Gaming Slowdown in COD4 online

[bugzmurphy]

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum. If it is, please advise the proper forum.

I have a dedicated gamer, used mainly for playing cod4 online. Problem is, when I first get online, I can move very well. My character gets round the maps pretty fast at first. I don't pwn people, being a relative noob. But I have noticed that as I play, my response in the game gradually slows down until I feel like I am moving in molasses. I get beat by people I pounded when I first started up. If I shut down the machine for a couple of hours, she comes right back to life. then the whole slowdown thing starts all over.

Motherboard: Intel DX48BT2
CPU E8400 3.0 gig. overclocked to 3.5 gig using processor overrides only
Memory 4 gigs Patriot DDR3 PVS34G1333LLK
OS : XP64
Video card: ATI Radeon 4890xoc, Diamond version.
Vid card overclocked a little: gpu 940mhz, memory 1130 mhz.
All overclocking of cpu done using cpuz, prime95 to get stable overclock
Overclocking of video card done using GPUTool and Furmark. Not together. Used furmark first, then switched to gputool.
Video card fan control sucks unless you keep it on manual. I run it at 100 percent fan speed.
Three extra fans under manual speed control for general cpu and box cooling.
CPU runs max temps during game of 43 and 41 C on core 0 and core 1, using CPUID hardware monitor.
GPU temp harder to monitor, but it has popped up over 44 degrees C that I have been able to catch.
At Idle, GPUTool reports the following temps:
GPU Temp. (DISPIO) 32.5 C
GPU Temp. (MEMIO) 40.0 C
GPU Temp. (SHADERS) 35.5 C

Does anyone out there have any experience with this type of slowdown? Is it temperature related (cooler on vid card will be changed out as soon as Arctic has new cooler -unless someone has a better suggestion), or is something else going on? Or did I just screw it up somewhere and am too dumb to figure it out?

Bugz

 

[techjunkie]

hmmm.... maybe its your connection. Open up the console and type /cg_drawlagometer 1

This will open up the lag-o-meter. you can use this to see how your connection is doing. A short green graph is favourable while and tall spikes in green or red indicate connection spikes and lag

 

[happita]

I don't know if this is fixed, but you might want to check if you have vsync checked in your video card settings. It might be locking your fps, and the noticed slowdown might be due to it especially when theres lots of action going on. So it might be better for you in the long-run to get yourself very acquainted with catalyst control center for your radeon.

 

[bugzmurphy]

Thanks so far, guys, but my connection is okay forthe most part. Lagometer only gives me spikes when helis and airstrikes go over. My side is clean and green

No vsynch here. FPS is a stable 125, and I can get 200 if I really want to, but I stopped at 125 cause I thought that might help keep the card happy.

Would running GPUtool while I play gie me any more ifo?

 

[kurosagi01]

mind giving abit more info on your psu aswell?? you done any overclock to your cpu or anything? maybe its sign of unstability? mine was lagging when i have like 70fps or something but it was because of unstability but i've got it sorted now.

 

[bugzmurphy]

I had a bad power supply when I first got this damned machine. I replaced it with a 750 watt atx modular unit. It can pump all the watts I need to the graphics card.

Instability is what I think may have me. In addition to f*ing with the cpu and gpu clocks, I also mess with my multiplayer config file to speed me up. I found an oddball command in it that is nowhere in cod4 known clientside variables. It was cl_maxppf "5". I cleared it out and went into a game and lasted thirty seconds before the game bombed out on me. I didnt learn anything new, but I found out that little trick didn't help me. Only thing is, that command is in no other config_mp files on my computer, and I have several for different identities (so I can go online and aggravate people LOL)

thanks
bugz

 

[Studabaker]

I had a bad power supply when I first got this damned machine. I replaced it with a 750 watt atx modular unit. It can pump all the watts I need to the graphics card.

Instability is what I think may have me. In addition to f*ing with the cpu and gpu clocks, I also mess with my multiplayer config file to speed me up. I found an oddball command in it that is nowhere in cod4 known clientside variables. It was cl_maxppf "5". I cleared it out and went into a game and lasted thirty seconds before the game bombed out on me. I didnt learn anything new, but I found out that little trick didn't help me. Only thing is, that command is in no other config_mp files on my computer, and I have several for different identities (so I can go online and aggravate people LOL)

thanks
bugz

Try it with everything set back to stock.

 

[TheMailMan78]

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum. If it is, please advise the proper forum.

I have a dedicated gamer, used mainly for playing cod4 online. Problem is, when I first get online, I can move very well. My character gets round the maps pretty fast at first. I don't pwn people, being a relative noob. But I have noticed that as I play, my response in the game gradually slows down until I feel like I am moving in molasses. I get beat by people I pounded when I first started up. If I shut down the machine for a couple of hours, she comes right back to life. then the whole slowdown thing starts all over.

