Call of Duty: Black Ops PLEASE HELP!

I purchased an Alienware m17x late in 2010 and then bought Call of Duty: Black Ops a few weeks after its release to test my machine's performance. I've come across nothing except drastic framerate drops during gameplay which makes the game practically unplayable (the 10-30 FPS range) on maxed settings with and without v-sync. I've tried various console commands for the game such as: \com_maxfps 1000, \rate 25000, \r_multiGpu 1, \cl_maxpackets 100, \r_multithreaded_device 1 and a few that disable certain messages that pop up on the screen when you can interact with terrain and objects in the game. At first, I thought it might be heat issues but the drops sometimes occur when I first log in for the day and try to get my gaming on or after like an hour or two of playing which is really making me worry. I've also downloaded a few hardware monitoring programs like GPU-Z, Hmonitor, and Speedfan just to see the temperatures of my hardware and everything seems normal in the 40-50 degree range. My concern is that I paid close to $4,800.00 for this system and I'm starting to think that they ripped me off and my "gaming laptop" is an oversized paperweight. Is the game or my system poorly designed and can anybody give me some advice on how to determine what the problem is? Should I be worried and should I send this laptop back? I don't want to pay for a "gaming laptop" that can't hold it's own. They advertised it as "the most powerful laptop in the universe" and I'm starting to think that I've taken the bait.

My system specs:
Core i7 x920 @2.0 ghz
8 GB RAM
ATI Radeon 5870 HD Mobility X-Fire

Any positive feedback will be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time.

 

I have gamed with a 5870m and a 460m neither in x fire or sli...but i can say this from experience. Take a game like crisis. i came out nearly 3 years ago and you still cant play it maxxed out on most configurations. So to take a brnad new game like black opps and max it out and call your system crap because its cant play it, may not be a fair asesment. i will let someone with a closer config to yours give more details on the settings that should be set on that game specificly but in general max settings kill most configurations.

 

More than likely the issue you are seeing is a self induced one. NOTE: do not mistake that as a slap in the face as its not intended that way.

First off, is this a Steam purchase? if not, make sure you have applied any available patches as there were a couple to resolve performance issues.

Second, when playing with console commands to tweak packets and other settings, sometimes, bad things can happen even if you see others reporting them as a fix. this is why i mention it could be self-induced Sometimes folks write up fixes and patches are then released and those original fixes can hinder performance.

What I suggest is this if its a steam install -

1. Make a copy of this file and then delete the one in the steam directory -
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\call of duty black ops\ players open config_mp.cfg

2. Go to your steam game library, find BlackOps and right click on it. look for the tab for local files and choose to verify local files. If anything is out of whack, steam will re-download the relevant file.

3. Launch the game and go to Video settings. Leave everything at default except the resolution. Change that to match the native res of the system - 1920x1200.

4. Apply and enter a game. Is it stable? If so, begin to slowly ramp up your other settings - AA, etc.

If this is not a steam install, look at resetting display settings in game to default and following #3 and 4 above.

What display driver are you using?

 

It's a broken game. Works for some, doesn't work others. Like for example, I have a friend with a desktop 9800 GTX, he's barely running it at 30-40 FPS 800x600 while I'm running it maxed out 50-70 FPS.

Oh yeah, don't forget to update to 11.1A.

 

Hi I have the same computer as you except I have the 740QM processor.

You didn't say if you measured your framerates in multiplayer or single player or what software you were using to measure the framerate.

From what you are saying it sounds like its working ok then the framerate drops suddenly? Or is the framerate bad the whole time?

I play Black Ops a bit and was playing multiplayer last night @ 1920 x 1200with extra textures and 8x AA and the framerate was 50-60 fps constantly. I do however think that certain maps affect my framerate more than others.

For example that vietnam map with the building in the middle seems to drop my framerate down to 30fps when looking down the alleys.

I know single player also stresses out the system more than multiplayer so its highly possible that you may need to reduce the AA to 4x or 2x or turn it off.

As an aside COD 4, 5 and 6 all had issues with in game AA settings where if you enabled it in the game it would drastically impact performance. I suggest setting xero AA in game and adjusting it in the catalyst control centre this may help.

