This guide is only intened for users with mid to high end gaming systems that meet or exceed minimum requirements

If you have the specifications necessary that are clearly listed below to run Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, utilizing this guide should fix the issues listed in relation to it's contents. Although I cannot guaruntee 100% of users will experience the same gains due to differing available resources. I can guaruntee, some form of gain will exist in comparison to your current state.

Everything within this guide has been tested thoroughly

The contents of this guide have been tested on multiple configurations including INTEL, AMD, NVIDIA based systems, as well as many of their aftermarket counterparts (MSI, Gigabyte, XFX etc.) and they have worked on them all.

Each graphics quality level has been tested from Low-Ultra on multiple different configurations to ensure that they are correct and valid. Each of these systems previously had issues with in game stuttering, frame loss and random crashes running Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare which, have all been fixed using the contents of this guide.

With that being said, if this doesn't work for you and you meet or exceed the requirements, then it's a system based issue. Whether that be a virus, broken components or just poorly maintained system will be up to you to find out yourself.

MINIMUM: Low Quality Graphics Settings

OS:

Windows 7 64-Bit / Windows 8 64-Bit / Windows 8.1 64-Bit

Processor:

Intel® Core™ i3-530 @ 2.93 GHz / AMD Phenom™ II X4 810 @ 2.60 GHz <------------

Memory:

6 GB of available* RAM <------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Available ram does not take into account the ram needed to operate any 64bit version of Windows.

*All windows 64bit Operating systems require no less than 1GB of ram to operate and no more than 1.7GB efficiently.

*Without a total of 8GB of system memory available Advanced Warfare may crash unexpectedly.

*Although Advanced Warfare doesn't generally use more than 4GB-5GB on lower settings, it does spike at it's peak and can reach up to roughly 6GB.

Graphics:

NVIDIA® GeForce® GTS 450 @ 1GB / ATI® Radeon™ HD 5870 @ 1GB or higher <----------

DirectX:

Version 11* <-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*This means you must have a video graphics (video) card that natively supports DirectX version 11 hardware features.

*You cannot simply download DirectX 11 from Microsoft and suddenly be able to play games on your current non-DirectX 11 based graphics card! You've been told this already, this isn't going to change!

Network:

Broadband Internet connection

Hard Drive:

55 GB available space

Sound Card:

DirectX Compatible

Recommended: Ultra Quality Graphics Settings

OS:

Windows 7 64-Bit / Windows 8 64-Bit / Windows 8.1 64-Bit

Processor:

Intel Core i5-2500K @ 3.30 Ghz / AMD® FX8350 @ 4.0 GHz <---------------------------------

Memory:

8 GB of available* RAM <-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Available ram does not take into account the ram needed to operate any 64bit version of Windows.

*All windows 64bit Operating systems require no less than 1GB of ram to operate and no more than 1.7GB efficiently.

*Without a total of 10GB of system memory available Advanced Warfare may crash unexpectedly.

*Although Advanced Warfare doesn't generally use more than 5GB-6GB on Ultra settings, it does spike at it's peak and can reach up to roughly 7.5GB due to poor or unfinished programming.

Graphics:

NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 760 4GB / AMD® R9 290 4 GB or higher <---------------------------------------

DirectX:

Version 11* <-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*This means you must have a video graphics (video) card that natively supports DirectX version 11 hardware features.

*You cannot simply download DirectX 11 from Microsoft and suddenly be able to play games on your current non-DirectX 11 based graphics card! You've been told this already, this isn't going to change!

Network:

Broadband Internet connection

Hard Drive:

55 GB available space

Sound Card:

100% DirectX 9.0c Compatible 16-bit

Why have I listed the system requirements in this guide?

Aside from the fact that they are just as incomplete as the game itself on the store page, I specifically wanted to point out exactly what components are needed to play Advanced Warfare. If you don't meet or exceed the above requirements you will not be able to play it without a severe impact to quality bottomline!

If your CPU is listed below then congrats! Your CPU is capable of running Advanced Warfare!

Make sure your GPU is capable of running Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare by checking the Supported Gfx Card + Hierarchy Chart here in this guide. If both your CPU and GPU are found on these lists than your hardware is capable of running Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare on it's respective settings based on resources available!

If it's not listed here then it's time for an upgrade and there's nothing anyone can do to help you make it run smoothly! We're nerds not magicians!

For a complete CPU hierarchy list, check out TomsHardware.com![www.tomshardware.com]

If your GPU is listed below then congrats! Your GPU is capable of running Advanced Warfare!

