official Call of Duty: Black Ops

[Andrew Lyle Global Moderator]

And let the lucky kills commence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQYVRTOg4BY&hd=1

LOL, awesome shot. But it's been done before in Modern Warfare 2. There was some videos of the throwing knife across the stage.

[Corris Veteran]

EXACT same thing here, had a friend over while playing that level and we both had so many go's at that bit without realising you had to kick barrels. Only difference is I did it on Hardened. Managed to get down to the marker at the bottom a few times, last about 3 seconds then die. Fluke saved me as I dived next to a barrel for cover one time and whats-his-face ran up and kicked it over. It dawned on me then :p

Nice to know I wasn't the only one, I managed to make it past that bit without using the barrels the first time, then when going through for intel I heard him shout it, felt like such an idiot, ages spent trying to get past that one bit, lol.

[Chasethebase Veteran]

Ugh, well I reinstalled DirectX from the disc yesterday. I'll test it later. Probably won't work.

[Nicholas-c Veteran]

you know whats really annoying me with the multiplayer?

"Hostile RC XD Online!"... "Hostile RC XD Online!"... "friendly RC XD Online!"... "Hostile RC XD Online!"... "friendly RC XD Online!"...

[WastedJoker]

I wish I was good enough to regularly get Valkyrie missiles :(

[darkpuma]

Can someone help me with a most likely very dumb question?

Do i NEED to have steam to play this game? I hate steam, i hate the idea of being forced to run another and filled program just in order to play a game. So far i'm borderline - cant decide if i should buy the game or not, due to the bad SP reviews mainly... so my decision is kinda hinging on this.

Oh, and on a sidenote - are the Multiplayer maps any better than MW2? The MW2 maps were absolute garbage, at least until they brought some old COD4 maps back in the DLCs...

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

you know whats really annoying me with the multiplayer?

"Hostile RC XD Online!"... "Hostile RC XD Online!"... "friendly RC XD Online!"... "Hostile RC XD Online!"... "friendly RC XD Online!"...

(Y)

[Argi]

The hostile one is kind of useful. I've lost count of the number of little red buggies that I've shot running towards me. Friendly ones yeah, couldn't care less.

[WastedJoker]

Can someone help me with a most likely very dumb question?

Do i NEED to have steam to play this game? I hate steam, i hate the idea of being forced to run another and filled program just in order to play a game. So far i'm borderline - cant decide if i should buy the game or not, due to the bad SP reviews mainly... so my decision is kinda hinging on this.

Oh, and on a sidenote - are the Multiplayer maps any better than MW2? The MW2 maps were absolute garbage, at least until they brought some old COD4 maps back in the DLCs...

Steam is hardly a burden on a games-capable system. Stop being such a weirdo about it!

As for maps, I'm liking most of them so far. Nuketown and Grid are my faves so far.

I've not come across a sniper-capable map yet though.

[MikeChipshop Member]

LOL, awesome shot. But it's been done before in Modern Warfare 2. There was some videos of the throwing knife across the stage.

Just the way it bounces a couple of times first makes it pure win :p

you know whats really annoying me with the multiplayer?

"Hostile RC XD Online!"... "Hostile RC XD Online!"... "friendly RC XD Online!"... "Hostile RC XD Online!"... "friendly RC XD Online!"...

Eyes open and shoot them ****ers ;)

[WastedJoker]

Noticed my FPS leapt from 60 to 91 in games :shifty: The patch worked for me.

I may bring out FRAPs tonight if I'm playing well. I did have an excellent moment earlier where I killed 5 guys in one tiny area - killed two with my dual scorps, 2 with my pistol w/ extended mags then one with my knife. I was :woot: at myself.

Edit: I just noticed DirtyLarry in that last screeny...the same guy from here? :ninja:

[rajputwarrior]

Edit: I just noticed DirtyLarry in that last screeny...the same guy from here? :ninja:

no that's not him...

[Massiveterra]

A UK doppelganger? :blink:

[WastedJoker]

I wondered - I couldn't remember if DL was PC or Xbox'er.

Why are Larry's always dirty eh eh eh?

[Sethos]

Now I just have to vent and say what everybody else have said, the spawn system ****ing sucks. It is by miles the worst spawn system I have ever come across and it's even more infuriating than being tubed across the map or getting insta-killed 8 times in a row by some overpowered killstreak in MW2. I get shot in the back or knifed in the back CONSTANTLY because some bloke and his mate JUST spawned behind me and it happens ALL.THE.****ING.TIME. TDM is almost unplayable with this system.

I just sat here, a minute ago thinking 'Think I need to adopt a playstyle where I hug walls constantly, to avoid the backstabbing' I enter a building 5 SECONDS later and 3 people spawn behind me, just to shoot me.

I hope whoever created the spawn system at Treyarch dies.

[Hedon]

I haven't had any spawn issues yet. However, I am only like at rank 9 or 10 and have only been playing TDM Core so far.

