Tips for improving Black Ops PC performance

r_glow_allowed – set this to 0 for a large performance boost.
sm_enable – set this to 0 for a large performance boost.
r_drawdecals – set this to 0 for a decent performance boost.
r_dof_enable – set this to 0 for a decent performance boost.
r_distortion – set this to 0 for a minimal performance boost.
r_blur_allowed – set this to 0 for a minimal performance boost.
r_multiGPU – set this to 0 unless you have multiple video cards in SLI / Crossfire.
r_multithreaded_device – set this to 1 so that it properly supports your multi-core processor.
cl_maxpackets – set this to 100 for optimal multiplayer connectivity.
snaps – setting this to 30 should result in a better multiplayer connection.
com_maxfps – set this to 60 for a stable optimal framerate. It can be set lower and it’s important to note that a stable framerate is much more important than high FPS! It’s much more annoying to suffer from framerate drops than from low FPS in shooters.
Save the configuration files when you’re done and you should see much higher and more stable framerates.

Disable background software

Applications running in the background can have a great impact on game performance and even increase the stuttering many players are experiencing in multiplayer. This means that you’ll want to close down any non-essential application that’s running in the background before starting up Black Ops. These may include:

Anti-virus and/or anti-malware software.
Internet browsers such as Internet Explorer or Firefox.
MSN Messenger and any similar chat applications.
Voice-Over-IP tools such as Skype.
Note: do not shut down drivers specific to your configuration, such as keyboard, mouse, audio and video drivers.



How to improve your Black Ops experience

Singleplayer Performance

You will probably encounter unusually low framerates in singleplayer upon first starting the game. This is caused by a configuration file that sees the default values reversed for multi-core processor and multiple graphics card support. As a result it only employs a single processor core and attempts to use two video cards in SLI/Crossfire by default. This is how you manually fix the problem:

Navigate to the C:/Program Files/Steam/steamapps/common/call of duty black ops/players folder on your PC.
Open the config.cfg and config_mp.cfg files with notepad. The former is for singleplayer the latter for multiplayer and they’re generated after starting the respective components.
Press Ctrl+F and type in the phrase “multi” then search for that phrase.
Change the value for multiGpu from 1 to 0, unless you have two video cards in a SLI or Crossfire setup.
Search for the next hit on “multi”.
Change the value for multithreaded_device from 0 to 1. This will enable multi-core processor support and greatly improve performance.
Save both config files.
Another commonly mentioned workaround is to put Steam in offline mode. This prevents Steam from hogging your CPU during gameplay, but comes with some major drawbacks like disabling your friends list, Steam community in-game, achievements and zombie co-op mode. It also doesn’t work for multiplayer, because that requires Steam to be in online mode.


Multiplayer Stuttering

This is really the main problem that all players are suffering from in Black Ops. There are actually numerous small tweaks you can employ to greatly reduce, but not eliminate, the stuttering in multiplayer. It’s important to understand that these tweaks tackle either the massive CPU load caused by Steam or the improper networking configuration settings shipped with the game, but those are likely mere side-effects of an underlying problem and thus these tweaks can only do so much.

The key change here comes in the form of another tweak to the multiplayer configuration file:

Navigate to the C:/Program Files/Steam/steamapps/common/call of duty black ops/players folder on your PC.
Open the config_mp.cfg file with notepad.
Press Ctrl+F and type in the phrase “maxpackets” then search for that phrase.
Set the value for cl_maxpackets to 100.
Save the config_mp file.
But you definitely also want to employ better process utilization in Task Manager to greatly reduce CPU load. This also works for singleplayer performance as an alternative to putting Steam in offline mode:

After starting the game press Alt + Tab or Alt + Esc to get back to your desktop.
Press Ctrl + Alt + Del to open your Task Manager and navigate to the Processes tab.
Find the Steam.exe process, right click and set the priority to Low.
While you’re at it set the Steam.exe process’ affinity to a single core.
Find the Black Ops process, right click and set the priority to Higher than Normal.
Exit Task Manager and Alt + Tab back into your game.
Some people also claim that disabling Steam Community In-Game or Steam Cloud Synchronization for Black Ops can greatly reduce this stuttering, but in my experience these changes have had no effect other than being very inconvenient. Should you wish to try it then you can access these settings in the properties menu found by right clicking on Call of Duty: Black Ops in your Steam game library.

Similarly people have claimed to fix the stuttering issue by setting their sound card to 24 bits, 48KHz or by going into their Nvidia Driver 3D settings and turning pre-rendered frames down from 3 to 0. Again these fixes seem to work for a very small percentage of people, whereas a majority (myself included) see no or very little effect. They’re still well worth giving a go in the name of stutter reduction. Who knows, you might get lucky.


After tweaking it a bit Black Ops plays a lot better and it's much easier to get those killstreaks

No matter how many tweaks you employ, there will almost certainly remain some stuttering until Treyarch comes out with a comprehensive update for the game. Until then these changes should tide you over well enough to have a perfectly smooth singleplayer experience and marginally playable multiplayer component. I’ll continue to update this with more potential fixes as I find them, so bookmark this guide if you want to stay updated.



Performance Update!

GameServers.com has just deployed a new update for its dedicated servers which sets the rate value on these servers to the correct value of 25000. This results in much smoother gameplay with only minimal stuttering for most players, but the servers need to be restarted before the changes take effect so only a few servers actually benefit from this update thus far.

I’ve also stumbled across another major performance improvement workaround in the game’s configuration files. This works for both single- and multiplayer, but requires that you know your system specifications. This will greatly improve your performance and can slightly reduce stuttering:

Navigate to the C:/Program Files/Steam/steamapps/common/call of duty black ops/players folder on your PC.
Open the config_mp.cfg file with notepad. You can also open the config.cfg file to apply these changes for singleplayer.
Press Ctrl + F and search for “configureGHz”.
Set the value of configureGHz to your processor’s clock speed in GHz.
Set the value of sys_sysMB to your system’s total RAM in MB.
Save the file.
Right click on the config_mp.cfg file and open Properties.
Set the file to Read Only and apply changes.



Hope it will help you all as they helped me!
Wirdo.

Thanks for taking the time to post these tweaks.

Question. I built my machine about a year ago with at the time, the next to top AMD CPU along with 8 GB's RAM and an ATI Radeon 5770 HD graphics card. My fps in-game is usually pretty stable at around 95 fps.

Do you think your tweaks about would help even more or should I leave things as they are?

Thanks,

These are indeed very good tweaks.  Thank you Wirdo!

Saunders,
These are not so much FPS tweaks as they are stutter minimizer.
Have you ever had the game suddenly freeze for a second or three while in the heat of battle? or have your frames suddenly drop to 15 FPS or less for no reason for a couple seconds? this should help you out then. If you do not experience any of these, then not only am i jealous, but then i would leave everything alone.

Except maybe the packet modifiers as they can lower ping.

PewPew,

Thanks for the information. I do get those occasional freezes. I'll go ahead and make these changes right now and see what happens with my game play.

Thanks to you both!

If you set the CL_Maxpackets to 100, what will this do for my game playing. I'm running a Sandy Bridge 2600k and 8megs of ram and a 6970 HD video card with 2GB of ram. on a Asus P67 mother board

If i remember correctly, it makes your computer send more information to the server, lowering ping.