Black Ops

When this game was released it ran horribly on PC... I was the guy that figured out how to fix it with the stutter fix below and I gained a shit ton of traffic. The method carried over to future games. Was nice to see a burst in viewership, 11k unique visitors in a week, 20k page views. Circa 2010

WinAmp Plugin

auri amp by: auri

Friend of mine developed a winamp plugin for quake 3 engine games that still works in call of duty games. If you've seen someone ingame using it, chances are it was me :)

Stumbled Upon Stutter Fix

Stutter Fix

I was creating a batch file to load steam in low priority automatically. Turns out when you create this it also makes every game launched through steam in low priority. in other words, run black ops in low priority!

THE STUDDERING IS GONE

Sound Fix

Nov-19 Patch Sound Fix After the patch (even before) the game had sound issues. Looping sounds, skipping sounds, echos. Use the following to fix these issues.

Type /snd_Restart in console at the start of each map. It may take several times depending on your system.

An alternate and more user friendly way of doing this is perminently setting a bind to do this for you.

  • Locate and open your config_mp.cfg

  • Anywhere in the "binds" section, create a new bind

  • bind [key] "snd_restart"

  • change [key] to a key of choice, F5 seemed standardish for me

  • Now feel free to reset your sound at will.

Dual Core Vs Triple And Quad

The game was developed and created for two console systems with several cores. So almost every dualcore user experiences alot of lag. The reason for this is the game is designed to make CPU work much harder than the (lack of) GPU performance in those consoles. Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering will help this situation for most. Turning both of these on along with texture quality to extra takes the strain off the cpu and back onto the gpu where it should be. Find which works best for you. ie:4xAA 4xAF/8xAA 8xAF/16x etc..

  • Enable texture quality "Extra" (r_picmip 0)

  • Enable Anti-Aliasing 4x (r_aaSamples 4)

  • Enable Anisotropic Filtering 4x (r_texFilterAnisoMin 4)

The slider is inaccurate so use your best judgement.

Black Ops Config_mp Fps Tweaks

This is an official list of cvars that pertain to graphical performance. *NOTE* A decent handful of these cvars are still locked, hopefully they will unlock them. ie: r_specular r_distortion etc..

You can enter these manually via console or by editing them in your config_mp.cfg with notepad located usually in:

Steam\SteamApps\common\call of duty black ops\Players

Would be a good idea to set the file to read only afterwards.

list as of nov-14-2010 5am gmt -5

seta monkeytoy "0" //enables console use tilde` key

seta cg_blood "1" //disables flying opponent blood

seta cg_brass "1" //disables ejecting brass from gun

seta cg_fov_default "65" //65-80 wider view range. lower=faster

seta com_maxfps "125" //125 you will move the fastest possible read about it in quake 3

seta fx_marks "0" //marks on walls

seta fx_marks_ents "0" //fx marks

seta fx_marks_smodels "0" //fx marks on models

seta r_aaAlpha "0" //anti-aliasing transparency

seta r_aaSamples "0" // anti-aliasing off

seta r_blur_allowed "0" //disables motion blurr

seta r_distortion "0" //disables heat warp

seta r_dof_enable "0" //disables aim down site blur effect

seta r_depthPrepass "1" //unknown

seta r_flame_allowed "0" //disables flames

seta r_flameFX_enable "0" //disables map flames

seta r_gfxopt_dynamic_foliage "0" //disables high quality grass

seta r_gfxopt_water_simulation "0" //disables high quality water

seta r_glow_allowed "0" //disables glow on bright objects

seta r_multiGpu "0" //1 for two video cards (on by default and is wrong)

seta r_multithreaded_device "1" //for multicore cpus

seta r_picmip "0" //1-5 texture quality 5= ugly

seta r_picmip_spec "5" //lowest specular map quality

seta r_picmip_water "5" //lowest water quality

seta r_picmip_bump "5" //lowest bumpmap quality

seta r_rendererPreference "Shader model 2.0" //lower level effects shaders

seta r_specular "0" //disable specular maps and bumpmaps

seta r_texFilterAnisoMin "0" //disableanistropic filtering. set what you need here

