PC Optimization and Call of Duty 2 Tweaks

PC Optimization and Call of Duty 2 Tweaks [Part 1]

This time sparked by Kryst talking in chat about frame drops, the bane of all PC gamers. This is more advanced than the ones I’ve posted before but if you’re comfortable with navigating Windows, using different programs and you know your hardware you should be fine. It is very detailed and comprehensive, will probably take you an hour to read and will make your finger hurt from all the scrolling (I’m not joking but I am sorry) but at least you'll learn more about how Windows works, maybe?

This post is so big that I have to split it into 3 parts/posts to fit into the 10,000 character limit, forgive me please.

There are a lot of “snake oil” tutorials on the internet that are mostly useless and sometimes those changes can even affect performance negatively. However, there are some changes that we can make that have been known to help.

As you’ve probably seen in my clips scattered around the Akuma forums and Discord I have constant 250 FPS even when recording with OBS. I’ll go through the steps I take when I configure Windows, my hardware drivers and Call of Duty 2.

It should be noted that the best thing you can do to increase your FPS is use a desktop PC with a fair amount of RAM (8GB+) and a SSD drive for your Windows installation. If you play newer games you likely have 16GB+ and possibly a NVMe SSD. Some would argue that 16GB is standard in 2022 but for CoD2 and maybe Chrome/Firefox 8GB+ should be fine.

Some of you are using laptops but they often come with further downsides such as limited Graphics Card control panel options so keep this in mind. Since I’m using an Intel CPU and a NVIDIA GPU, all the information in this guide will be related to that type of hardware. If you’re using AMD you may be able to use Google to find the corresponding settings but it won’t be the focus of this guide (Some information further down is still useful to you though).

As before, I’ll provide chapters so you can skip the ones you don’t want or need.

List of Chapters

1. Editing BIOS
2. Installing DirectX End-User Runtimes and Visual C++ Redistributables
3. Installing and Configuring Graphics Drivers
4. Installing RInput v1.44 (Raw Mouse Input for CoD2)
5. Editing Windows Control Panel/Settings
6. Call of Duty 2 Config Tweaks
7. Conclusion
   

Editing BIOS

Usually we assume the latest Windows or Graphics Card update is the problem and while that can be true, we can change the way our hardware operates at the base level. This helps us rule out hardware settings as the cause of frame drops if it happens in the future. Editing the BIOS is a more advanced topic and if you don’t feel comfortable doing this then you should leave it completely alone but if you know what you are doing, I absolutely recommend disabling certain features to help with CPU performance.

I am currently using an Intel 9700k and this processor provides features that downclock the frequency to save power or overclock the frequency to increase performance, they are enabled by default and can cause frame drops if the frequency fluctuates while playing.

Overclocking your CPU is an entirely different topic and requires its own amount of knowledge so that you don’t damage your hardware, I am not an expert with this and frankly it is outside the scope of this guide. I generally don’t touch this and prefer to keep my CPU stable at its base clock without any power saving features which is done by disabling the settings below. I also recommend not using any overclocked XMP profiles for your RAM because these can cause stutter and input lag.

There are 5 settings that I disable in my BIOS:

• EIST (Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology)
  
• Turbo Boost
  
• XMP Profiles (Presets for RAM frequency and timings)
  
• Intel C-States
  
• Intel Speed Shift
  

I have personally found that disabling C-States fixed FPS fluctuations and kept it constant (FirmFoot remembers).

Installing DirectX End-User Runtimes and Visual C++ Redistributables

After I have installed Windows I always like to install the DirectX End-User Runtimes and the latest Visual C++ Redistributables. This means the redistrubutables needed for any programs I use in the future will already be installed (Except for one little program later in the guide but the redistributable for that will also be provided with its download).

The DirectX End-User Runtimes can be found here on Microsoft’s website.

The latest Visual C++ Redistributables can be found in an All-In-One Package here on GitHub.

The Visual C++ Redistributable Package will need to be unzipped before you can install it:

Install these as you would any other program, they don’t require a restart.

PC Optimization and Call of Duty 2 Tweaks [Part 2]

Installing and Configuring Graphics Drivers

The age-old question of which Graphics Driver to use. Personally I never use the latest driver, I prefer to use the latest WHQL Certified release which has been extensively tested and is certified by Microsoft as being stable and mostly bug free.

