Call of Duty: Black Ops gets performance, bug fixes on PC

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Despite Call of Duty: Black Ops' successful sales, it didn't exactly have the smoothest of launches. Many users complained of bugs and performance issues that made the game unenjoyable for some and unplayable for others. Treyarch has been working to solve those issues and last night the developer released a massive patch for PC users.

The list of changes is pretty extensive -- at least compared to previous Black Ops patches. This update further tweaks performance for dual-core machines, along with "additional performance optimizations." There's also a fix for random freezes on certain computer configurations, an option to pre-cache all shaders during load time, and more.

The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Black Ops received a similarly hefty patch earlier this week, addressing various multiplayer bugs, exploits and imbalances. PC users should get an automatic update via Steam. Have the updates solved your issues or does the game remain plagued with unaddressed bugs? The full patch notes are below:

• Call of Duty: Black Ops


• Improved threading performance on computers with only 2 cores.
• Additional performance optimizations
• Added an option to pre-cache all shaders during load time. This fixes hitching related to shader compiling on some video cards when viewing an area of the map for the first time.
• Fixed random freezes in certain computer configurations.
• Allow Team Change on Ranked servers when it does not unbalance teams (this is a server admin option).
• Allow Team Change grace period at start of match (server admin option).
• Added 4 more reserved slots (server admin option)
• Added /connect
• Improved quickmatch results (server side change)
• Fix for watching films through Combat Record
• Fixed compassSpectatorsSeeEnemies exploit
• Fixed 3rd person fov exploit
• Fix for infinite supply drop exploit.
• Fixed crosshair flickering when stereo is active.
• Various spawn improvements
• Various sound improvements
• Fix for Zombies – Teammate shadows not displayed properly.
• Fix for radar not staying on in One in the Chamber when it should.
• In a Domination match, the Position Secured medal is no longer delayed.
• 'Hardened: Equipment Shot' Challenge can now be completed by destroying a 'Camera Spike'.
• Fix for choppy final killcam in dedicated servers.
• Various map glitches fixed.
• Weekly and Monthly leaderboards will now track all kills, deaths and assists properly (All Time leaderboards were not affected by this)
• Added mixed hardcore playlist
• Added mixed barebones playlist
• Added 12 player versions of all playlists

  Rcon

• Reduced timeout values. Connect (or failure to connect is faster).
• Added all white-listed dvars for Ranked and Unranked. Admins have rcon access to ALL available dvars.
• Added Settings and Console tabs for Ranked servers.
• Fixes a bug where the “Server” tab doesn’t update values when connecting to a new server.
• Added version number to the title bar.
• Fixed a bug where UI state didn’t persist after switching to another server.
• Added “disconnect” button.
• Fixed map “set” to not use admindvar.
• Changed all dvars which could be possibly float, to float. Mostly these are time-type dvars.
• Fixed bug where entering a value of zero for Message Duration would cause a unhandled exception error
• Truncated all message fields to 140 chars

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/41613-call-of-duty-black-ops-gets-performance-bug-fixes-on-pc.html

 

[princeton]

The patch that will make the game worth buying will be the patch that ports it onto the mw2 engine. Black ops runs on what is mostly the cod4 engine. Pathetic.

 

[Guest]

A 'freaking' men

 

[Guest]

Too bad the game still sucks.

 

[MrAnderson]

I was running it off a Core 2 Quad 2.xGHz with 9800 GT and it ran pretty good compared to even older titles... good to see that they are squeezing out every ounce of stability and performance.

The game is nothing special IMHO. SOme games just become the equiviant of a popcorn movie... It is entertaining, but does really nothing to influence change. The main menu system is kind of cool though.

 

[RaiDeR55]

Guest said:
Too bad the game still sucks.

Totally agree X2

 

[ruben1992]

Game will be good for competitive play once mod tool are released. The patch has fixed most things with the exception of knife lunge, sniper lerp & the server browser.

 

[Guest]

Game still lags like crazy half the time and aimbotters are becoming more and more the norm. The patch did not fix any of the things that made it suck from day one from what I can tell. Their inability to fix key online components and get rid of cheaters is totally fail.

 

[fpsgamerJR62]

"Despite Call of Duty: Black Ops' successful sales, it didn't exactly have the smoothest of launches." - must be the understatement of the year. The author can probably use that line again for 2011's edition of Call of Duty. Just erase "Black Ops" and insert the new COD subtitle

 

[Guest]

It's the first time I spent 60 dollars on a game and I'm completely frustrated.

The multiplayer gameplay is awful, the maps are boring and there's lag "all over place". Not to mention the hacking community that grows daily. The KILLCAM is horrible when compared to MW2.