seta r_texFilterMipMode "Off" //turns off texture filtering

//Force Bilinear

//Force Trilinear

//Force Mipmaps Off (nicest,pixeled/film grain style)

seta r_vsync "0" //disables vertical sync(sync=locks fps with refresh rate)

seta ragdoll_enable "0" //disables dead players

seta sm_maxLights "0" //disables dynamic lights(muzzle flash lights)

seta sm_enable "0" //disables shadows

seta sys_sysMB "1024" //adjust this to your ram, game iz broken

seta z_feather "0" //disables smoothing of smoke edges

some other useful cvars

seta team_indicator "3" //for colorblind playernames.team=blue enemy yellowish-orange

bind [KEY] "toggle cg_drawfps" //change key to desired key

bind [KEY] "toggle drawlagometer" //allows you to toggle on/off each of these

seta sensitivity "5" //mouse sensitivity for more accurate setting refinement than a bar

seta drawLagometer "1" //on screen lagometer

seta cg_drawFPS "Simple" //enables onscreen lagometer.can be distracting

seta cg_ScoresPing_MaxBars "10" //1-10 more ping bars for accurate reading

seta cl_maxpackets "100" //100 is max. packets sent/rec per second

seta cl_packetdup "5" //1-5 duplicate packets sent (use carefully)

seta com_startupIntroPlayed "0"

seta rate "50000" //max data transfer rate in kbs

seta r_mode "800x600"

seta snaps "30" //better hit registration

//since youll be read only'ing your config these wont save

seta customclass1 "CUSTOM 1"

seta customclass2 "CUSTOM 2"

seta customclass3 "CUSTOM 3"

seta customclass4 "CUSTOM 4"

seta customclass5 "CUSTOM 5"

seta prestigeclass1 "CUSTOM 6"

seta prestigeclass2 "CUSTOM 7"

seta prestigeclass3 "CUSTOM 8"

seta prestigeclass4 "CUSTOM 9"

seta prestigeclass5 "CUSTOM 10"

Easy Nvidia Performance Gains

I realised on the third day most of these maps are very heavy in effects and models.

  • The first part is to open up the nvidia control panel and click on "Adjust image settings with preview" and select "Use my preference emphasizing" change the setting to "Performance".

  • The second part is to select "Manage 3d Settings" and scroll down to "Texture Filtering" and changing the drop down item to "High Performance". You can adjust other areas, but I would leave them at default unless you truly understand your system and what every option entails.

Windows 7 Performance Trick

This will disable windows 7's aero glass ONLY when cod is launched, then re-enable it after you quit

  1. locate your cod:black ops directory.

    • Steam\SteamApps\common\call of duty black ops\

  2. locate BlackOpsMP.exe

  3. right click and select "Properties"

  4. check the box for "Disable Desktop Composition" & optionally "Run This Program As Administrator

  5. click Apply

  6. click Ok

  7. Thats it, now test it.

Run Faster Trick

This is an old quake 3 engine trick. Still works in every cod game.

View the image below for a visual example and explanation.

*this only works when you run up against the wall. simple but very effective*

Black Ops Colored Names & XBOX Characters

You must enter your name just like normal under steam > settings > friends. Not sure if this will be patched but it certainly works, enjoy.

Xbox Characters

A = .=IF its invisible, copy the blank area(1 character)

B = .

X = .

Y = .

< = .

> = .

LB = .

RB = .

DPAD LEFT = .

DPAD RIGHT = .

DPAD UP = .

DPAD DOWN = .

LEFT STICK = .

RIGHT STICK = .

LEFT TRIGGER = .

RIGHT TRIGGER = .

For the xbox characters to work you must fill in the entire name box until no more characters fit in steam.

example:

yourname ^1^1^1^1^1^1^1^1 =nothingness

Color Codes

^1 = Red

^2 = Green

^3 = Yellow

^4 = Blue

^5 = Light blue

^6 = Pink

^7 = White

^8 = Brown

^9 = Grey

^0 = Black

Regular Coloring

^^55 =lightblue

Regular with Leaderboard Coloring

^^55^5 =lightblue

Complex

lu^^00^0c^^22^2i^^00^0d =pictured