vBF2 - Good enough system but still lags in SP

[THE_PR_FAN]

Hello Fellas,

I've noticed a weird thing with vBF2. I currently play with 255 bots on FH2 but 100 in PR and vBF2. The strange thing is that FH2 works like a charm with over 120 FPS with 255 bots on every map, whereas in vanilla bf2 if I increase the bot numbers anything over 125, it starts laggning, and by lagging, I mean serious FPS drops to 15 FPS for a few mins then back to 50-60. I have got a good enough gaming laptop, specs below:

CPU: Intel Core i9 14900HX
GPU: Nvidia RTX 4090 Laptop GPU
RAM: 32 GB dual-channel 5200 MHz DDR5 memory
Screen Res: 2560 x 1600 @ 240Hz.

I have everything set to max on both mods, vanilla BF2 has the /LARGEADDRESSAWARE flag set, my page file is set to system-controlled 8GB to 16GB limit, and it is patched to v1.5. On FH2, I play SP on 64-player maps, but in BF2, I play on 16-player maps. Do map layers (16,32,64) make a difference under the hood? If not, what might be the issue?

[bad_nade]

Hello Fellas,

I've noticed a weird thing with vBF2. I currently play with 255 bots on FH2 but 100 in PR and vBF2. The strange thing is that FH2 works like a charm with over 120 FPS with 255 bots on every map, whereas in vanilla bf2 if I increase the bot numbers anything over 125, it starts laggning, and by lagging, I mean serious FPS drops to 15 FPS for a few mins then back to 50-60. I have got a good enough gaming laptop, specs below:

CPU: Intel Core i9 14900HX
GPU: Nvidia RTX 4090 Laptop GPU
RAM: 32 GB dual-channel 5200 MHz DDR5 memory
Screen Res: 2560 x 1600 @ 240Hz.

I have everything set to max on both mods, vanilla BF2 has the /LARGEADDRESSAWARE flag set, my page file is set to system-controlled 8GB to 16GB limit, and it is patched to v1.5. On FH2, I play SP on 64-player maps, but in BF2, I play on 16-player maps. Do map layers (16,32,64) make a difference under the hood? If not, what might be the issue?

Your CPU is probably choking. All games built on this 20 years old Refractor 2 engine, like BF2 and all its mods, can only use two threads. One for networking and another for everything else. It doesn't matter how many extra cores your CPU has when the game engine cannot use them.

To see your real CPU load instead of average over all cores, most of which are idling, use the CPU affinity setting in Windows Task Manager to pin PRBF2.exe to two non-adjacent P-cores of your CPU (to avoid using two hyperthreads of one core). Then add load% of those cores to an overlay like MSI Afterburner + RTSS. This setup will show you how your CPU is actually doing.

I'm not familiar with various AI variants in BF2 mods, or AI in BF2 in general, but I'm quite sure that PR, FH2 and vBF2 each use different AI code than the other. As far as I know, PR uses some version of ESAI but I know nothing about it, it's system requirements or limitations. Generally it's not recommended to go beyond 96 bots.