Ok first off this is in fact the wrong forum. It should be in games. Anyway a mod will move ya soon

Now lets see if we can solve your problem. Ill number some steps to make things easy.

1. I don't think its your card. Just to be sure set it back to default as Studabaker suggested.
2. How many services do you have running?
3. Is CoD4 the only application you have running?
4. Is indexing turned off or is this fresh install of Vista? FYI I dont suggest you turn indexing off. However it can cause slow down if its active.
5. It could be a memory leak but the CoD4 engine isn't known for this. Not like Fallout 3. Try reseting you ram to default.
6. Is the game patched up?
7. Try updating Punkbuster manualy. The game maybe having issues downloading the updates.
8. Maybe you should reinstall the game. Maybe you got a bum install.

Let us know if any of these work.

 

[bugzmurphy]

Thanks studabaker and mailman. I will look at all those possibilities. I have windows xp64, not vista. Indexing is on, and I can turn it off for a while. I am only playing version 1.2 of the game. the only other version that really gets play is 1.7, and I havent installed that yet. any patches between would mean that I have very few places to play.

Punkbuster. That's a good one. I have my config_mp.cfg set to read-only, since some of the sites you visit will try to rewrite your config to suit their needs. I dont think punkbuster has seen me for quite a while. I use the pb_sleep command when I go in a punkbuster site. Maybe manually updating it can help, but I dont know how. A reinstall is not too hard to do. Might be the best thing overall. I will wait a bit and see what other answers come up, then start trying out the suggestions. It may well be something dumb that I did. I am not above that, lol.

 

[TheMailMan78]

Thanks studabaker and mailman. I will look at all those possibilities. I have windows xp64, not vista. Indexing is on, and I can turn it off for a while. I am only playing version 1.2 of the game. the only other version that really gets play is 1.7, and I havent installed that yet. any patches between would mean that I have very few places to play.

Punkbuster. That's a good one. I have my config_mp.cfg set to read-only, since some of the sites you visit will try to rewrite your config to suit their needs. I dont think punkbuster has seen me for quite a while. I use the pb_sleep command when I go in a punkbuster site. Maybe manually updating it can help, but I dont know how. A reinstall is not too hard to do. Might be the best thing overall. I will wait a bit and see what other answers come up, then start trying out the suggestions. It may well be something dumb that I did. I am not above that, lol.

Well patch up and update punkbuster. Chances are one of those are your issue. I have a feeling your a game hacker. We wouldnt be using an aimbot would we?

 

[Studabaker]

If you set your CPU/MEM and GPU to stock and it still does it all I could think is maybe it was a known issue with 1.2. How do you get by with an old version? I've never been able to play COD4 without updating immediately because all the servers I go to always run the latest version.

 

[bugzmurphy]

Well, mailman, if you saw me play you would know better than that. Your feelings aren't serving you properly. I play under the name you see here. If you want to spec me, do it anytime. Do you play cod4? Under what name? You might be able to see something I am not able to see.


Studabaker, lots of others are playing version 1.2 still, without the problems I see. There are no playable versions between 1.2 and 1.7 that have any servers to speak of. 1.7 has issues of its own. Things like losing its connection to the master server, not updating sites properly, and sometimes needing reboot regularly once it fails to update sites at all. There are always issues with all these games, and I try to stay aware of them, and this one is not one I am familiar with.

 

[Studabaker]

Studabaker, lots of others are playing version 1.2 still, without the problems I see. There are no playable versions between 1.2 and 1.7 that have any servers to speak of. 1.7 has issues of its own. Things like losing its connection to the master server, not updating sites properly, and sometimes needing reboot regularly once it fails to update sites at all. There are always issues with all these games, and I try to stay aware of them, and this one is not one I am familiar with.

You won't know until you try. It's been 1.7 for like a year now and I have never had a problem on any hardware build or variant of Windows that I've tried it on. I never heard of those issues with 1.7. I don't understand a person that doesn't update to the latest patch, that's all.

 

[bugzmurphy]

I had 1.2 and 1.7 on the same machine for a little while. Played mostly 1.2. I gotta look up the instructions for putting them both on at the same time. I changed it when I had to reinstall the operating system, and just left it alone.

punkbuster updates nicely on my machine without issues, so that problem is not it. I reset everything to default and played some. No issues there. I think it is happening when I try to crank it up to get more game speed. I will just slowly crank the machine up until I see a problem, then drop it back to the last good speed, I guess. I have read the instructions on how to clock up the intel board, and I am still left scratching my head. Compared to the bfi and asus boards, it seems a lot of work. No real need to overclock at all, but now that I have tried it a little, I want to learn a lot more about it.

