BF2 not using enough memory...

[imported_DKP-Orkan]

Ok... I have what is considered by most to be a fast computer. Yet BF2 seems to be choppy as hell after playing for a few minutes.

Everyone is talking about how BF2 uses 1 - 1.5GB of ram when loaded into a map and playing. I pulled up my task mgr today just to see, and at the MOST, bf2 memory utilization is 650mb.

My settings: All in-game settings to High, 6xAA, 1024x768.

On a fresh reboot, with those settings, I get 80-100fps. As soon as a few minutes of active play goes by... I drop to 50-75fps, and it is choppy as hell. Gets progressively worse as I play.

I've re-installed the game no less than 10 times, Re-installed my OS (XP Pro sp2) no less than 3 times. Used 3 different kinds of memory. Used 2 different processors, and every revision of nvidia and ati drivers I could find.

My Computer:
DFI LanParty SLI-DR
A64 X2-4400+
2x1024 OCZ PC4000 EL Gold
X850XT
2 74GB Raptors in RAID-0 + 250GB Storage

The only thing that I've been able to find "wrong"... is this whole memory utilization thing. Why is everyone else claiming to have 1GB or more being used, when my system, with my specs is only loading less than 700mb?!?!?!

This HAS to be my bottleneck. Instead of loading textures from memory... its loading it from hdd. As fast as my raptor array is... it still cant handle that kind of load.

I'm sure I'm not the only one with a killer machine, having these kinds of choppy lag problems. Lets get this resolved...

[shank]

sound drivers, or eax?

[imported_DKP-Orkan]

Using on-board sound on my DFI SLI-DR
In-Game sound settings:
Software
High quality
EAX enabled.

To prove my system is stable,
Benchmarks I've run:

3DMark01 - 29,000+
3DMark03 - 14,000+
3DMark05 - 7,000+
Aquakmark3 - 87,000+
Super-Pi - 32m = 28m
Prime95 - overnight
memtest - overnight

Perfectly stable system. I decided to disable my page file, just to test what would happen in bf2. It now uses between 750, and 820mb when loaded... depending on map. Performance was helped quite a bit. Not quite as choppy at all.

Something is borked. There has to be something telling BF2 to NOT use more available memory.

[Hugh G. Wrection]

Don't look at the memory usage column on the Processes tab because simply alt-tabbing out of BF2 will reduce it's memory usage substantially. Instead, do this:

1) Reboot
2) Run BF2 and play a few different maps
3) Exit BF2 and then check the Peak Commit Charge on the Performance tab in Task Manager

This will tell you how much memory BF2 actually used.

[imported_DKP-Orkan]

I run dual displays... I can see real time memory usage for each process by having task mgr open on my secondary display. The numbers I'm giving you are the amount of memory being used by the BF2.exe process... and is acurate.

[cyborg_ninja-117]

u only use 650mb of ram when u start loading the game, it jumps to 1.5gb when u actually play

[Hugh G. Wrection]

I run dual displays... I can see real time memory usage for each process by having task mgr open on my secondary display. The numbers I'm giving you are the amount of memory being used by the BF2.exe process... and is acurate.

Whoops, sorry. Didn't know you were watching real-time taskmanager in another screen.

The memory usage of the BF2 executable is just the memory used by the BF2 process itself and doesn't include (i think...) textures stored in RAM, memory allocated by other modules linked to BF2.exe, etc.

I have never seen my BF2 executable use more than 700-800 MB's itself (I check in game via ATI Tray Tool), but the my peak memory usage after playing a few hours is always around 1.1-1.2 GB's, significantly more than the peak memory usage for the BF2.exe process.

[Ashram]

I also experience the same horrible stuttering issues.

My system:

AMD XP 1.47 GHz @ 2.42 GHz
1024 OCZ PC 3500 EL
ATI X850 XT O/C @ 555/630

After doing some testing yesterday, it seems that enabling the high textures setting, is a go-ahead indicator for BF2 to start raping your system memory. It's absolutely ridiculous. Playing every single option high with Textures at medium is smooth as silk and the memory usage never goes past 850 MB.

Once I turn the settings to high textures, it starts killing performance, memory usage is up in the 1.2~1.3 GB range, and horrible stuttering through out.

I think I will have to add another 512MB just to the keep the game within physical memory, and avoid the page file swapping.

[Ashram]

I would like to add an update to my above post, perhaps some will use this to make a more informed buying decision.

After purchasing my X850 XT, I monitored my fps and found that they were respectably high. But the game was stuttering.

I just added another 512MB to my system (to a total of 1.5 GB), and the problem has since disappeared.

Moral of the story: If you are having problems playing this game on high settings, (especially if you have textures set on high), you will need atleast 1.5 GB of memory. Like I said I have been monitoring my system for quite some time, and I noticed that enabling high textures shot the memory requirment past 1 GB, this leads to excessive swapping between the page file, and ultimately stuttering.

I simply increased my ram, and now the game can reside completely within physical memory, and everything is running nice.

Hope this helps people who are having experiencing stuttering.

[King of Camelot]

Battlefield 2 can run within 1 GB, easily. To test this I disabled my page file(yes, disabled entirely). Task Manager then reported that I had a maximum of 924 MB of RAM for applications to use. I then connected to a server and played a round or two of Strike at Karkand. I think it actually stuttered less because I forced it to not use the paging file. The ONLY time I ran into problems running BF2 this way was when the server tried to switch maps, at which point BF2 crashed because it needed more RAM to load the new map. I added a small paging file, and it works fine now. Next I'm going to try having the paging file start at 0 and expand when needed (like changing maps).

System Specs (the ones that matter):

7800 GTX with 256 MB
1 GB OCZ Gold PC4000 VX (or whatever the hell the name is)
1280 x 1024
High on everything except for Lighting
4x AA, 8x AF

Memory usage before I start BF2 is typically 85 MB. The max I've ever seen it use was 700 MB. Haven't paid attention to what it peaks at when switching maps.

[maforduk]

Glad it's sorted, I was going to ask what cooling have you got as it could have been that!
The more you play, the hotter it get's = Less performance.

[DrunkenPirate]

Next I'm going to try having the paging file start at 0 and expand when needed (like changing maps).
That's one of the worst things you can do because you get PF fragmentation, in a month your PC will be an absolute ballsup.

Set the minimum to 1024MB and the maximum to 1024MB, it will be accessed the same way but windows will not have to resize it.


Best way is to remove the PF entirely, reboot and defragment your HDD, reboot then set the min and max to 1024MB, reboot and play BF2.

[znowman]

if its the same problem i had (starting off ok from fresh reboot, then getting gradually more and more choppy) you need to look at this thread:

http://forum.eagames.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=4669

follow what the guy said on the fourth post down

it worked wonders for me