Make sure your CPU is capable of running Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare by checking the Supported CPU's + Hierarchy Chart here in this guide. If both your CPU and GPU are found on these lists than your hardware is capable of running Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare on it's respective settings based on resources available!

If it's not listed here then it's time for an upgrade and there's nothing anyone can do to help you make it run smoothly! People can make lightbulbs run on a potato, the same can't be said about Advanced Warfare!

For a complete GPU hierarchy list, check out TomsHardware.com![www.tomshardware.com]

https://community.callofduty.com/message/415413733#415413733

Table of Contents: Important Steps Before Beginning

Introduction

All steps below must be taken before continuing with this guide! If you don't want to do everything exactly as I describe then, don't start it at all!

Otherwise it will be a waste of you time and you'll have to start over again. Don't be that guy that say's to himself "If only I listened to LordHelmet when he said it was necessary!" while still playing a stuttery mess at 25 frames per second with muddy textures.

Keep in mind...Number one, you're obviously tired of dealing with this sloppy port or you wouldn't be here and two you have no idea how to fix this yourself. Which is totally o.k, most don't.

What's not o.k is deciding to pick and choose what steps you're going to take from this guide when you couldn't fix these issues yourself. So just bear with me and you'll be getting the most out of your resources that you paid your hard earned money for.


Table of Contents

1. Verifying the Integrity of your Game Cache: Step by Step Text Tutorial
   
2. Verifying the Integrity of your Game Cache: Step by Step Visual Aided Tutorial
   
3. Verifying the Integrity of your Game Cache: Step by Step Video Tutorial* (Coming Soon*)
   
4. Restoring Your Optimal Video Defaults: Step by Step Text Tutorial
   
5. Turn off all skins/wraps (A.K.A) overlays including the Steam in game overlays, as well it's features

You must verify your game cache prior to attempting anything listed within this guide

Otherwise if you already have a corrupted file it will instantly make any future changes you make completely useless!

You must only verfiy both single and multiplayer files once before applying all fixes listed herein if utilizing this guide as a solution for both components, so do yourself a favor and do not skip this step for either if applicable

How do I verify my game cache?

Go to your Steam library -> Hover over Advanced Warfare -> Right Click -> From the drop down menu -> Select Properties -> Local Files -> Verify Integrity of Game Cache

Make sure to verify Integrity of Game cache for both single and multipler components if you are utilizing this guide with the intentions of solving the issue in both components.

Open the Steam Client ->

Go to your Steam library ->


Hover over Advanced Warfare ->


Right Click ->

From the drop down menu ->

Select Properties ->

Local Files ->

Verify Integrity of Game Cache ->

Steam will immediately begin double checking you game files for any possible missing, corrupted, outdated files etc and will download anything that may be missing/needed. This may take some time depending on your internet connection speed and regional download servers but, not anywhere near as long as the initial download.

I have 200Mbps down and this process takes me roughly 5 Minutes. I know this isn't nearly the average users internet download speeds but, simply something to base it on. So do the mathematics until, I eventually update the guide with download time estimates based on connection speeds.

Either way, grab a refreshing drink and find something good to read on the net until it's finished. As Steam cannot be used while Verifying the game cache. Remember the more internet resources that you use during this process the longer it will take thus, find something to read instead of a video..

Restoring you optimal video defaults

Do I have to keep the optimal defaults permanantly?

Absolutely not!

Once you have returned your video settings back to optimal defaults, the .cfg will be returned back to it's original state as intended and needed for this guide. You're free to adjust them to what you "honestly" believe your graphics card and cpu are capable of but, I recommend you wait until you have completed the steps within this guide in full before doing so.

You must only revert video settings to optimal defaults to both single and multiplayer files once before applying all fixes listed herein so, do yourself a favor and do not skip this step

It doesn't get more simple than this,click the Optimal Video option.
You can do it!

Turn off all skins/wraps (A.K.A) overlays including the Steam in game overlays, as well it's features

What are skins, wraps and overlays?

Skins, wraps and overlays are anything that wasn't originally intended to be presented on screen by the games developers (Sledgehammer Games) which, includes any third party software (Skins, Wraps, Overlays).

Some examples of skins, wraps and overlays are as follows:

Fraps, Steam FPS Overlay, Riva Tuner Statistics Server Powered by Afterburner & 3DGuru etc.

What effects do skins have on in game performance when turned on?

Each of the above mentioned skins create in game stutter, hitching and frame loss.

Can I still use the recording features some of these software programs posess without issues?

Yes and no, the recording features of these programs depending on your components capabilities don't necessarily create in game stutter, hitching or frame loss. They do however excessively create a huge issue with crashes. Due to this, it's necessary to disable these until your finished with stabilizing Advanced Warfare with this guide.

