Verifying Client Data (Revisited)

**Lionel-Richie** · 11-01-2005, 10:25 AM

Ok, this is the one thing that keeps me from playing with you guys all the time (Or BF2 in general).

The Verifying Client Data times are through the roof. 2-5 minutes. I've got a gig stick of ram and a great connection (usually :P) and the game itself runs fine for me.

You may say "get more ram" but the question I am asking here is, if it's my computer, why does it take only a second or two to Verify for single player? Does it not really Verify, or could this be a punkbuster issue? I e-mailed EA about it and they weren't sure and said Verifying Client Data times would depend on my ping to the server and the location of it...hm...and if I'm running 70-100 ping to the server, how does this make sense?

Thanks folks

**Pokerface** · 11-01-2005, 11:23 AM

It doesn't really verify on SP. You can cheat by yourself to your heart's content.

**Tempus** · 11-01-2005, 11:24 AM

Adding more RAM did not change my time for that. I have a similar ping as you too. That step generally takes about 30 seconds for me.

**Lionel-Richie** · 11-01-2005, 12:32 PM

I really don't see how it could be a computer speed issue, why would loading the map be fast and this not? :P

But yeah, EA told me it was related to ping and stuff...so it makes me suspect Punkbuster and Ports...

**elmerfudd** · 11-01-2005, 04:28 PM

Originally Posted by Lionel-Richie

I really don't see how it could be a computer speed issue, why would loading the map be fast and this not? :P

But yeah, EA told me it was related to ping and stuff...so it makes me suspect Punkbuster and Ports...

It's not. It md5's everything and compares them to default values

**ptegan** · 11-10-2005, 10:09 AM

Did you see the other posts which asked you to check the speed of your harddrive?

from EA UK :

It used to take me 3-4 minutes but my problem was not memory, it was the speed of the HD the game was installed to. Even though it was a newer HD, Windows was running it in PIO Access mode so I was getting 4.3 Meg / sec transfer speed. Once I got it switched to Ultra DMA Mode 4, I got 44 Megs / sec transfer and now verify in about 35 seconds. Download a program called HDTach and let it benchmark your hard drive speeds.

HDTach download

If you get a low speed (I had about 3.5mb on my BF2 drive, then do the following)

1) How to check...

If you are running XP, go to device manager and expand 'IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers' Right click on 'Primary channel' and choose properties. (Primary is usually the channel you HD's are connected to)

Click on the 'Advanced Settings' tab, this will show the devices connected to that channel, and their current speeds. Virtually all modern hard drives should be running in Ultra DMA mode 5. Maxtor's on the right chipsets run Mode 6, and most CDrom drives run Mode 2. Any HD's running in PIO mode will seriously affect loading times, as this is the slowest speed possible.

2) How to fix...
XP will slow down the speed of devices if it receives errors while using the device, until it gets to PIO mode. This could be due to faulty cables, device or drivers.

First thing to try is simply change the the transfer mode to 'DMA if available' and reboot. If that does not fix it, uninstall the controller and reboot. XP should reinstall it and reset the fastest transfer speeds. You could also try both the MS drivers and the chipset manufacturers. (I had to install the NVidia drivers on my NF4 chipset, to fix IDE problems. I have also had them cause problems on my NF2 chipset system, so try both)

If it deteriorates or this doesn't fix it, check to make sure you are using 80pin cables, and that any transfer/DMA settings are correct in the BIOS.

**Visser** · 11-10-2005, 10:39 AM

That was a good post about the hardrive issue. It is a source of the problem but most HDs if u have the right mobo enables the max speed you can support. The reason to change would be to improve you speed but since its making it work more and faster you are reducing the lifetime of the harddrive. Another issue that can be the length of time of your loading is you CPU. You may have 1 gig of ram but if you dont have a good or right Processor you computer will just bottleneck itself. Which is another reason it takes a while to load. I have been working on PCs since 10 and still build them now.so if you post you complete specs for your computer I or others can help you out more.

**TychoCelchuuu** · 11-10-2005, 03:06 PM

That's true; often it's not the hard drive's fault but the CPU, since your computer has to decrypt stuff to scan through it. I'm not sure of the specifics when it comes to BF2, but that's often the loading time bottleneck in other games.