The latest recommended/certified drivers for your NVIDIA GPU can be found here on NVIDIA’s website.

I select the following options to get a list of WHQL Certified drivers:

You can see that the latest WHQL Certified release for my GPU is 472.12 and that is the current driver that I have installed.

Select a Driver and download it.

For the clean installation of the selected NVIDIA Driver you can use a program called NVSlimmer which is available here on the 3DGuru website.

It is recommended to download NVSlimmer now because once you uninstall the current NVIDIA Driver and reboot, Windows may automatically start searching for an unwanted driver from its database. This way you will be able to run NVSlimmer quickly and install the new Driver (You can solve this by disabling the internet or unplugging your ethernet cable while you are changing drivers). For now you can download the NVSlimmer .zip file and leave it there until you need it.

Before you install the Driver that you selected, you need to uninstall your current NVIDIA Driver properly and to do this you can use a program called Display Driver Uninstaller. A very useful tool that removes NVIDIA Drivers and any left over files and registry edits that might conflict with a new NVIDIA Driver installation.

The latest Driver Display Uninstaller can be found here on the Guru3D website.

Though this program is recommended to be used in safe mode I have never experienced any issues using it in normal mode.

Once you have downloaded DDU, extract it like so:

Run the archived 7zip package and choose a folder to extract the contents to:

Inside that new extracted folder you will find DDU, it is recommended to run DDU as an administrator:

You will be greeted with an information pop-up, you can close it.

The settings dialog will appear, here are the settings I select:

When you close the settings dialog you may be greeted with a “You are not in Safe Mode” pop-up, you can ignore it.

Select GPU and NVIDIA in the corresponding drop down boxes and then click “Clean and Restart”. DDU will take a couple of seconds uninstalling your current NVIDIA Driver and then it will automatically restart your PC.

It will show its process in the log.

Once your PC has restarted and you are back on your desktop you will probably notice that you’re on 60hz again (If you are using a 144hz or 240hz monitor). You will change this later.

Now you need to clean install the latest WHQL Certified drivers.

Be aware that the settings you select here will only install the core, required components of the NVIDIA Driver. All telemetry and other NVIDIA services will be removed from the installation, this means you will also not have Geforce Experience.

Continue as you did with DDU, running NVSlimmer as an administrator:

When you run NVSlimmer, it will ask you to select the driver you want to use:

It will take a couple of seconds while it loads the package and you may get a “One or more unrecognized folders were detected” warning, you can ignore it.

You’ll see the following choices, select only the core/required options:

You can see just how much stuff comes bundled with NVIDIA Drivers.

Click Install and accept the confirmation that you want to apply the changes:

The NVIDIA Driver installation will now start, agree to the terms and conditions:

Select Custom Installation:

Select “Perform a clean installation” and click next:

The NVIDIA Graphics Driver will now install and once it has finished you can close the NVIDIA Installer and NVSlimmer.

Open the NVIDIA Control Panel by Right-Clicking on the Desktop and disable the Notification Tray Icon:

Navigate to the “Manage 3D Settings” section and set them to the following values:

I know that Low Latency Mode is often recommended to be set to On. After re-reading the information on TweakGuides.com they recommended it be set to Off which allows applications, in this case Call of Duty 2, to queue frames themselves.

Click Apply in the lower right corner and navigate to “Change Resolution”.

Select your preferred resolution and refresh rate:

Click Apply in the lower right corner and navigate to “Adjust Desktop Colour Settings”.

Select your preferred Digital Vibrance Level:

Click Apply in the lower right corner and navigate to “Adjust Desktop Size and Position”.

Select your preferred scaling options:

Click Apply in the lower right corner and close the NVIDIA Control Panel.

You now have a clean NVIDIA Driver installation and have set all the recommended settings.

Installing RInput v1.44 (Raw Mouse Input for CoD2)

After Windows 10 version 1607 (Released in 2016) Microsoft made some changes that caused mouse input to stutter even with Enhance Pointer Precision disabled, I know this because I tested it myself with 1607 and 21H2. Ever since then, to get 1 to 1 mouse input with no acceleration and no stutter or lag people have used a program called RInput.

