COD4 Frame Rate

[Relic]

I was considering turning up my frame rate in COD4. But I wanted to find out if it would cause any trouble with punkbuster before I do so.

[CaNNon]

PunkBuster should only look for cheats, tweaking what ever hardware you have to get the best play you can should not effect it.

One exception I know of is software that mods the cpu clock cycles, in this case time tables between your pc and the server is shifted.

[RoadWarrior]

Modding the fps is no biggie. As a player and SGA of the game myself, I don't recommend much over 80fps, as it runs more stable than going much higher. Mind, I only run one 8800GT OC2 512MB atm. That may change with the advent of adding a second vid-card, and not sure what your specs are.

 

The human eye can apparently only see up to 60fps anyways, but the idea is to find your highest stable fps-rate, with gaming, regardless of the game. The idea mainly being stable. Nice to boast 1000fps, which I've seen people try for, but if it won't hold stable, is there much point?

 

I found 80fps to be about ideal for COD4 given the quad-core Intel system I run with 2GB 667Mhz ram and the one 8800 stated above. Your specs may make a difference, as well, so keep that in mind.

[Tabasco]

It also depends on what he tweaks to get his framr rate up. If he goes outside cvar values, he'll be kicked from servers.

[CaNNon]

Well thats a good point, maybe relic should explain a little more on the how and we could offer some better advice?

[BOTA:X]

Some servers that use the TWL/CAL/Cevo config are limiting how high you can set it. For instance they may not allow /com_maxfps 0 which is basically no limit. What will happen is you will get a few warnings from the server to change the setting. If you fail to do so it will just kick you for two minutes but you would never be banned for that.

Edited January 31, 2008 by BOTA:X

[RoadWarrior]

Personally, I don't care who sets the limit. 0 is game-default, and it works fine for high-end hardware, although the flux is rediculous. I can hit well over 500fps at times and then drop down to 60 the next second depending.

 

I chose to set mine at one that holds fairly stable, and never goes below 60.

 

TWL and other leagues are silly to do this, as limiting fps in a league is basically punishing someone for having an SLi/Crossfire rig with high-end hardware vs the person who has low-end equipment, and they're trying to level the playing field by doing so, but at the same time, they won't do it.

 

Leaving the setting at 0 for low-end hardware users is actually fairly optimal, as opposed to trying to limit it to an fps bracket of one setting. They're increasing the distance in ability here, as I've proven personally, with having had lower-end hardware on my system before updating to newer hardware. The last upgrade was the vid-card, btw, everything else was high-end towards the end, and saw no real improvement until the vid-card was in place.

 

The Nvidia 7300 was no screaming hell, but it was definitely above basic requirements, and had 512MB RAM, and it would barely hold 43fps. Game's stock config requires 0(unlimited) Dev's have claimed 60 as stable, but it won't work with some hardware.

 

Basically, leagues will limit who is willing to play with them, in the near future, if this becomes a habit, and as well, it's really a server-side controlled aspect.

 

My 2 cents.

 

What TWL does on their own is their thing, and is not related to pbbans.

[Tabasco]

I still doubt that anything above 40-60fps can be detected by the human eye. Add internet latency on top of it, I think limiting the FPS is silly. I think a person running 300fps is silly. JMHO.

[fozzer]

There are certain quake3 engine games were fps can make a difference, RTCW for example.

Servers I used to run forced players maxfps within 43-125 to create a level playing field for all who connected.

 

pb_sv_cvar com_maxfps in 43 125

enforcing a maximum of 125 fps relates to the quake 3 engine and its

[HarryRag]

there was also a no sound (walking) bug, with to high fps in cod2

therefore we forced to keep the fps under the 250

 

the rate of 125 is also a crazy one, 125 fps constant is/was the best framerate to do your jumps with, and so climbing up to the 333 magicspot.

 

and that is indeed q3 related, on psb some had posted links to threads about how that worked.

no cheats, but just how the engine reacted at those rates, nice grafs

 

but also if you can manage 250 constant, that also was one of the best rates in cod2 for aiming, jumping etc, these are just value's the game like to opperate with, read sweetspots.

 

so if your system can do a 125 steady and a max of 160 fps ingame, you'd rather limit your fps to 125 and have a legal benifit, that's just the way it is in the cod series

 

the above 250 fps and no sound of a person walking, that was a bad one

[RoadWarrior]

It's definitely not as relevant with newer games. Much of that is built into the engine.