[Chasethebase Veteran]

Reinstalling the game now to try and fix Single Player. Shouldn't have to do this, there's 2 patches out, and I try searching and get nothing. So frustrating. :angry:

[WastedJoker]

Sethos, any particular map?

[Sethos]

The map mentioned above was Havana but it happens on almost any medium to small map, the larger maps it happens but isn't as annoying.

[Chasethebase Veteran]

Reinstall did nothing, still having the same problem. Don't know why. Basically it gets to where it's supposed to save and does nothing.

[DR3AMxCATCHER]

I haven't had any spawn issues yet. However, I am only like at rank 9 or 10 and have only been playing TDM Core so far.

I really don't believe the spawn issues are that bad in this game compared to other games outside of the Call of Duty franchise. Halo is way worst in my eyes and even though I've complained already about the spawning to my friends, it's annoying but not that bad.

[MikeChipshop Member]

I agree with Sethos... the spawn system is flawed.

[dead.cell]

Now I just have to vent and say what everybody else have said, the spawn system ****ing sucks. It is by miles the worst spawn system I have ever come across and it's even more infuriating than being tubed across the map or getting insta-killed 8 times in a row by some overpowered killstreak in MW2. I get shot in the back or knifed in the back CONSTANTLY because some bloke and his mate JUST spawned behind me and it happens ALL.THE.****ING.TIME. TDM is almost unplayable with this system.

I just sat here, a minute ago thinking 'Think I need to adopt a playstyle where I hug walls constantly, to avoid the backstabbing' I enter a building 5 SECONDS later and 3 people spawn behind me, just to shoot me.

I hope whoever created the spawn system at Treyarch dies.

While your concerns are legitimate, I can't help but facepalm at the last part...

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Now for a post that I found concerning the gameplay / menu lag (despite hardware).

I spent all day yesterday trying to identify the problem here, and it finally came down to Black Ops Live Stat Streaming.

How I Identified it:

My friend was having big lag issues, even though he has a monster of a PC (i7), far better than mine, but was barely pulling 40 fps. I told him my puny Phenom II X2 was getting an average of 80-100 fps. He was as perplexed as I was, until I suggested he bring his PC round to my house and use my connection (50 down, 30 up). Once he was setup on my connection, his PC did much better, with an average of 90+ fps. So, we concluded that it was the connection - he had a meagre 1 meg up at his home, but with the 30 up I have at mine, it managed much better. Why?

Well, from the moment you log into Black Ops it starts live streaming your stats. This is why even the menus lag - it is getting data to display about game events, such as bombs destroyed, wager contracts made and fulfilled, etc, etc. This data is sent every 2 game frames, both up and down. It is constant.

How I Solved the Problem:

I set to work building a program that runs Black Ops in a shell, and wanted to block the port used for the Live stats streaming. However, doing that kills the game dead, as it "thinks" the stats server is offline, and it wont let you play, displaying a "our stats are offline at the moment please try later" type message. So, I "spoofed" it into thinking it was sending and receiving (with a null byte data packet) and that cured the lag. However, it meant no levelling up etc.

What I did next was cache the game data to the side in a holding sub program, and held it for 4 seconds (had to play around with the timing to find the sweet spot), then transmitted it. Bingo! We have a winner. Started pulling better than 125 fps.

All this informed me that this was the reason some people are getting lag, while others aren't getting it nearly as bad, and it all had to do with their up speeds - if you have a good up speed, the lag isn't nearly so bad.

What I did with these Findings:

I sent all this info over to Treyarch, and was pleased to hear they had been working on something similar. I was concerned I may have incurred a VAC ban because of the game shell, so they said they would speak to Valve for me.

Let's hope they rolled this fix out for everyone (console and PC alike) asap.

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I forgot to say (and can't edit my post) if you want to try a quick tempoary performance boost, you can do this:

1. Start game up, wait a second or 2 while the game syncs with the stats server

2. Minimize to desktop and start up Task Manager

3. Go to processes, and right click on the Black Ops .exe and click priority, set it to "High".

You will find this improves your performance without all that config file tweaking.

Source

I'm currently unable to mess with anything right now being at work, but it caught my attention and figured I'd just pass it along to you guys.

[WastedJoker]

Arctic Camo Dual-Scorpions of Doom. Pwning dropshotter since yesterday.

[+.Vamp Subscriber²]

Reinstall did nothing, still having the same problem. Don't know why. Basically it gets to where it's supposed to save and does nothing.

To where it's supposed to save? I'm probably being an idiot but where abouts is that?

Also have you tried running steam/black ops as administrator (right click icon and 'run as administrator'). Also other general things like updating graphics card drivers?

Finally no more stuttering FPS in MP since the patch and I can play some proper games! My first hardcore CTF went well :D

Edited November 12, 2010 by .Vamp
Image contained profanity.