Overall Black Ops is not a good looking or well coded game if you really want to test the performance of your PC i suggest benchmarking Metro 2033 or Far Cry 2.

 

100%, it's broken on PS3, even with the latest updates they haven't fixed all their issues. The game was just broken.

 

Black Ops on pc is a broken game. Dozens of issues with framerates (amongst others) that make it unplayable.
If you think the PC version sucks, wait till you try the PS3 version ^^

As you can only play Blackops from steam, you are pretty much ensured you have all the latest patches.

I have a lesser config then you have, and i run it in the highest resolution, everything maxed with an average of about 50fps.
I have friends who can't run it at all.

The only thing i can think of is that somehow you have not gotten the latest patches for the game, up to 3 weeks again a patch was released which solved most performance issues (though loads of other issues still exist).
There's also 2 lines in the config file you can check (google it, it's multi GPU and multi CPU you can enable, check if those are enabled or not).

With your system you can run this game maxed out flawlessly with a high FPS, keep that in mind.

 

Yeah this is a game that never should have been released in the first place. There's no way they could have missed all the issues that it's had unless they didn't properly test it before they sent it to market. On my R3 it's usually playable maxxed out at 50+ fps but ocasionally I get days it just won't run under the same scenarios for no given reason. The days it won't run are the same type of levels, same settings, no console commands, etc so nothing has changed at all but it refuses to run. All it comes down to is it's a horribly designed/coded/built game no other way around it.

 

Multiplayer with the console command that I can't remember off the top of my head at the moment is how I was viewing my framerate. As for working and then not working, sometimes that isn't the case. I could fire up my laptop for the first time of the day and get the FPS drops which scares me. How exactly do you make adjustments through the catalyst control centre?

 

What is 11.1A?

 

On another note, I've noticed the whirring sound of the fans in my laptop getting kinda loud after a few hours of play and the two vents at the rear of the machine being hot to the touch. Could there be some kind of cooling malfunction with the hardware or should I invest in a cooling pad? If so, which do you folks suggest and just how much can it help my machine stay cool? Are there other cooling methods I could invest in to increase/stabilize performance?

 

It is not a Steam install and my display driver is 8.692.2.0 on both GFX chipsets. The only console changes I have made are the ones I mentioned in the original post. Could these really be taking a toll on my gameplay?

 

Another thing that I find strange is if I play with vsync on for a while, my FPS will begin to drop when aiming down the sights after an hour or two of play. I then turn it off and my FPS will be near 100 for a while, then, it will start to drop at the start of a new round. Rinse and repeat with toggling vsync on and off and the framerate will be stable for about an hour or so before having to switch it, again. Isn't this a little weird? I mean, is there any reason why my system can't handle this game on maxed settings?

 

I will say this...the game plays fine on my M17... but it plays noticeably better and smoother with the Crossfire turned OFF.

 

I was afraid I was going to have to turn crossfire off for this game

 

I beat on about 60-70 fps with my config. MP using fraps... No real dips that I notice. I am using the steam version.
Bad company dips but not really black ops.

 

Yeah it's choppy and not smooth at all with Crossfire. I just gave up and ended up turning it off. I guess results may vary? Some others here may have had better luck, but my overall experience with Crossfire in general has been pretty poor. Seems most stuff i've played won't work well with it all. About the only exception is Medal of Honor...that title is smooth as butter with everything maxed out....but Call of Duty...whole different story.

 

Look at your SMOOTHVision anti-aliasing settings i catalyst control center - 3d apps, i had the same problem and found out i had the setting on something else then box, set it to box and try it again. my game went from quirqy to smooth at once. if this is not the setting i susspect some other setting from the driver or you could try remove the ATI driver with a cleaner and reinstall it. by the way i have a M17x R2 with xfire hd4870 and i get about 50 FPS mean on max resolution and everything maxed out.

 

I just reinstalled the game, i'm running the 11.2 so i will let you know how it goes.

Anyway i gotta love people that blame the machine and when you tell them to update drivers (11.1a are drivers fyi) doesn't even know what they are.....