Call of Duty®: Black Ops II - Performance

Hi all,

I'm still currently using my m11x R2 on stock speeds:
1.20GHz Intel Core i7 640UM (4MB Cache, max turbo frequency 2.266GHz)
Nvidia GeForce GT 335M Discrete Graphics (1GB GDDR3)

I'm planning to upgrade when Alienware refreshes their stock next year, however my laptops over 2 years old now and although it's still packing a punch, I'm now slightly weary when purchasing the latest games.

I'm curious on the expected FPS results when playing Black Ops II.

The game lists below the minimum requirements:
Intel Core2 Duo E8200 2.66 GHz or AMD Phenom X3 8750 2.4 GHz
Nvidia GeForce 8800GT 512 MB or ATI Radeon HD 3870 512 MB

Unfortunately, I can't compare desktop vs laptop specs - will my Alienware m11x r2 be able to run Black Ops II?
I'm assuming I'm going to have to dial the graphics/settings down to low/medium (which I normally do on FPS games) - so that shouldn't be a problem, however I'd appreciate if anyone could let me know whether it would be playable.

Any advise is greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Joel

 

Those requirements seem pretty steep seeing how the graphics aren't so mind-blowing. Unreal Tournament 3 looks way better and has lower requirements.

Coming back to your question, if you compare the requirements for BF3 and BO2:
Battlefield 3 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Call of Duty: Black Ops II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The GPU requirement is the same while the CPU requirement is similar. I have no idea why they require such high powered CPU's. Youtube has a ton of BF3 videos running on the M11x. I would assume they run similarly since the requirements are close.

MW3 runs fine on my R1 which is running @ 1.7GHz. The CPU requirements for MW3 is a Core 2 Duo E6600 which runs at 2.4GHz.

As for the GPU requirement, it should be fine if you overclock your 335M. I overclock mine and my framerate hardly drops below 60FPS in an online match in MW3. I run mine in native resolution, all settings on high and shadows off.

Before I get flamed, yes, I know the performance depends on driver and game engine optimisation. This is just a rough deduction.

 

You can probably run it on medium at native resolution, as stated above the specs for CoD games isn't terribly high. Just careful about the minimums, you don't want to find yourself playing at lowest lowest level.

 

Thanks for the response - I was quite surprised with the minimum requirements of Black Ops II as well, I can only assume this is one of the poorly optimized console ports out there, so I hope it doesn't hit my performance too much.

Additionally thanks for comparison between BF3 and BO2 - in regards to MW3 my R2's running it perfectly fine on high - shadows off as well, however I don't dip below the 40's. I'm impressed your R1's running that smooth.

Now to purchase the game and find out tomorrow.
Thanks for the responses.

 

Really depends on the engine they are using and how well optimised. You may not even be able to run it at release if you remember how bad Black Ops the first was so might be best to wait and see what others say before buying it.

I would expect you to see low-med at 768p but you may have to limit some settings and wait for patches.

 

i got my r2 I5 with a 164 OC hits lows of 26 - 45 fps depending on complexity, shadows low , no FXaa or AA ran ok for the most part

 

Anyone try this on a R3 yet?

 

I have a R3, every time I load it, it crashes. I updated drivers, but still a no go.

 

Hi

Has anyone tried this yet, I have been playing with settings and have downloaded beta nvidea drivers. Game runs well but has the occasional skip if that makes sense ( a small judder like it skipped a frame)

Just looking for any thoughts, experiences, opinions, etc

Cheers

I have core i5 r3 with gt540m

Got the game set as far as i can remember:

No shadows
No ragdoll physics
Native resolution
High textures all round
No AA
FXAA on
Ambient occlusion off
Depth of view medium.

Runs at 50 to 60 fps and is fairly solid, i have posted another thread (didn't look at this one) as it has a momentary frame skip now and again, having a look on the net this seems to be a glitch experienced by people who have high end desktop rigs so hoping its a small glitch that will get patched.

