BF3 Hanging up in game, crashes often.

[cdburner5911]

First off, I would like to say, I run BF3 on my secondary rig (Phenom 955, 4Gb, GTX 460 WD Caviar Black) and I have no issues what so ever (save the rare crash).

But on my main rig (i7 920, 6Gb, GTX 560 (2 in sli), WD Caviar Blue (fairly sure)) and single player ran beautifully, and i can almost max the game out @ 1080p.

Anyway, on on to my problem, so in multi it usually runs very smooth, except sometimes, it will just hang, like it stays on one frame for a fraction of a second to a few seconds. It does it on all servers, and all maps, more so outside ones, but even metro conquest. Now I heard somewhere that BF3 streams parts of the map to conserve memory, so my theory is that it is taking a long time to load objects. Anyway, the hard drive it is installed on is fairly old, but its no slouch, and yes, its fully drfraged and has maybe 30% free space. It will read/write at above 50Mb/s so its not too bad, but im unsure about the the amount of I/Os it does.

I'm pretty sure it isn't related to graphics, I have the latest drivers, and the cards aren't changing their clock rate or anything weird.

Also, did a repair on BF3, still does it.

I just did some testing, and it consumes around 2 gigs of ram, which seems like it would be enough to cache most of a level and most of the effects (explosions and dust and such)

my game also seems to crash quite a lot, which is irritating, it does it occasionally on Alt+Tabs, and sometimes on its own, usually proceeded with extreme lag (but also the red/blue static split thing it does, hard to enplane, it usually does that, but extreme)

I hope that wasn't too confusing, and that I got enough details (if you want i can try and make a video of the screen and what its doing)

Any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks,
Connor

 

[bumnut53]

Sounds like a graphics card or RAM problem to me, Is your machine stable when running Furmark? If it is try memtest to rule out faulty RAM.

Is it ok with one card instead of SLI ?

 

[jay2tall]

What are your card temps. I've seen several people on here describing issues with dual card setups that sound like heat issues. Even though they aren't super hot, BF3 does put a hurtin' on graphics cards. Have you tried running with just one card, does the issue go away.

Also, another question. Are you wired or running wireless to that machine. I had a buddy who had weird game lag issues with a game in the past, don't remember which one. Ran a really long Ethernet cable to his machine and it went away. I think he ended up replacing his wireless card.

 

[cdburner5911]

My machine is stable in Furmark, even cranked up. I don't have time to run memtest right now, but I will tonight.

The temps stay below 60c I believe, because i crank the fans up to 100% for that very reason. Also, the cards are sitting right next to each other in SLI, so one idles 24c, one idles 45-50c

I'm on gigabit Ethernet, but it passes through 2 switches and a router before reaching the modem, but I get excellent pings, and plenty of throughput (>2Mb/s down).

However, i tested with SLI disabled, and the issue seems to have gone away, but I cant say for sure because I have only had an hour or so to test.
Now I have the issue of noticeably lower frame rates (turn settings down, I know, but that's not the point of having SLI).

 

[jay2tall]

What res and settings are you running at? What frames do you see?

So non-sli no crashes? I'd confirm and start their. If that is true it is a graphics issue. Whether driver, or something else.

 

[cdburner5911]

I'm running 1080p, I'm not sure the exact frame rates I'm getting, but with sli its probably 40-45, and single card I'm getting probably more around 30.

I also have a second 1080p monitor attached, its not doing anything, I usually leave it turned off.

I will test to confirm no SLI crashes, then test SLI at lowest graphics, see if that helps.

Thanks for your help so far!

Also, probably irrelevant, but I am running win7 release candidate, not full blown win7.

 

[jay2tall]

Also, probably irrelevant, but I am running win7 release candidate, not full blown win7.

That could be an issue. I believe most driver updates require a certain SP version. I'd also shoot for 60FPS. Not sure why everyone is trying to get a stable 30 or 40 FPS. Your LCD is 60FPS and even with VSync on it is going to try and run 60FPS, so it might stuttler as it tried to bump up to a higher consistent Frame rate. Lower the video settings until you can get 60FPS. AA Differed is the biggest killer of frame rate. Set it to OFF.

 

[cdburner5911]

That could be an issue. I believe most driver updates require a certain SP version. I'd also shoot for 60FPS. Not sure why everyone is trying to get a stable 30 or 40 FPS. Your LCD is 60FPS and even with VSync on it is going to try and run 60FPS, so it might stuttler as it tried to bump up to a higher consistent Frame rate. Lower the video settings until you can get 60FPS. AA Differed is the biggest killer of frame rate. Set it to OFF.

I have had some driver issues, but mostly incidental stuff, mice, VidCap, ect.

I will try lowering settings, but it seems the shuddering has gone away, now replaced with another, stranger error.
Possibly caused by 'Repairing' BF3, after a good amount of game play, I have this thing, I don't even know how to describe it. Imagine a bush or tree or shrubbery, but all the points that make up the polygons, moving around at random, but all around the map, so what you see is tons of plains (flat surfaces, not airplanes) that are moving around and appear to have some vegetation texture. I will try and get a video of it later.

My problems never cease to exist =P

Maybe it is because i am running the release candidate, because I have virtually no problems on my other Win7 machine.
time to pick myself up another copy of win7.

 

[Guest]

I have the fix to all the crashes in bf3
Make sure to close down bf3 and origin! Origin must not be running!! Then go to your control panel, and press remove program, mark punkbuster, and delete punkbuster. A popup window appers, press finish. Then Reboot your computer. Start Origin, and then RIGHT-CLIK on bf3, and choce repair. Let it do it`s thing, and when finish, the game runs perfectly

Spreed the word

 

[simonlc]

Does anyone know if this actually works?

My computer also hangs - the screen is frozen with the sound looping. I cannot even ALT CTRL DEL, I have to reboot.

 

[cdburner5911]

Does anyone know if this actually works?

My computer also hangs - the screen is frozen with the sound looping. I cannot even ALT CTRL DEL, I have to reboot.

well its my guess that punk buster isn't the cause, as its just an anti cheat.

but my issue was solved completely by updating to Nvidia 285.79 beta drivers, couldn't hurt to try that (or, if u have an AMD card, the latest AMD drivers)