Now I know how incompetent Treyarch is. I'll never, ever buy another game from them. I watched an interview -- two days before the game was release -- with the guys responsible for developing the game and I could see how inexperienced they were when describing and commenting the title. They didn't convince me at all!

I wish I could've watched this video earlier. I certainly wouldn't had bought the game.

Nowadays, gamers lack great studios for developing great titles. Everything is profit-related. Just a few have the competence for that such as Blizzard, Bioware, Infinity Ward and few new companies like 4A Games for developing Metro 2033.

If the CoD franchise could stay with Infinity Ward, it would be great. I don't know why the game "change hands" every other year.

Sticking to MW2 until MW3 is released later in 2011 (by the way, I've just reached Prestige Mode Level 2!)


Cheers!

 

[edison5do]

RaiDeR55 said:

Guest said:
Too bad the game still sucks.

Totally agree X2

Totally agree X3

 

[peperonikiller]

From day 1 I have never had ANY stability issues with this game. I'm using AMD Phenom Quad Core, and the MSI Hawk 5770. I have yet to come across a hacker either (PC version.)

Treyarch acknowledged the problems and are obviously trying to fix them. That's GOOD! When you get on a thread and just complain about the game realize that there is no possible way for them to test every possible setup... and that the majority of the players DON'T have any issues with the game.

I'm very impressed with the mapping on this game, half of them aren't just static maps.. there's actually interactions with them like opening those huge floor doors or the rocket launching.

Anyway, I just hate seeing people bash the game.. especially since I bet they never did some googleing to try and solve their problem which there are a lot of quick fixes to most of the issues out there.

MAIN ONE IS TO UPDATE YOUR FRIKKIN DRIVERS GUYS!

 

[windmill007]

I like the game. it has great graphics and is very fun. I just play the single player. I have an Intel dual core 8500 and a Geforce 460GTX. It was taxing out both my 4GHZ cores.... hopefully this update brings it down to reality. It actually ran not to bad before the patch on my system with everything cranked on my 24" Monitor.

 

[Burty117]

peperonikiller said:
From day 1 I have never had ANY stability issues with this game. I'm using AMD Phenom Quad Core, and the MSI Hawk 5770. I have yet to come across a hacker either (PC version.)

Treyarch acknowledged the problems and are obviously trying to fix them. That's GOOD! When you get on a thread and just complain about the game realize that there is no possible way for them to test every possible setup... and that the majority of the players DON'T have any issues with the game.

I'm very impressed with the mapping on this game, half of them aren't just static maps.. there's actually interactions with them like opening those huge floor doors or the rocket launching.

Anyway, I just hate seeing people bash the game.. especially since I bet they never did some googleing to try and solve their problem which there are a lot of quick fixes to most of the issues out there.

MAIN ONE IS TO UPDATE YOUR FRIKKIN DRIVERS GUYS!

I think you need to check what you put again

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/call-of-duty-black-ops

More user reviews complain of stabilty issues than people who don't. Just because you don't have any issues doesn't automatically mean more people have had no issues than haven't.

You also got to factor in that it sold through the roof, lots people own the game so I heavily doubt all this bashing is for no reason.

You also cannot blame it on user error either since older COD's didn't have this many issues. Also more proof that treyarch did a bad job as games released by infinity ward didn't have this many bad user reviews or bugs either.

Also you obviously haven't played very many good games if "the interactive maps" filled you with joy.
seriously...

 

[Burty117]

windmill007 said:
I like the game. it has great graphics and is very fun. I just play the single player. I have an Intel dual core 8500 and a Geforce 460GTX. It was taxing out both my 4GHZ cores.... hopefully this update brings it down to reality. It actually ran not to bad before the patch on my system with everything cranked on my 24" Monitor.

Ok just a correction, I know it depends on what people Perceive as "good graphics" but seriously, it really is no leap or decent at all. Hell the engine is old and was designed for CODMW which obviously was modified for CODMW2 but they really could have done with a new one, this engine is obviously at its limits and I don't know how but some how, treyarch has managed to make it buggy as hell as well!

 

[peperonikiller]

burty117 said:

peperonikiller said:
From day 1 I have never had ANY stability issues with this game. I'm using AMD Phenom Quad Core, and the MSI Hawk 5770. I have yet to come across a hacker either (PC version.)

Treyarch acknowledged the problems and are obviously trying to fix them. That's GOOD! When you get on a thread and just complain about the game realize that there is no possible way for them to test every possible setup... and that the majority of the players DON'T have any issues with the game.

