Reduce Load Times for Win 7 64 Bit

[woowoo]

Some of my clan mates at www.war-dogs.net found this fix - I haven't tested it yet. But here's their comments:

"Found this fix. You have to edit your registry. Tested it 10 times from cold boot. If you are uncomfortable editing your registry then don't do it, and this is for Windows 7 64bit only."

Stuck on Joining Server / Long map load times ?


Cause: Bug with x64 OS
Fix: Open / Run regedit.

Navigate to: HKEY LOCAL MACHINE/SOFTWARE/WoW6432Node/EA Games

Change the GDFBinary & InstallDir paths to C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\Battlefield 3

Try to launch the game and join game servers, and it should work.

[rudedog]

because I've installed my game in E I don't have the above data in the registry.

However this could help me relocated my install dir and fix two birds with one stone (for me)

[sgTsTuFz]

I've got XP on C drive and Win 7 64 bit on G drive - so my registry shows G on both.
But I don't have long load times - I tink :p
What happens by changing registry to C ? wouldn't that disable my game ?

[rudedog]

Yes it would.

I think the problem some may be seeing is that the game lists the dir as program files (without the 86) thus the need to add the correct line in the registry.

My problem, I think is because my OS runs off a SSD and all my games are installed on a second HD (10K drive) .

I'm going to try and move my install dir. to C with the path mentioned above. Will be trying this a little later tonight.

[Pendragon]

There is a nice program called "Steam Mover" that I have used in the past to move both Steam games and other programs.

http://lifehacker.com/5626931/steam-mover-relocates-applications-to-free-up-space-on-your-primary-drive

I didn't do it that way when I wanted to move BF:3 from my mechanical drive to my SSD. I was concerned that I wasn't sure quite how Origin installed the game.

I uninstalled the game and Origin then installed both again to the C: drive, the SSD. It meant downloading it again but it only took an hour or so. Then again I'm not sure if it's done anything, when a round starts I'm always one of the first in with over 20 to 25 seconds before round start. I have no idea is the SSD is helping or the rest of my system doing the heavy lifting.

[rudedog]

Did it improve your game starts Pen?

BTW good game the other night/day... or was that today LOL. been busy around the house

[courgette]

Thank you !

I had installed BF3 on my slow HDD and it was so annoying to hear my friends choosing their squad and gears and taking tanks while I was still reading the "loading...." screen.

I moved the whole Battlefield3 folder to my SSD, changed the two mentioned keys in regedit to reflect the new location and it loads must faster now.

I guestimate it takes 3 times less time to load the game now \o/

again thanks for sharing this tip.

[Pendragon]

Did it improve your game starts Pen?

BTW good game the other night/day... or was that today LOL. been busy around the house

It didn't make any noticeable changes, but then I wasn't having any issues. I tested it to see if it did any damage before re-posting it to my forum. The guys that have tried have reported an improvement. One guys was having big issues when joining a server. It would take 5-10 attempts to join. Now he can join on the first attempt.

My guess is that the server requires a response from the client game within a time-out. If the game has not loaded in time it will disconnect the client.

As with most games, there is more to a "Fast Computer" than just having a fat graphics card...

As for the game yesterday, yea it was fun ;)

[zeroy]

Navigate to: HKEY LOCAL MACHINE/SOFTWARE/WoW6432Node/EA Games

Change the GDFBinary & InstallDir paths to C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\Battlefield 3

Im a bit confused here... what else is expected to be seen for paths here??

Mine already has exactly this in the registry... well for GDFBinary it is:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\Battlefield 3\GDFBinary_en_US.dll

[rudedog]

OK This is amazing and what a difference for me

Background: From my new build I have my OS on my primary partition which is a 120G SSD. I have a second 10K HD I installed Origin and both BF:BC2 and BF3

OS Windows 7 64 bit

problem, when first starting game, map load times where between 4.5 - 7 minutes literally (I timed them)

What I tried in the past: tried to reinstall BF3 on the primary partition without any luck

What worked for me.

1st, copied the Battlefield 3 folder from my E:\ drive to the correct location on C:\
C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\Battlefield 3\2nd renamed old Battelfield 3 dir on E:\ (as a backup)

3rd updated the registry key as mentioned by woowoo

Navigate to: HKEY LOCAL MACHINE/SOFTWARE/WoW6432Node/EA Games

Change:
GDFBinary -> C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\Battlefield 3\GDFBinary.dll

InstallDir -> C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\Battlefield 3



Had to let windows firewall reauthorize bf3.exe (or what ever it's called) again. Map loaded in less then 45 seconds.

Going to do some more testing and report back later tonight.

Thanks WOOWOO !!!!!!! :salute:

[rudedog]

Thanks Kalms, replied to your PM

[Neil]

Well at first I thought I had Origin and BF3 on a different drive than Win7 64 but I don't. Still having to wait for ages to join a server and no where near 30-45 seconds that other people are reporting.

It's pissing me off as I never had this issue in Alpha or Beta (from I remember of beta).

I am also finding the the game crashes on first trying to join a server. Then when I try to join again it says "failed to connect to EA Online" and then sometimes fails for a third time. Can't remember what the error says.

[rudedog]

Neil, can you report what the two reg entries say on your machine as listed by woowoo?

[Neil]

Neil, can you report what the two reg entries say on your machine as listed by woowoo?