Once finished feel free to record once more but, beware of impending crashes at a much higher rate than without them on.

Why must I disable Steams other community features?

Even features such as the Steam communities friend messaging features tend to create stutter and frame hitching, which will interrupt your in game experience. In a fast paced FPS this feature isn't suitable nr necessary considering Advanced Warfare already has the ability to allow for in game text and voice chat.

Go to Steam/Settings/Friends and disable any notifications in regards to Steam Community for a better experience while in game.

Still Experiencing frame drops and massive in game stutter?

Disable audio/sound device drivers and uninstall ones creating issues

What effect does this have on better graphics perfomance?

Eliminates in game stutter and massive random frame drops. If an audio driver conflict is your issue which, it most likely is, you will be shocked after completing this fix and realizing that your are suddenly at a stable 60-90FPS depending on your resources and settings. Even maps such as Defender will (after loading completely) suddenly be running as smooth butter. If you don't attempt this fix, you will regret it trust me.

How are sound drivers creating an issue with my video cards performance?

Contrary to what Activision would like you to believe Call of Duty; Advanced Warfare wasn't built with a completely new next generation engine. The exact same issues that plagued Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare still persist in todays new releases. RealTek HD Audio and other varying audio driver issues have created in game frame drops and stutter since Modern Warfare (The last newly built from the ground up engine for the Call of Duty series.

What do I have to do to fix it?

Go to: Control Panel/Sound.

Once there disable all audio device drivers

Launch Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare without the sound.

If a sound device driver was your issue, you have now noticed that the stuttering is gone while playing with no sound! This will be the case for most of you. Don't feel down, you simply didn't realize it. It happens to the best of us.

Exit out of Advanced Warfare.

Re-enable your sound device drivers one at a time and relaunch Advanced Wafare after each device you re-enable. When the stuttering returns again, you'll know which sound device was creating the issue. For many it is the RealTek HD Audio Device Driver creating the problem and has for a decade now!

Once you are finished locating the culprit and re-enabled your sound device drivers, it should look similar to this.

Your stuttering is gone and whatever sanity you have left after troubleshooting this for the past few months has returned!

High end video card showing incorrect memory available?

Are you on a high end gaming rig with a beefy video card yet, Advanced Warfare is still showing incorrect video ram values in the Advanced video options menu? If yes, this is directly affecting your in game experience but, can easily be fixed by following the information below.

Manually input your correct video ram value

What effect does this have on better performance?

The default value set in the cfg. file is 0.85 thus reducing your alloted video ram in game by 15% and decreasing performance. Once this is set to 1.0, you will have complete resources available and you'll recieve a performance increase. This will also show the correct value in game under the advanced video settings option.

Incorrect Defaul Value: Search for seta r_videoMemoryScale "0.85"

Change this value to: seta r_videoMemoryScale "1.0"

To find this value in the cfg. navigate to the location as follows:

Go to: Program Files x86/Steam/Steam Apps/Common/Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare/players2/config.cfg

Program Files x86/Steam/Steam Apps/Common/Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare/players2/config_mp.cfg

This must be changed in both config.cfg & config_mp.cfg to take effect in both campaign and multipler modes..

NOTE:

There is only one .cfg fix listed within this entire guide because, if you meet or exceed the specifications necessary to play Advanced Warfare that's the only adjustment that has ever been needed to be made. Other guides containing multiple needed .cfg entries are simply misleading you and forcing you to make changes that aren't necessary nor helpful as I'm sure you already know.

Still experiencing crashes mid game?

Manually adjust your virtual memory alloted to Windows

What effect does this have on better performance?

Eliminates the random crashes due to Windows background process interruptions that are utilizing resources while in game. Although seemingly excessive, 1.5x virtual memory has been a staple for power users for quite some time now. It wasn't until as of late that the watermark of technology had risen for enough users to take advantage of it. Now with the standard systems coming installed with a minimum of 8GB-16GB of physical memory and large HDD or SSD drives of 1 TB or more not being unheard of, increasing this figure will not only be something that can be changed for Advanced Warfare but, for other games and general system stability. So make the change and leave it permanantly for stability and performance gain across everything.

What do I have to do to fix it?

Go to: Control Panel/System/Advanced System Settings/Performance/Settings/Advanced/Virtual Memory

Set this to 1.5 x the total amount of system memory/ram you have available. Set both initial and maximum to an equal value for best "anti-crash results".