RInput is used by those who play CoD2 Solo Queue on FPSChallenge.eu and as such, does not trigger that Anti-Cheat. If I remember correctly other Anti-Cheat software such as FACEIT do flag this program as suspicious so please don’t try to use this on CSGO or VALORANT. I don’t want to be responsible for you getting banned (Unless you cheat on CoD2). It effectively does the same thing as “m_rawinput” in CSGO so you shouldn’t need it for that game anyway.

RInput v1.44 can be found here on the Fearless Assassins website.

You’ll also need to download and install 7-zip to extract the RInput file and that can be found here on the 7-zip website.

Download RInput v1.44 and extract it using 7-zip:

Inside the folder you just extracted you’ll find a redistributable file that wasn’t included in the ones you installed earlier, install it:

After installing it you can delete “vcredist_x86.exe”.

Copy the RInput 1.44 folder to your C:\ drive:

Edit “RInput.exe” properties and set it to run as an administrator:

Right-Click “RInput.exe” and select “Create Shortcut”:

Rename the created shortcut to “CoD2 RI”:

Edit “CoD2 RI” properties and add the CoD2 executable name to the end of the “Target” box:

Right-Click “CoD2 RI” and pin it to your Start Menu:

Run "CoD2 RI" from the Start Menu shortcut you just created and you’ll see this:

With this window still open, run CoD2 and if you’re quick enough you might just catch this:

You can see that it says “Successfully injected library into process”. This means that RInput is working and has injected itself into CoD2, you will now have perfect 1 to 1 mouse input with no acceleration or stutters. If you run CoD2 RI and you don’t see a “Successful” message then try running CoD2 RI again, sometimes it just doesn’t inject and trying again usually fixes it.

The above screenshots show "RInput v1.31" but the actual .dll that is injected is the newer v1.44, they updated the .dll but not the .exe. You need to run CoD2 RI before CoD2 every time if you want 1 to 1 mouse input.

PC Optimization and Call of Duty 2 Tweaks [Part 3]

Editing Windows Control Panel/Settings

There are a few changes I like to make in the Windows Control Panel and the newer Settings panel.

I’ll start with the Control Panel, open it:

I like to make the following changes:

• Disable Sticky Keys
  • Stops the game from minimizing to show a pop-up regarding Sticky Keys after pressing the Shift Key 5 times in quick succession. This can happen accidentally when you’re playing.
• Disable Enhance Pointer Precision
  • Mentioned earlier, this option disables Windows’ built-in acceleration curve. Mouse input still stutters in CoD2 so we use RInput as explained above. Good for having no acceleration when moving your mouse on the Desktop.
• Enable Ultimate (Or High) Performance Power Plan
  • Enables your PC to use as much power as needed
    

The settings for Sticky Keys can be found in the “Ease of Access Centre”:

Disable all of the options in this category and click Apply:

Find Enhance Pointer Precision in “Mouse”:

Make sure your Pointer Speed is set to 6/11 ticks, this is the position by default but it’s good to check it.

Disable “Enhance Pointer Precision” and click Apply:

Find the Power Options:

Select either the Ultimate Performance or High Performance power plan (You may not have Ultimate in this list):

After enabling the Ultimate Performance or High Performance power plan, select “Change Plan Settings”:

Set “Turn off the Display” and “Put Computer to Sleep” to Never and click “Save Changes”:

Close the Control Panel and open the Settings Panel:

I like to make the following changes:

• Edit Language Bar Options
  • This setting also relates to key presses which can happen accidentally when playing.
• Disable Xbox Game Bar
  • An obvious one here, I don’t know of anyone that uses Game Bar and it is usually more of an annoyance than anything else.
    

Navigate to “Devices”:

Navigate to “Typing” and click “Advanced Keyboard Settings”:

Click “Input Language Hot Keys” and then, on the dialog window that opens, click “Change Key Sequence”:

Select Not Assigned for both “Switch Input Language” and “Switch Keyboard Layout”:

Click OK on any open windows and navigate to "Gaming":

Disable "Xbox Game Bar":

Some people have tried enabling/disabling Game Mode here but I just leave it at default, it's reported that many of the issues with Game Mode and Disable Full-Screen Optimizations have been fixed in newer builds of Windows.

Close the Settings Panel.