Works very well though, little powerhouse of a machine.

 

What are your computer specs?

 

Small stutter could be a driver problem, did you do a clean video driver installation when updating drivers? or did you install it on top of the old one?

 

just on top of the old one i guess

there are 5 nvidea listings, do i uninstall them all ?

Up to now i have used the NVIDEA gpu under global settings, i have now whitelisted all my games and having only tried blops 2 have noticed a dramatic improvement, no skipped frames and have even upped the settings a little.

I have nowhere near the technical intelligence to explain why this might occur, maybe one of you guys do ???

 

But is it working now? After the nVidia downloads?

It should work fine on your PC. Just give it a try and let us know any bugs

 

I am using my R1 as in my sig with a lot of GPU OC. Multiplayer, same settings as yours, but textures on normal, FOV=80 and DOF is low. Runs ~60 FPS most of the time, drops in some action scenes. Also have the frame skip thing which is annoying.

edit: the framerate drops terribly in some maps with large outdoor areas. Seems to be a CPU limitation as cutting down settings did absolutely nothing to increase framerate...time to consider a pin-mod.

Seems pretty good for me too. Glad to see the R1 can keep up with the R3!

 

Just playing about, went into nvidea control panel and set PHYSX to nvidea GPU, seems to have improved things a lot. A bit of googling leads me to believe it does use physx technology

Yes, have also set physx to gt540m in the nvidea control panel, was on autoselect, this seems to have made by far the best improvement yet

 

Just want to chime in - i got an m11xR2 i7 with 4gb of ram - im playing this identically to MW3 and Black Ops 1 which ive played 100+ hrs on each on the m11x. Its running no problem at 1366x768 at 40+ fps with EVERYTHING OFF except textures set to high.

Its definitely playable, and its a good experience for those wondering if it will run or not.

The only issue ive seen is the menu will freeze on start up - this is a driver issue.

the 310.54 or newly released (11/20) 310.61 should fix that issue (did for my other 2 buddies who have m11xr2s).

enjoy.

 

Also want to chime in and let you know how I run it. I have the m11x r1 with a core 2 duo at 1.7 OC. I run it with textures on high shadows on low anti al at the lowest level but not turned off. And everything else is turned off or a low. Also forgot to mention I have 2gb of ram. I am getting around 35 - 45 FPS it does for some reason when first starting to play the games run at 14 FPS till I die lol. It also will freeze in the start up menu for a minute or so. So if I can run it anyone else should be able to.

 

Are you on these drivers, the latest ones from Dell?

 

No i am using the 285.62 drivers

 

I'm playing it with the exact same configuration and getting the same framerate - including the menu freezing issue.

Still running 270.61 Nvidia Drivers, however I read on the Steam forums a while back that the freeze was due to audio/Realtek drivers?
The sudden freeze doesn't bother me at all however, load the game up watch Fraps freeze for around 5 seconds then continue playing for hours without any further issues.

The game is definitely playable on a R2.

 

Have also found that setting multiplayer search to best makes a bit of difference to performance, I am still running high texture quality, low texture rendering, AA off and FXAA on. Runs pretty well on R3 i5, sorry no fps I will check though

Played a round a bit more and found if FXAA is off and AA on times 2 I can have extra on texture quality and high on texture rendering. Gives a solid 50 to 60 fps

FXAA off really seems to make a huge difference, just put AA on 2 X instead, looks and plays great now. Will put on my full settings if that is of any help to anyone.

 

Please do! I'm looking to pick up this game for my R3 as well.

 

Here we go:

Got an M11X R3 CORE I5 6GB RAM 750 GB HDD

screeen resolution : native 1366 x 768
full screen
shadows off
ragdoll off
texture quality extra
texture filtering high
AA - 2 x msaa
FXAA - off
Ambient occlusion - off
depth of field - low

not sure what they all mean but have been adjusting since day of release and think these are pretty solid getting 50 to 60 fps