PR constantly freezes in-game for 1-3 seconds, at least once every minute or so. Why?

[Sex_Cactus]

OK, so I've ruled out the possibility (barring magic or some other ridiculous thing I don't know about) that this is lag or internet connection-related because it has happened with two different ISP's and happens on every server, regardless of my ping or the numbers of players. Basically what is happening is that it looks like the processor is getting bogged down, but that's impossible because I have an i5 quad core. Also, when I first got this computer everything worked fine. I have no idea what changed it. I have a partitioned hard drive and PR is the only thing on my XP partition. Nothing else could possibly be running at the same time, and I've checked to confirm as much. I know it can't be my RAM because I have 4GB of the stuff.

Basically what happens is that my screen with freeze up just for a second or two, meanwhile my avatar will continue doing whatever it was doing at that moment. After that, it will be normal again. This happens frequently during the game, usually about once a minute, sometimes less, sometimes more. That's why I originally thought it was the internet connection, but I played on some local servers where my ping is in the 30's and the same thing happened. Basically this makes it impossible to fly any helicopter, because I'll crash immediately. It also makes it hazardous at times to drive vehicles. And of course there are plenty of instances where it happens when I'm 5 feet from the enemy, or when I'm shooting a HAT kit. So is this problem hardware related or internet related? I really don't see how it could be either considering it worked find for the first few months.

Here are my specs:

Processor: Intel Core i5 @2.80GHz
RAM: 4GB
OS: XP
Graphics: GeForce GTX 460

I think that about covers it.

[Doc.Pock]

try running in local game. if its still there clean your PC
E: i have similar system xcept i use W7 and GTS 250 and i have all maxed out and AA 16x and i get no lag at all. so its either internet or rty PC

[A_Grounded_Pilot]

Are you gaming on wifi? If so, try this: https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f11-of ... e-fix.html

If not, do you see hard drive activity when you experience the stuttering?

[Sex_Cactus]

try running in local game. if its still there clean your PC
E: i have similar system xcept i use W7 and GTS 250 and i have all maxed out and AA 16x and i get no lag at all. so its either internet or rty PC

OK, so I ran a local game, played around with the video settings, and checked out the stats while I was playing. It looks like only one core is being used during most of the gameplay, and it's maxing out at times. Changing the settings didn't seem to affect it at all. Is it possible to get the other cores working, or is this a lost cause? I really don't understand why this problem started months after installing the game, especially because I put literally nothing on the XP partitioned hard drive after I installed PR.

[Rudd]

maybe its the punkbuster

try opening console and typing pb_sleep 300 and then pb_writecfg to save that setting, it'll mean pb scan severy 5 mins instead of 30 seconds, this shouldn't cause any problems (just don't go above 300 iirc)

[A_Grounded_Pilot]

BF2 will only use one core. I guess if you still experience it in a local game, it's not your network connection. You still didn't answer my question about hard drive. Is there activity when the game stutters?