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
locate your cod:black ops directory.
Steam\SteamApps\common\call of duty black ops\
locate BlackOpsMP.exe
right click and select "Properties"
check the box for "Disable Desktop Composition" & optionally "Run This Program As Administrator
click Apply
click Ok
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