Call of Duty 2 Config Tweaks

By now most of you know how to change the properties of "CoD2MP_s.exe" and edit your config for CoD2.

Here are the properties I have set for CoD2:

I don't change anything in "Change High DPI Settings" though I know some people experiment with this too.

Here are the commands that I change/add when making a new config:

ai_corpseCount "1"
cg_blood "0"
cg_brass "0"
cg_drawBreathHint "0"
cg_drawFPS "1"
cg_drawMantleHint "0"
cg_marks "0"
cg_marksLimit "0"
cl_maxpackets "100"
cl_mouseAccel "0"
com_hunkMegs "512"
com_maxfps "250"
m_filter "0"
r_aaAlpha "0"
r_aaSamples "0"
r_anisotropy "0"
r_autopriority "1"
r_depthPrepassModels "0"
r_dlightLimit "0"
r_drawDecals "1"
r_drawSun "0"
r_glow "0"
r_gpuSync "0"
r_multigpu "0"
r_overbrightBits "1"
r_picmip "3"
r_picmip_bump "3"
r_picmip_manual "1"
r_picmip_spec "3"
r_polygonOffsetBias "16"
r_polygonOffsetScale "4"
r_rendererPreference "dx7"
r_skinCache "1"
r_swapInterval "0"
r_textureMode "bilinear"
r_zFeather "0"
rate "25000"
snaps "30"
sv_framerate_smoothing "0"
sys_SSE "1"

The final recommendation is to properly set your CPU Affinity when running CoD2, by default CoD2 does not use all of your CPU cores. You can do this manually by using the Task Manager but this does not save for each restart meaning you have to change the affinity every time you run CoD2.

I use a program called ProcessHacker that saves CPU Affinity permanently.

The nightly build is available here on the ProcessHacker website.

Make sure to download the nightly build, the default release doesn't have the ability to save CPU Affinity.

The latest nightly release may be different to the one listed below.

Download and run "processhacker-3.0.4953-setup.exe" as an administrator and follow the prompts:

Click "Next" and not "Browse":

Uncheck "Start this program when setup exits":

Navigate to the ProcessHacker directory (This directory should be the same for everyone since you installed it to the default directory). Edit "ProcessHacker.exe" properties, set it to run as administrator:

There is a bug in the nightly release of ProcessHacker which stops it from hiding properly at startup so you need to create this task yourself, open Task Scheduler (taskschd.msc):

Make sure that "Task Scheduler Library" is selected in the left pane and click "Create Task":

On the General Tab, give the Task a name and select "Run with Highest Privileges":

On the Triggers Tab, click new:

In the drop down menu, select "At log on" and click OK:

On the Actions Tab, click new:

Select "Browse" and select "ProcessHacker.exe":

Type "-hide" in the "Add Arguments" box and click OK:

On the Conditions Tab, uncheck all Power options:

On the Settings Tab, uncheck "Stop the Task if it runs longer than:" and click OK:

Right-Click the Task you just created and run it:

You will now see a new icon in the Taskbar Notification Area:

Right-Click it and select "Show/Hide ProcessHacker":

Open ProcessHacker settings:

On the General Tab, check the following boxes:

On the Updater Tab, uncheck "Check for updates automatically"

Close ProcessHacker settings and you'll be asked to restart ProcessHacker, click "Yes".

Once ProcessHacker has restarted you can close it but you should still see it available in the Notification Tray.

Run CoD2 RI and then CoD2.

Alt+Tab and minimize the game when you reach the main menu.

Open ProcessHacker from the Notification Tray and click on the "Private Bytes" column to sort by highest memory usage:

Find CoD2 and Right-Click it, find Affinity and select "Save for CoD2MP_s.exe":

Right-Click CoD2, find Affinity and click "Set Affinity" (As shown in the picture above).

Click "Select All" and click OK:

Close ProcessHacker.

You're done.

You made it.

Begone frame drops, may we be blessed with smooth frags and positive KDs for all of time.

Conclusion

I don't really have any closing points to make, if this guide helped one person or if they learned one new thing then it was worth me writing all of this. This community should be allowed to have a smooth and updated Call of Duty 2 2022 experience without hackers (Since we're a few of the only people still playing). Unfortunately I can't write a guide on how to stop people from downloading hacks.

Good luck and have fun!

- meta