I'm very impressed with the mapping on this game, half of them aren't just static maps.. there's actually interactions with them like opening those huge floor doors or the rocket launching.

Anyway, I just hate seeing people bash the game.. especially since I bet they never did some googleing to try and solve their problem which there are a lot of quick fixes to most of the issues out there.

MAIN ONE IS TO UPDATE YOUR FRIKKIN DRIVERS GUYS!

I think you need to check what you put again

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/call-of-duty-black-ops

More user reviews complain of stabilty issues than people who don't. Just because you don't have any issues doesn't automatically mean more people have had no issues than haven't.

You also got to factor in that it sold through the roof, lots people own the game so I heavily doubt all this bashing is for no reason.

You also cannot blame it on user error either since older COD's didn't have this many issues. Also more proof that treyarch did a bad job as games released by infinity ward didn't have this many bad user reviews or bugs either.

Also you obviously haven't played very many good games if "the interactive maps" filled you with joy.
seriously...

Of course people who have issues will post and people who play fine wont post. That's just common sense.

I've actually been following the official update thread on the steam forums..

Filled with joy? I just said impressed as no other CoD before this one has added moving props and such.

And as for issues? well let's give it a few more patches and see. MW2 is still plagued with problems.. even worse still then BO in some areas... Hell I've got a copy of MW2 with modded textures and no foliage. Not a single thing that VAC can do about either. At least with dedicated servers on BO you can actually administer your server. And yes, there will be stability issues with just about every newly released game until hardware manufactures and properly optimize their drivers. I noticed a big gain in performance when I updated my ATI drivers just the other day.

It's nice to join a server in seconds rather then having to wait in a stupid lobby just to get disconnected from the host..

Anyway I'm just trying to say it's still too early to really tell. In a few more patches I bet this game will be solid. It already is for me. Don't get so butthurt by my post that you have to reply just to try to prove every point of mine wrong..

 

[gingerbill]

to be fair though peperonikiller it is silly to tell people to update there drivers , as if you are imparting some wisdom . I think its clear to anyone with a brain in there head that the game had some severe bugs on release , im not saying the game is crap but it's mental to try and claim it was a user problem.

i own it on xbox and enjoyed it for what it is , its fun in short bursts , definetly got my moneys worth. I would have preffered to buy it on PC as i did with previous titles but it was too risky with all the problems .

 

[peperonikiller]

gingerbill said:
to be fair though peperonikiller it is silly to tell people to update there drivers , as if you are imparting some wisdom . I think its clear to anyone with a brain in there head that the game had some severe bugs on release , im not saying the game is crap but it's mental to try and claim it was a user problem.

i own it on xbox and enjoyed it for what it is , its fun in short bursts , definetly got my moneys worth. I would have preffered to buy it on PC as i did with previous titles but it was too risky with all the problems .

Sir you'd be surprised the types of people out there. I have to deal with it daily at work and on the road.

 

[PlayfullyEvil]

fpsgamerJR62 said:
"Despite Call of Duty: Black Ops' successful sales, it didn't exactly have the smoothest of launches." - must be the understatement of the year. The author can probably use that line again for 2011's edition of Call of Duty. Just erase "Black Ops" and insert the new COD subtitle

I would agree with you if it would be another Treyarch-developed release. On the other hand, if Infinity Ward has anything to do with it, I may have to disagree. I'm only basing this on the track record that Infinity Ward has had with developing for the CoD franchise.

 

[Guest]

Agree X4,
Game Freezes, also flashing Hex code across the screen, even in so called Safe mod,
The only reason its sold so many is not due to the game play or graphics etc. its all down to the marketing effort and over promotion of a game that is not ready for deployment, another fuk up driven by the marketing people who know nothing about games, game development or the community they develop for.
On top of this, they didnt even factor in the longevity of the game, allowing for cheat prevention at the core, so this will be a game that starts with a bang, pisses of most players, and then fades away in a whimper, the marketing people have moved on, made there commission and leave it to the support staff to fight for improvements.

 

[Guest]

Black Ops has it's issues but to say it's 100% the game is simply not true. As many people complaining, there are just as many playing the game with no issues. The graphics aren't great but that was known before the release of the game. I heard and saw that the game was using a mw1 engine which was i believe also used in cod waw. It was never going to be as good as mw2(graphically). You can however go to the config file and change some settings and increase some quailty. Yes the game has it's issues and it continues to get better and also there are plenty of people who don't keep their computers up-to-date or don't realize that some settings have a performance impact. The game is fun once the lag goes away which everytime I play get less and less. I think some people just got to much into the hype and when the hype was gone they felt the game didn't live up to it.