Note: Windows startup may take slightly longer to load that usual, this is normal as your minimum and maximum values are equal. Thus creating a larger workload on start up.

Remember: The overall performance increase in Windows ability to handle larger workloads (i.e Gaming, Multi-tab browsing etc.) will outweight the negative impact on start-up to power users 16GB+ ram/mem.

If a faster more balanced plan for Windows start up is of more importance to you, set the initial value to 0.75 x the total amount of system memory/ram you have available and the maximum to 1.5 X the total amount of system memory/ram you have available.

Example #1 & #2:

Example #1
8GB = 8,000MB
8GB (8,000MB) X 1.5 = 12GB or 12,000MB

Example #2 below and the included screen capture
16GB = 16,000MB
16GB (16,000MB)X 1.5 = 24GB or 24,000MB

Note: Windows startup may take slightly longer to load that usual, this is normal as your minimum and maximum values are equal. Thus creating a larger workload on start up.

Remember: The overall performance increase in Windows ability to handle larger workloads (i.e Gaming, Multi-tab browsing etc.) will outweight the negative impact on start-up.

In regards to legnthly load times and network lag

Even with the best of hardware configuration possible, there will always be intermittent or somewhat legnthly load times in online multiplayer. Although a beefy hardware set up will in fact cut these times down by a vast margin, the P2P or "Hybrid" server system simply isn't capable of handling such a large amount of data quickly since it's based on the hosts connection.

Simply put, this is why a dedicated server system is necessary and not just desired. Instead of crying in the lobbies about lag one thread at a time, make a difference and either (A) start a serious petition...organize one or (B) stop supporting the franchise until they are pressured into bringing them back. Which they will but, not until they need to.

Remeber by not implementing a dedicated server, they increase the likelyhood of increased profit due to the previous title not being supported by themselves nor the community thus, they intend on creating a title that is Dead on Arrival (DOA) until their profits suffer badly. The easiest way for them to coax that into happening is by utilizing the P2P server system.

They in no way want another Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare dedicated server situation because, even after ten years the community is still thriving today and that means less profits for them when a new title comes out. Previously released thriving titles, equal gamers that have no need to upgrade.


[/b]

[/previewimg]

What did I just see? Was there a point to this? I thought this section was for a lag fix?

Was there a point to this? Absolutely! I made my point quite clearly actually. If you truely believe gathering jars of Unicorn Farts are going to help your connection issues, we have more serious matters to troubleshoot. If you came here to capture the rainbow dust that it leaves behind, you came to the wrong place.

If that's what you're looking for go to the other guides that are misleading you into thinking that there's anything that can be accomplished by imaginary ,cfg and .ini tweaks correlating to network.connection resolutions.

I'm sure the creators of these guides want to believe it as much as you do because, all of us wish for a more stable network situation. There's not a part of me that doesn't wish for the same myself, the only difference is that I refuse to mislead myself or others simply to boast about an artificially inflated network comms fix such as adjusting the files for meager differences in ping. These tweaks aren't worth the energy it takes to input them bar none.

Simply put, deal with the P2P lag until either (A) they release a patch that gives us dedicated servers (Highly unlikely) or (B) Deal with the P2P lag like everyone else does without complaining.

Unless you want me to feed you lies about, how I have some magical .cfg or .ini tweak to suddenly make Advanced Warfare lag free or run on dedicated servers like everyone else does. There's simply not much that can be done, aside from sticking a lucky rabbit's foot inside your rig and hoping for the best.

P2P, Hybrid or whatever they wish to call this circa 1993 style server system is terrible for online multiplayer. Especially so in a competitive FPS pushing such an immense amount of data to randomized locations on the fly with differing connection speeds.

This guide was written with the intention of delivering definitive fixes to users that are experiencing fixable issues.

Sadly, I must inform you that realistically reducing server lag and better ping isn't one of those anymore like it was years ago.

AMD™ has released new video card beta drivers (15.8) which resolve the previous CrossfireX compatibility issues that have plagued Advanced Warfare and AMD™ users since launch and it is now fully functional without issues.

Within the driver patch notes, they stated a fix for the known issue of "◾[422551] Call of Duty® - Advanced Warfare may freeze randomly when run in Quad CrossFire mode".

Yet, as many other CrossfireX users know, this and many other issues were also prevelant in dual and triple CrossfireX GPU configurations as well that rendered CrossfireX unable to be utilized whatsoever and thankfully, they have all been resolved.

Finally after all these years a Call of Duty title has a fully functioning CrossfireX profile with positive scaling and incredibly worthwhile performance gains. See below for detailed test results.