Yup even checked the register entries and they are the same C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\Battlefield 3

[Neil]

Well I have timed it now and it takes up to 2 minutes for the game to load. I'll be playing more tonight and recording how long it takes.

[Pendragon]

I'm never quite sure at what point the game is really loading the map. All that time at the end of a round telling you about the map that has just finished. I guess the real test is how long you have before you can move and the game from the servers point of view has started. Most times when I start a fresh round it's telling me to wait 25 seconds like a statue before everyone runs off and grabs a tank... My guess is if you are not seeing that 25 second count down you need to look at purchasing an SSD! At Least some upgrades for your PC...

[Unacceptable]

I'm never quite sure at what point the game is really loading the map. All that time at the end of a round telling you about the map that has just finished. I guess the real test is how long you have before you can move and the game from the servers point of view has started. Most times when I start a fresh round it's telling me to wait 25 seconds like a statue before everyone runs off and grabs a tank... My guess is if you are not seeing that 25 second count down you need to look at purchasing an SSD! At Least some upgrades for your PC...

I wouldn't suspect its a HD issue,I'm in game same as you Pen waiting the full 25 seconds countdown every map & I have a 7500 rpm 320 gig drive.

I do have 8 gigs DDR3,but I know guys who have 4gigs DDR2 & are in game just as fast.

Maybe CPU??? What do you guys have??? Mine is a 965 quad 3.4.

Maybe internet speed???

Not sure what else to blame for the late joining:confused:

[Pendragon]

Well system spec is a year or so old now:
AMD Hex 1090t @ 4GHz
DDR3 8Gb @1600MHz+ (Dual Channel)
CrossfireX 6870's
http://valid.canardpc.com/cache/banner/2093135.png (http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=2093135)

Storage:
Intel SATA II SSD 80GB Both Win7 64bit and game are on the SSD
There is also a 1TB mechanical drive for programs and data.

Game settings:
Most everything is on Ultra but both AA is OFF Blur is also OFF cos it makes me feel sick! But everything else is set to the max. Screen rez is 1920x1080.

Two of the guys in my clan are having issues with BF:3, one has reported load times improve greatly with the fix in this post. But still he has some stability issues. The other guy is having network issues and we think his router is causing disconnects. That however is a different problem to the one discussed in this thread...

[69thPaladin]

I have 32 bit win7, but I have found using IE instead of Firefox cuts the load time to less that half what it was with Firefox. I was waiting 5-7 minutes with Firefox and it is 2-3 minutes now with IE.

By the way, pretty interesting article on Tom's Hardware where they test a bunch of video cards, processors and SSD drives with BF3. One finding was that the number of cores in your processor doesn't matter a whole lot beyond whether you have dual core or more cores. The limiting factor was the video card. This is the page that talks about the scaling of processor cores, but the whole article is worth a read.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/battlefield-3-graphics-performance,3063-13.html

http://media.bestofmicro.com/Y/X/313593/original/cpu%20scaling.png

http://media.bestofmicro.com/Y/Z/313595/original/intel%20core%20i7-2600k%20cores.png

[Pendragon]

I hadn't thought to mention the web browser... I'm using Google's Chrome as my default web browser...

[69thPaladin]

I may have to try Chrome. I find even IE is frustratingly slow. I always feel like I can't tell if it's really doing anything. With Firefox it woudl take 5-7 minutes, and often it would crash and never even finish loading. I'm not sold on this running the game through the browser thing.

[Unacceptable]

Well system spec is a year or so old now:
AMD Hex 1090t @ 4GHz
DDR3 8Gb @1600MHz+ (Dual Channel)
CrossfireX 6870's
http://valid.canardpc.com/cache/banner/2093135.png (http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=2093135)

Storage:
Intel SATA II SSD 80GB Both Win7 64bit and game are on the SSD
There is also a 1TB mechanical drive for programs and data.

Game settings:
Most everything is on Ultra but both AA is OFF Blur is also OFF cos it makes me feel sick! But everything else is set to the max. Screen rez is 1920x1080.

Two of the guys in my clan are having issues with BF:3, one has reported load times improve greatly with the fix in this post. But still he has some stability issues. The other guy is having network issues and we think his router is causing disconnects. That however is a different problem to the one discussed in this thread...

Nice rig!! I'm running 2 6970's in crossfire on a 25" monitor.

Just waiting for the price on SSD's to come down,I need at least 200 gig & @ $340 I can wait;)

I have been problem free since BF3 came out,just lucky I guess:)

BTW,some of our guys have had issues with routers too.Linksys seems to be the best lately for whatever reason.The majority including myself are using WRT54GS or similar.

[zeroy]

I may have to try Chrome. I find even IE is frustratingly slow.

Indeed.... I use Chrome all the time (default) and like the smoothness of it.

[Rev0verDrive]

Fast loading... Always see 25 sec start message

# Chrome browser
# Win7 Ultimate 64bit
# GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD7 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0
# AMD Phenom II X6 1090T (3.2 GHz)
# 16 GB DDR3 (Unganged)
# Geforce 550 Ti Fermi (2GB)
# VelociRaptor 450GB 10000 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5

Reg shows correct paths:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\Battlefield 3\

[CuzOfSloth]

WooWoo, thank you!

Not just reduce the load time, but no more game crashes when joining a server.
Also, success with several other members from our squad.
Lets see what happens after I finish d/l'ing the latest patch. :p