 

To be perfectly straight forward, I can hold a solid fps rate of 333 in ET and COD4, haven't checked it in ETQW or BF2(not sure if the last has a check for it).

 

With ET patched to 2.60b, fps/rate/trick jumping was pretty limited, and mods of the game limited it even further to limit the playing field to level-ground without so much limiting the fps, but more what a single player could do with it.

 

COD4 is optimized at 60fps by design, and meant to maintain it. Fixed_physics amongst other settings were put in place to limit to much "kiddie-ing" around. I'm sure some will find holes in it. You'll always get those in every game-engine/new game, looking for ways to beat the system and find that extra vantage point.

I'm not saying I appreciate the script-kiddies much, and I generally ban them locally, if I see them getting onto buildings no one else can, but should fps really be limited to what people who only run one average vid-card can get vs someone who shelled out the bucks for dual 8800's of any sort in SLI or someone who shelled out for the latest ATI cards running in crossfire?

 

May as well not have the technology at hand, if we're going to resort to limiting fps based on some owning lower-end equipment vs some owning higher-end equipment. It's not cheating, as they didn't spend money on a cheat, they spent money on hardware to gain performance.

 

Seems a waste to spend money on it if server admin and leagues are going to limit it's usefulness.

[fozzer]

Theres a hell of a difference between usefulness and exploiting imo.

Just pointing out that for some games its necessary to limit client fps to stop exploits.

[RoadWarrior]

I'm not arguing that point. ET, it needed to be done, without a doubt. COD4 is a bit to new to know, just yet, and it supports dual graphics cards. Would be a shame to see a game that does limit fps to what one can attain just because people won't buy into it, where others will. Punishing those that will seems pointless, and this becomes a bit of a moot-point in that regard, really.

 

ET supported one vid-card, and much lower-end hardware as a base. When higher-end hardware became available, I also noticed the difference in game-play, even with limitations on my own server, for the game.

 

Now that I have high-end hardware, I go onto servers I've helped people set up, and can roll them, where they used to roll me daily when I had my crappy system in comparison.

 

This does define a grey-line, for server-admin. Limit it to much, you don't get players, don't limit it enough, you don't get players. You have to balance it a bit, and choose carefully.

 

COD4 doesn't really perform well with anything above 80fps, with my personal setup. 667Mhz RAM, 680i Nvidia chipset, 8800GT OC2 512MB and a core2-quad Q6600 running on an ASUS P5N-E SLI motherboard.

 

I've got room for one more vid card, can hold 125 fps solid, but expect a real diff of maybe holding 2-300 tops with the second. FPS fluctuates to much to bother running higher, imo. Perhaps I just perfer the steady aim. That's the way I've always gone with tweaking fps. I could care for jumping onto things less.

[Deathwarrant]

Well, FPS does matter in more aspects than just what you can "See". Case point, I run a E8400 4GB Ram, and 2 8800GTX's, I play roughly 300-350 FPS in a full server and can shoot upwards of 400+ on a small server. With the right hardware combo and good ping you can literaly "move" faster. I just put this rig together the other day and instantly took on a score increase avg per round. I have a 3rd 8800 sitting on the desk, waiting on the rest of my water setup to come in before I can pop it in. But when you take that kind of hardware, put it on a 24" Screen and crank the res and gfx up. You will have an advantage vs. the guy w/ 1 GPU, and a smaller screen w/ lower gfx settings. always will, thats what drives the "Hardcore" gamers to build $5K-10k game rigs.

It's all linked. Laser mouse, fast connection, fast cpu, fast gpu. You end up "seeing" the same thing as everyone else. But your response time is faster, commands to the server are faster. When I play games like CoD1 it's almost like a matrix effect. You can almost dodge all the bullets at 1K FPS. So yeah, FPS Limiting can make a slight difference. But you can't limit the rest of the hardware to "Level" the playing field.

[Tabasco]

....You can almost dodge all the bullets at 1K FPS....

Now you sound like Superman :lol:

[FireStorm]

Now you sound like Superman :lol:

More like the Matrix :)

 

Anyway, I will tell you now, there are exploits to a high fps on COD 4. Not going to dicusses it to general area but how are you punishing people by restricting FPS to say 250. At that speed do you notice the differance between 250 and 500 then 1000. Turn off your fps counter and see if you can tell?

 

I think some of this is about FPS whores as I call them ;). MUST.... HAVE.... MOREEEE.

 

=S.A.S= Firestorm