Stuttering and freezing campaign cutscenes (possibly Windows 7 related)

Product: Star Wars Battlefront II
Platform:PC
What is your issue related to? General
Summarize your bug Opening cutscene stutters, lags and/or freezes.
What is your gamertag/PSN ID/EA Account name?
How often does the bug occur? Every time (100%)
Can you tell us the date (MM/DD/YYYY) that you saw the bug?
What time did you see the bug? (HH:MM AM/PM)
In what game mode did the bug occur? Campaign
What is your time zone? GMT (UTC)
Steps: How can we find the bug ourselves? Start campaign.
What happens when the bug occurs? Cutscene stutters or freezes.
What do you expect to see?
Please select your region Europe
AMD or Nvidia Model Number

‌

UPDATE: See replies below for the workaround

Tried to start the campaign, but (when it starts, sometimes it gets stuck loading) the cutscene pauses for a few seconds (audio keeps going), then goes super fast catching up, but pauses again before it gets to catch up, then kind of dies.

Specs are fine and latest drivers downloaded. Tried doing it in windowed and full screen, with v-sync on and off.

Everywhere I've seen this mentioned, Windows 7 keeps popping up. Perhaps this is the reason.

OS: Windows 7
CPU: 2500K (overclocked)
GPU: GTX 780
RAM: 24GB

ozzyoscy
8 years ago
I'VE FOUND A WORKAROUND!
Do any or all of the following:
- Turn off the Origin overlay (in the settings part of 'game details' in your library, or completely in Origin -> Application Settings -> In-Game
- Turn off the GeForce Experience overlay
- In-game, open the console (which key that is depends on your keyboard, but probably either tilde (~) or the one next to the number 1 (`)) and type 'RenderDevice.RenderAheadLimit 3' (without the apostrophes) and press enter.
Now you should be able to start the campaign or play it easier. For me, the start of the opening cutscene still froze for a couple of seconds, but after that it was fine.
I won't confirm this as the answer until I've completed the campaign though.

11 Replies

azzer86
8 years ago
I have the same issue too and my PC specs are not too dissimilar to yours (2500k overclocked to 4GHz; 16GB RAM and Gtx970, Win7).
 
Game runs fine on multiplayer in Ultra settings (only tried Starfighter mode) but cannot play the campaign because I cannot watch the cutscenes.

Edit: graphics card correction
SL9009
8 years ago
The ending cutscene on Naboo was just a black screen with sounds and I am on Win 10.
azzer86
8 years ago
Since the patch, my cut scenes play fine. First one was still choppy (90% watchable - better than 10% pre patch) but then played completely fine after that
Bravo-November7
8 years ago
On PS4 this has been happening the last few days. The MP Jakku map is the worst of them all. And the latest patch made this problem worse.
ozzyoscy
8 years ago
Patch hasn't fixed it for me. The cutscene was perhaps slightly improved - rather than 'pausing, trying to catch up but pausing again and then give up', it was more 'pause, catch up, pause catch up, oh God it's pausing too much too soon, try and catch up, it's no use just alt + F4 already'.
ozzyoscy
8 years ago
Completely uninstalled graphics drivers and there just so happened to be a new update for BFII... and still the exact same problem.
Stuttering might be worse now, and as before 1 in 3 times cutscenes doesn't even start, just infinitely loading.
ozzyoscy
8 years ago
I'VE FOUND A WORKAROUND!
Do any or all of the following:
- Turn off the Origin overlay (in the settings part of 'game details' in your library, or completely in Origin -> Application Settings -> In-Game
- Turn off the GeForce Experience overlay
- In-game, open the console (which key that is depends on your keyboard, but probably either tilde (~) or the one next to the number 1 (`)) and type 'RenderDevice.RenderAheadLimit 3' (without the apostrophes) and press enter.
Now you should be able to start the campaign or play it easier. For me, the start of the opening cutscene still froze for a couple of seconds, but after that it was fine.
I won't confirm this as the answer until I've completed the campaign though.
azzer86
8 years ago
Hopefully your work around stops it happening for you (I haven't tried it, but I might).
Although I previously said the patch fixed it for me, when I launch a campaign mission for the first time, the first video cutscene (after launching the game) still has this stuttering issue. I end up just loading youtube and watching it instead. Any cutscene after playing a few minutes of the campaign then run perfectly fine... I've noticed that the BF2.exe file hogs 100% during this stuttering.
sgkaperdk
8 years ago
Hi
Try disabling your antivirus.
Or you can add an exclusion of scanning in your antivirus program.
By doing this the problem has disappeared completely for me
All Cutscenes run smoothly on my system.
Avast -Antivirus
Windows 7
Cpu-2500k
GPU-Asus GTX (1060)-3gb
Ram - enough
DarthJahus
7 years ago
The ultimate fix to the cutscenes issue is to rename the folder FMV under <game_folder>/Game/Disc/. That folder contains the videos that cause the issue. You can rename the folder back to its original name if you want to activate the cutscenes again. You can also watch them by renaming the files inside Win32 to add .wmv extension.