to the original post,

added

String

Suppose thats what you get when you get a console port... As much as I want to buy bo's, im going to hold off till the problems are sorted.

Shammy

found this dont know if it will help or not .

http://segmentnext.com/2010/11/09/call-of-duty-black-ops-crashes-freezes-errors-sound-fixes/

heebusjeebus

What were they using to test the pc version before it shipped? I've never known a triple A game to be so shoddy on release.

SeantheMan

Did you not play the new MOH ? or Airborne ? or Battlefield 2 ?

Dcully

MOH is a cracking game since they sorted out the spawns and lowered the weapon damage.

TheFairy

heebusjeebus wrote: »

What were they using to test the pc version before it shipped? I've never known a triple A game to be so shoddy on release.

I've had no issues at all, bar finding servers. Everything else works and works well. There were far more issues when BFBC2 launched being honest!

Wonda-Boy

Same here, although I did notice the stuttering more last night. Find a good server and just play on that constantly, dont just keep joining random servers.

I cant "SEARCH" for a particular server....and the friends tab does not work but I finding hundreds of servers no probs.

Dcully

Lads your one of the lucky few to have no issues, the internet is swamped with issues.
If its not gaming forums its gaming sites carrying headline news on the front page about the stuttering and performance issues, places like voodoo extreme,kotaku,rock paper shotun,shacknews,fragworld all have features about it.
My brother has a seriously high end pc only a couple of weeks old with the latest and greatest spec and he too gets insane stuttering.
However i just had a game there after getting an update via steam and the stuttering seems to be totally gone for me, performance is still not what it should be but the game is a lot more playable now.
Im enjoying the game but its not without its sillyness,its still all about killstreaks and some really ridiculous stuff like death machine etc ffs its like playing quake 3 or unreal tournament at times :rolleyes:
Pretty much everyone playing for killstreaks on pug servers.
The game is rampant with bunnyhopping,prone diving,akimbo bimbos,knifing from 10 feet away despite there being no commando perk did everyone get it for free now or what lol, the list goes on much like mw2.
Also its incredibly easy just to spray and shoot from the hip to rack up the kills which stinks of a console game.
Id say most of the competitive pc gaming leagues and communitites are laughing their nuts off at the game.
Despite that as a casual gamer these days im having a lot of fun just running around like a maniac fragging people, guess thats what the game is meant to be afterall.
Its basically WaW with modern weapons which is not a bad thing as imo WaW is a lot better than people gave it credit for,apart from its weak weapon sounds it is a very solid MP fps.

Wonda-Boy

^^^I agree, maybe thats why I dont rage with this game at all. Even if I get knifed from across the map, I dont take it seriously like I would with BFBC2 for example (broke my G15 keyboard once after a noob killed me with some stupid move)

But I am laughin all the way with this....agree 1000% with all this helicopter raping n **** its just pure gimmick.