BF2 - tech discussion

[Kotatsu Neko]

I'm still wondering why the need for all these ultra high specs. Joint Ops to me was on a much bigger scale (150 players) and it's probably my memory but it didn't look tremendously worse, yet that ran fine on a lot more systems.

I can't really understand it either. Battlefield 2 doesn't really look that different to Battlefield 1942, and yet 1942 was really quick...

One thing I did find, and I assume this is a memory issue - turning off 4x FSAA gets rid of most of the 2 second lock ups when moving the camera too quickly. I guess the memory freed by turning off AA allows more stuff to be held in VRAM, and so lessens the need to drag stuff over AGP.

And speaking of which, is anyone running this on a PCI Express machine? Does the quicker bus help much?

[Stuart Smith]

I'm running the GeForce 6800 GT PCI-E variant. Unfortunately, I probably can't be of much help, as I've had no end of trouble with that card, and am currently using Omega drivers from a few months back as they're the only things that seem to even remotely help with the infinite loop errors that on normal Forceware drivers see my PC locking completely in games sometime within 20 mins of starting. Grumble.

Anyways, on the Omega's I get the texture glitching bug, but running at 1024x768 with all details high and 4xAA it's super-smooth.

[capcom_suicide]

drop the resolution a touch - it sorted the stuttering out for me

Me too.

I have a really crap system:

9800 Pro 128MB
P4 1.8 Ghz
1GB DDR Ram

But with the resolution down to 800x600 I can have it on "HIGH"

This looks better than 1024x800 with "No candy"

**sigh** Time for an upgrade. Maybe for Christmas.

[winky]

need some help with my headset.


I can get it working under windows, and it seems to transmit in counterstrike but I have no clue if it is working in BF2. Any suggestions?

[John Beaulieu]

goto audio options in game and i think you can test the settings (turn mic boost on btw)

you can only talk to squad members, and you press b to transmit

[MikeF]

Quick question before I decide to buy tomorrow

How will it run on a P4 2.4, 512mb ddr and Rad 9600 256mb card ?

[capcom_suicide]

Quick question before I decide to buy tomorrow

How will it run on a P4 2.4, 512mb ddr and Rad 9600 256mb card ?

Smooth at 800x600, but you won't get much of the eye candy. (i.e it will look better than an xbox game, but you will miss anti aliasing etc)

100% playable.

[John Beaulieu]

anyone know where the screenshots get saved to?

[PeteJ]

Possibly My Docuements\Battlefield

[capcom_suicide]

Possibly My Docuements\Battlefield

Yeah think so:
For the demo anyway:
From the interweb:
Taking Screenshots
If you want to take screenshots of the in-game gameplay, simply press the PRTSCN (Print Screen) key which by default takes a screenshot and places it in your \Documents and Settings\[username]\My Documents\Battlefield 2 Demo\Screenshots\ directory.

Lets see what that funky card of yours can do then!

[John Beaulieu]

its only saved 1 screen when i took about 10

need to suss it out

[Mardigan8]

Picked this up today and currently working on getting the visual settings at optimum performance.

Running on 3.0Ghz P4, 512Mb(Dual 256 Ram) with Radeon 9800 Pro 128Mb. Just about to fire up new drivers and hopin they sort out stuttering.

Been playing with medium settings with 1024 x 860 and getting splutters during movement at start of battles, levels out after few minutes but quite annoying.

Any tips on how I could optimise this set-up for best play?

GFX card Upgrade is looking like a possibility

[AlwaysAce]

i have a top of the line system and i still get stuttering on my system for about 10 seconds at the start of every match. a patch will sort it i reckon.

EA need to sort out the laggy ass menu's though, i mean 30-40 secs just to highlight what server you want to join??? wtf???

[SubparMario]

It's all about the RAM guys, tweaking the options can only do so much.

You'll be needing 1GB minimum for a decent experience and even then, 1.5GB or 2GB is required for it to be fully smooth at good settings.

[Hohum]

Been playing with medium settings with 1024 x 860 and getting splutters during movement at start of battles, levels out after few minutes but quite annoying.

Yeah, I think everyone gets that. I believe it's caused by punkbuster scanning for hacks/cheats at the start of a map load - generally any other game that use it (Q3, Enemy Territory etc) suffers the same issue, stuttering for the first minute or so then fine afterwards.