BF2S Forums The top 10 tweaks for lag reduction

Auqakuh2213 wrote:

I can add a tweak to this list.

Basically, it revolves around using the -heapsize command argument; this essentially dedicates a set amount of RAM to a given application (never more than half total system RAM - that will crash your machine!), in kilobytes. The advantage of this is that the software does not automatically use the maximum amount of available system RAM - naturally this means your hardware is not, effectively, being fully utilized. But if you tell it do so... well, it does!

So! An example, from my system which has 1gb of RAM.

Using the .bat file boris described as a base, simply because that's easiest, we can alter the .bat file from:

Code:

@echo off
cd /d "C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2"
start /high BF21.exe +menu 1 +fullscreen 1

to:

Code:

@echo off
cd /d "C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2"
start /high BF21.exe +menu 1 +fullscreen 1 -heapsize 516096

516096 is not the maximum you can set it to with 1gb of RAM (I think), but is just an abitrary figure close to half of the system RAM. As I said, it should always be in kilobytes (1024 bytes = 1 kilobyte, 1024 kilobytes = 1 megabyte, etc), and should always be less than half. Your system will crash if you set it higher than half.

This should make map loading a little swifter. My machine is no beast but I'm still usually amongst the first six to spawn in a game.

The -heapsize argument can be used with most any application, too, including all of your other games. I also use it with Oblivion, with rather superb results - I can play that with all the settings up with very minimal slowdown.

For those curious: I have a Sempron 3200+ (true frequency: 1.81Ghz), 1gb of relatively fast RAM, a middle-performance Western Digital HDD in UDMA IDE, a Club3D GeForce 6800 (256mb VRAM), running Windows XP Pro.

Startup Control Panel is a nifty control panel applet that allows you to easily configure which programs run when your computer starts. It's simple to use and, like all my programs, is very small and won't burden your system. A valuable tool for system administrators!

Startup Control Panel is compatible with all modern versions of Windows, including Windows 95, 98, 98SE, ME, NT 4.0, 2000, and XP.

Last edited by Poncho (2006-05-08 09:18:19)

Samtheman53 wrote:

oops sry badhq i -1 karma instead of +1.

wont make a difference you have enough ;-)


!sry!

The1_Knightmare wrote:

Ok, i figured SF uses the same .exe as BF2 but how do i do tip 4 on SF? I dont feel like opening BF2, then changing to SF in Community tab.

-TAC^Opie- wrote:

Two quick comments:

Tip 3: I think the 256 AGP Aperture setting is just for video cards with 256 MB RAM.  If you have an older card like mine (Radeon 9800), 128 matches the RAM on my card, which I understand is the way to choose this correctly.

Tip 8: I read on another forum that Windows still uses the pagefile even when you disable the paging executive.  I realized this with my lag during game start up, even with the registry tweak.  Thus, I've read that setting the page file to 2560 helped for others with 1 Gig RAM and the lag at the start of a round.

Instructions for changing the paging file size can be found here: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308417