Recommended Settings for 1GB - 1.5GB - 2GB+ Video Cards

[FS~Phat]

Here's some testing I just did to prove that people need to be more conservative with the game settings.. (god im good to you lot sometimes.. this took me best part of 3 hrs + 8hrs with the follow up tests)

All testing done at 1920x1080 Rez

Firstly lets have a look at what happens if you have anything that hasnt cleared out of memory properly when you start the game.

Desktop Memory 760MB (normally sits at about 240-300MB for me)
This is with the last official Retail patch and at Maximum settings 2xAA.
Notice before we even start that we are WELL above 1.5GB Vram and it gets worse.. even 2GB Vram cards couldnt run well as it peaks at 2.26GB Vram.



Next up... Latest Retail Patch Max Settings without the desktop memory hog.
Desktop Memory 300MB
Starts at 1.4GB and climbs to 1.87GB Vram...
Still too much for 1GB and 1.5GB cards.


Ok lets switch over to the current Beta.
Again Max Settings 2xAA.
Desktop again down at 240MB Vram
Starts at 1.3GB and climbs to 1.6GB Vram.
Again too much for 1GB and 1.5GB cards. Notice how the texture management is actually working though. (its not just a constant increase and flatline like above) This is one area the Devs look to have been working. And this used to be a lot worse with the original game when it 1st released right up to until they rewrote the core graphics code for the current retail patch.


Ok so now on to High settings...
Latest Beta High Preset 2xAA
Desktop at 330MB
Start at 1.38GB and peaks at 1.6GB but stays mostly just under or just over 1.5GB.
Hurray we have found the sweet spot settings for 1.5GB cards.


Last test... Medium Preset 2xAA
Desktop 260MB
Starts at 880MB looking good.. Peaks at about 1.1GB but mostly stays around 1GB Vram... Again another mystery solved... 1GB video cards should stick to Medium preset for best results.


What have we learnt here today???
MOST people are just trying to run the game with too many features up too high and they are running out of video card memory which means the game has to swap textures from system ram and back and forth to video ram. THIS is what causes major hickups and most of the stuttering. It gets even worse if it has to go to HDD for it.

So...
1GB video cards use Medium Preset...
and slowly turn up a few settings until you notice stuttering.
1.5GB cards use High Preset...
and slowly turn up a few settings until you notice stuttering.
2GB+ Video cards use Very high (max)..
you may still notice occasional stuttering because you will sometimes still run out of Vram unless you have 2.5GB or more.

PS... for those of you who don't know I have 3GB GTX580 cards (which currently dont work in SLI with COD unless using nvidia surround) and for the most part the game is butter smooth for me now.