Below is the location of the AMD™ 15.8 beta driver patch notes

http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/latest-catalyst-windows-beta.aspx

Below is the location of the AMD™ 15.8 beta drivers for Windows 10, 8.1 & 7

https://www2.ati.com/drivers/beta/amd-catalyst-15.8beta-64bit-win10-win8.1-win7-aug23.exe

If you are experiencing any issues after installing the latest beta drivers and believe you may have installed them incorrectly, utilize the following link for a step by step guide for clean driver installations for AMD™ based systems.

https://community.amd.com/thread/180667

I conducted scaling and stability tests in CrossfireX configuration to enable the community to better judge the CrossfireX performance after the 15.8 Beta Driver release. Especially considering Call of Duty hasn't had a properly functioning CrossfireX profile in quite some time. During my tests in the now functional CrossfireX mode, I recieved incredibly positive gpu scaling and overall absolutely impressive results.

With all in game graphics settings set to the following I recieved between 71%-87% syncronous gpu usage depending on the resources needed in game at the moment.

Note: That V-Sync was used for the purpose of maximum gpu utilization via settings and not simply maximum frames to properly test syncronous gpu usage in a controlled testing environment. With that being said, I also used 60Hz instead of 120Hz and maximized the in game graphics settings to gauge the greatest visual gains and gpu usage/scaling overall.

Note: Super Sampling was set to 2X for an total effective rendering resolution of 6400x3600 during the tests.

Native Resolution
3200x1800

Display Options

• Screen Refresh Rate: 60Hz
  
• Sync Every Frame: Yes
  
• Field of View: 65
  
• Monitor Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  
• Render Resolution: 3200x1800
  
  Texture Options
  
• Texture Quality: Extra
  
• Texture Resolution: Extra
  
• Normal Map Resolution: Extra
  
• Specular Map Resolution: Extra
  
• Anisotropic Filtering: High
  
  Shadow Options
  
• Shadows: Extra
  
• Shadow Map Resolution: Extra
  
• Cache Sun Shadow Maps: On
  
• Cache Spot Shadow Maps: On
  
  Post Process Options
  
• Depth of Field: On
  
• Screen Space Ambient Occlusion: HBA0+
  
• Medium Distance Ambient Occlusion: ON
  
• Subsurface Scattering: On
  
• Depth Prepass: On
  
  Anti-aliasing Options
  
• Post Process Anti-Aliasing: Off (Redundant at such a high rendering and native resolution)
  
• Supersampling: 2X
  
  Shadow Preload
  
• Shader Preload: On
  
  Miscellaneous Options
  
• Bullet Impacts: Yes
  
• Dynamic Light Limit: 8

Primary Components Used During CrossfireX tests

CPU: FX8320 @4.8Ghz
GPU #1: MSI R9 290 (std clock/memory speeds to properly gauge gpu performance)
GPU #2: MSI R9 290 (std clock/memory speeds to properly gauge gpu performance)
Motherboard: Asus M5A99FX Pro R2.0
Storage Media Used For Test: OCZ ARC 100 120GB SSD
PSU: EVGA 1300G Super Nova 80+ Gold

Previous Crossfire Test Results with the 15.7.1 Catalyst Drivers

Minimum Syncronous Gpu Utilization: 31% Per Gpu
Average Syncronous Gpu Utilization: 35.5% Per Gpu
Maximum Syncronous Gpu Utilization: 42% Per Gpu
Minimum Frame Time: 31ms
Average Frame Times: 135.73ms
Maximum Frame Times: 300.23ms
Frames Per Second Maintained Without Fluctuation During Tests @60 Fps: 47%

Current Crossfire Test Results using the 15.8 Beta Drivers

Minimum Syncronous Gpu Utilization: 71% Per Gpu
Average Syncronous Gpu Utilization: 79% Per Gpu
Maximum Syncronous Gpu Utilization: 87% Per Gpu
Minimum Frame Time: 16ms
Average Frame Times: 24.5ms
Maximum Frame Times: 31ms
Frames Per Second Maintained Without Fluctuation During Tests @60 Fps: 100%

Miscellenious Results:

• I recieved no errors during the tests over a two hour period (Crashes, Driver errors etc).
  
  
• CrossfireX rendering times are vastly improved.
  
  
• No micro stutter was present whatsoever during the tests which is always welcome for multi-gpu users.

I hope you found the data useful and that this helps bring this to the attention of CrossfireX users in the Call of Duty community. It's about time we had a properly functioning CrossfireX profile, we've waited long enough. Anyways, have a nice day!!

Download the latest Nvidia video drivers at the location below

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us