BATTLEFIELD VIETNAM TWEAKING GUIDE
- How to get the best performance from your PC -
Written by Dominic Cavey

III. THE BASICS

***All settings are based on WINDOWS XP***

Many factors contribute to slow down and lag. As the game stands right now, most of you are not having system problems, you're having server lag problems. The net code for this game at the momentis horrible. I get pings of 10 and it still lags. I know its not my computer, because I'm getting 80-90 FPS while its lagging. This is a server side issue, so make sure you know if you're lagging or slowing down. You can check your FPS(Frames Per Second), by opening the CONSOLE. This is achieved by pressing the TILDE KEY(~`). Its usually next to the 1 key. Once open, type in FPS 1. Hit enter, then the console key again. You should see your FPS in the upper left of the screen. To turn it off, repeat the steps above, but use FPS 0.

Make sure you don't have a lot of programs running in the background. The most I suggest to be running would be 15. You can check to see how many you have running by opening up the TASK MANAGER. Press CTRL-ALT-DEL at the same time to bring this up. Don't just start shutting down things, as they may be vital to your system stability. I suggest going to Black Viper's(www.blackviper.com) website. This guy has taken the time to go thru WIN XP and WIN 2000, to find out what you can safely turn off in the WINDOWS SERVICES. Follow his directions, and you'll see a huge improvement in performance.

Don't try to play this game on a 56K. It slows down everything. Not just for you, but the whole server. I know some people can not get cable or dsl in their town. Move to somewhere you can get it. Just kidding.

If you can, I suggest getting a second hard drive, and running a
dual-boot system. Install the bare minimum on it. Make it your gaming system side. Its not very hard to do and it gets the most perfomance out of your hardware. The OS isn't bogged down by extra, un-needed programs.

Go to www.microsoft.com for tips on running a dual-boot system. Also, if you can afford it get more RAM. That always helps performance.

Defragment! This is a very important thing to do. Files get spread all over your hard drive and in turn, degrade the performance of your machine. Run the windows defragmenting program at least once a week or after you've installed or un-installed 2 or more programs.

Spy-ware can cripple a system, too. I suggest you get Ad-aware and Spy-bot. Both have free versions for download. They can remove all adware and malware from your system. Google for them!

Make sure you have the latest drivers for all your hardware. They can really be a factor in performance sometimes. Drivers usually fix performance related issues. I highly recommend this step.

Increasing VIRTUAL MEMORY, or the PAGEFILE size, can sometimes help out systems with lower amounts of RAM. I've read numerous articles on the subject, and found that size really does matter. LOL! I suggest making the size 3 times the amount of RAM that you have installed. So, if you have
256MB of RAM in your system, make your PAGEFILE size 768MB. If you have at least 1GB of RAM, I wouldn't even worry about this at all, since its never really a factor. Let Windows manage this or have no PAGEFILE at all. To access the PAGEFILE, go into the CONTROL PANEL and click on SYSTEM.
Click the ADVANCED tab. Select the PERFORMANCE SETTINGS. Click ADVANCED.Click CHANGE under VIRTUAL MEMORY. Select CUSTOM SIZE. Plug in the numbers and click SET. I have another tweak for the PAGEFILE you can find under the ADVANCED TWEAKS of this guide.

While we're there, CONTROL PANEL, SYSTEM, ADVANCED, PERFORMANCE SETTINGS, VISUAL EFFECTS. Select ADJUST FOR BEST PERFORMANCE. This can help some slow moving systems, also.

Table of contents

I:   Introduction
II:  System Requirements
III: The Basics
IV:  Video Settings
V:   Sound Settings
VI:  Advanced Tweaks
VII: Conclusion