Do you know of any step by step oc procedures that I can read over, specifically anything relating to this board? I am sure that there are things that I am missing. Just what is the question.

I appreciate your help.

bugz

 

[kurosagi01]

should do some research on your board to see what your limit is when you overclock your cpu and the layout of the BIOS.
simple way to enter BIOS.
1.Turn computer or restart computer
2.Press button that ENTERS you into BIOS
3.Should be a option showing like memory intelligent tweak or something similar

 

[Sihastru]

Some strange things happened ingame when I played around with the driver settings for my keyboard and mouse. Probably not the same problem, but maybe it'll pay to investigate.

 

[bugzmurphy]

Kurosagi01, it is an intel bt48dx2 board, not known for being an easy overclocker. It doesnt give you any guidance regarding overclocking, nor is there a foolproof way I have found to overclock this board, except for one article which says it cant be done (at least by the author of that article).

After I played several games with all of the values at default, I ran the cpu clock up to give me about a 3.2 gig speed. Much less than I originally tried. I played pretty continuously for about six hours, and by the end of that time, my game had slowed down noticeably. shutting down the computer for an hour or so and restarting set it right again. I monitored cpu and gpu temps all during game play to see if overheating was causing this, but the temps all seemed to stay well within recommended limits.

the machine acts much like a tire with a slow leak. Pump it up and its fine, but drive it a while, and the first thing you know it is flat again. I am going to try some of the suggestions that the other guys have given, including reinstalling the game. going back to defaults on my cpu and gpu speed seems to keep it stable, but play is slow. any small amount of overclock, and it starts out good, but gradually slows down to a crawl. I dont know.

 

[TheMailMan78]

Put everything back to defualt and see if this fixes the problem.

 

[bugzmurphy]

Putting everything back to default seems to stop the slow degradation. However, it really slows down the game for me. I suspect that the problems have evolved from my poor overclocking attempts. I dont think I fried anything, hopefully, but I want to move as fast as legally possible in the game, and my system apparently cant do it at default.

I guess the only thing to do is study the overclocking info on the site here, and try to make sure I have covered every base possible. Ill just have to get used to playing at turtle speed until I can oc the machine stably. I appreciate the help and ideas. Now to get to it. First thing is to reinstall the game again and hope that it was just a bum install. Then study.

 

[Studabaker]

Impossible. Your hardware is top notch. Underclocking it to stock should not give you enough of a performance drop to change it from playable to unplayable. Unless we're talking about Crysis at max settings on a really high resolution, I don't think you'd be getting enough of a performance boost from your moderate overclock to affect playability that much.

 

[kurosagi01]

what brand is your psu if i may ask??

 

[TheMailMan78]

what brand is your psu if i may ask??

Also how old is your HD. Could be you HD going bad. Its a reach but a possibility.

 

[bugzmurphy]

Mailman, the hdd is about five months old. came with the system, so I dont think that is a problem either. Thanks for the suggestion.
Studabaker, the hardware is top grade for stability at default, but believe me, I can see a difference in playability between default and even my minor feeble attempts at overclocking. It may all be in my mind, but I can tell when I am getting around well and when not. Of course, it is all affected by the individual connections to the game servers, and other things, so I am trying to take that into account. I play on two or three sites very regularly, and have a feel for how I should be doing (even if my play is still pretty low rent) on each of those sites.

My power supply is a Rocketfish brand 700 watt modular that I bought in a real hurry at Best Buys. Please dont abuse me because of that . It cost enough, and promised enough output on the box.

I'm reading through the overclocking articles right now. Maybe I will comprehend the correct way to overclock this board, cpu, and memory without frying everything. Does anyone know of any overclocking articles that address my motherboard? I googled it and did not find much of anything. it is only mentioned in passing on techPowerUp!.

 

[kurosagi01]

how much did you pay for your psu?? maybe this will help you gain access to BIOS?:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainboards/display/intel-dx48bt2_6.html#sect0
Its a start i guess and it explains a lot on your mobo i think

 

[bugzmurphy]

Thanks kuroasagi01. That arrticle was one of the first I read about trying to clock the motherboard up. I probably need to reread and reread this thing over again.

One other item: the computer came with a Thermalright Ultra-120 extreme-77 bp cooler. I have a 120 mm fan on it. It pushes the air through the cooler. I noticed that I could twist the cooler back and forth about ten degrees. When I looked at the cooler on the thermalright website, it did not look like it should move at all if installed right. I am wondering if an inconsistent conncection between the cooler and my E8400 cpu might not be generating some problems. Any monitoring of the cpu cores that I did was not able to show high temperatures ( max about 43 C according to cpu-v) even when I was playing the game. If the connection between the cooler and cpu is anything but perfect, could that not be a potential source of problems anyway?

thanks

bugz