CoD: Black Ops was essentially broken at launch, with a host of bugs and lag issues being reported, most notably on the PC and PS3 versions. A patch release late last week fixed the majority of the issues, but it did not completely silence the complaints.<\/p>\n
Many gamers still complain of “stuttering” in the multiplayer, as well as delayed freezes, which are obviously not ideal for an online FPS. Other users with high-end gaming rigs report low frame-rates, despite all efforts to reduce the visual quality settings. <\/p>\n
My own experience has also not been perfect, and while the recent patch did a decent job of making the game at least playable, noticeable stuttering\/lag crops up in combat situations.<\/p>\n
A user calling himself Dante on the F<\/a>PSadmin forums<\/a> may well have identified the underlying cause of most of these problems: live stat streaming.<\/p>\n Basically, what this entails is that while playing Black Ops, the game maintains a solid data stream with the servers, over and above that required to just play the game. This secondary data stream updates your Black Ops profile in real time.<\/p>\n This means that not only is the game constantly running additional uplink overhead, but it is also placing added stress on the CPU, which has to manage the uploading of stats whilst playing the game. <\/p>\n The theory explains why many gamers on 384 kbps ADSL lines experience terrible lag in Black Ops, as they are limited to 128 kbps upload speeds. One source reported that the game was virtually unplayable on his 384 kbps line, but noticed that upgrading to a 4 Mbps line made a drastic difference.<\/p>\n A 384 kbps ADSL line generally provides great performance for most online games, due to the download speed being sufficient. Most games, however, do not require constant heavy uploading. Black Ops’ constant stat updating may require faster upload speeds than what 384 kbps lines are capable of delivering, resulting in game-ruining lag.<\/p>\n The theory also gives a possible explanation to the high-CPU use reported by many when playing the game. Simply put, Black Ops should put no more than 30% load on a PC, while we should expect the graphics card to run at around 80%. If the game requires a separate protocol to be constantly run alongside Black Ops, then the CPU will have to work harder, resulting in further potential stuttering. <\/p>\n I myself have noticed that the game runs smoothly for the most part, but stutters noticeably whenever I kill or am killed by another player. An upload spike resulting from stats reporting on these engagements might explain the isolated lag. Other players also report experiencing the same problem consistently. <\/p>\n Dante tested his theory by developing a program which isolated Black Ops to run in a shell. This essentially allowed him to play the game online, while blocking off the constant outgoing connection. This apparently cured the lag, giving further evidence that live stats reporting is causing the lag\/stuttering. <\/p>\n Dante emailed Treyarch, and was informed that the developer is looking into this specific problem, and is “working on something similar.”<\/p>\n In the meantime, the following 3-step fix is said to give the game a slight performance boost:<\/p>\n 1. Start game up, wait a second or 2 while the game syncs with the stats server<\/em><\/p>\n 2. Minimize to desktop and start up Task Manager<\/em><\/p>\n 3. Go to processes, and right click on the Black Ops .exe and click priority, set it to “High”.<\/em><\/p>\n Treyarch did a great job of fixing the game up late last week, but continuing complaints from PC gamers suggest that their work is not done just yet.<\/p>\n