Is it worth staying?

[gypsyd01]

So I used to play consoles before they got to online game play status.

I have now been playing this game for nearly 2 years and to be honest I'm seeing more things going wrong than the first day I started.

Punkbuster kicks happening on a regular basis although I'm fully updated. Namely key packets and tools.

Connection problems have started again after some absence and yes my connection to the internet is fine.

Crashing to desk top has started for the first time today.

I can put up with hackers and noob players (to a point) but it seems I can't just sit down and have a game without something happening that has no real explanation.

I am therefore looking to buy a PS3 (as online gaming is free) and go back to the simple days of buying a game without the worry of "does it suit my system", key codes and F***ing Punkbuster.

Has anyone else thought of doing the same or indeed already done so?

[imported_kiwi]

Re: Is it worth staying?

No, no problems here

The biggest problem is BF2 hitbox and sometimes too many teamkillers and those who force it. Other than that everything is great :)

[The Laughing Man]

Re: Is it worth staying?

I am not gonna quit BF2 now since the only real problems I have are the stupid stat error which has happened to me the last 4 times I've logged in. Oh and the idiotic hit boxes. I find it especially bad when I've done a point blank head shot and had it miss. That is inexcusable in any situation.

So why not quit, well I got the game cheap and I am in now but I can say for sure that I won't be buying BF3 until I have conclusive confirmation that the hit box detection issues have been solved. So take note EA and Dice get it sorted or lose a customer.

[Lazza66]

Re: Is it worth staying?

Lol. When are people going to realise that the hit detection problems are because of 2 things.

1. In built deviation which is done ON PURPOSE to simulate the non perfect nature of firing RL weapons.

2. The server, your computer, and your internet connection (together) get pushed harder by BF2 than any other online game. This causes errors in the regions of msecs to become magnified, decreasing accuracy (by separating the hitbox and game entity models). This is best demonstrated at it's most extreme, where the games fastest moving player (the TV missile) attempts to strike another fast moving objects hitbox (the enemy chopper).

There is NOTHING Dice can do about the server hardware, your hardware, and the quality and speed of your internet, period.

[waaah_wah]

Re: Is it worth staying?

2. The server, your computer, and your internet connection (together) get pushed harder by BF2 than any other online game. This causes errors in the regions on msecs to become magnified, decreasing accuracy (by separating the hitbox and game entity models). This is best demonstrated at it's most extreme, where the games fastest moving player (the TV missile) attempts to strike another fast moving objects hitbox (the enemy chopper).

There is NOTHING Dice can do about the server hardware, your hardware, and the quality and speed of your internet, period.

Lets see... Cod4 = Good hit detection, ArmA = good hit detection, = CS = good hit detection. I cant believe that they actually put this game on the market knowing about these issues... What kind of a company does that?

[Lazza66]

Re: Is it worth staying?

Lets see... Cod4 = Good hit detection, ArmA = good hit detection, = CS = good hit detection. I cant believe that they actually put this game on the market knowing about these issues... What kind of a company does that?

Interestingly they all use the same asynchronous netcode model. Are you familiar with it?

An E6600 will run at 70% usage on COD4, but 100% on BF2.
COD4 and CS servers typically have about half the players of BF2 servers.
COD4 and CS maps are tiny compared to BF2.
COD4 and CS do not have highly detailed large moving textures (tanks, jets etc) everywhere.

Did you realise that having 64 on a server, 4 in tv mode (helo), and 2 in LGM mode (bomber) is the equivalent (in terms of load) of having 70 players on the server? The most I have ever seen in COD4 is 50.

BF2 simply pushes everything harder than anything else, and unfortunately sometimes it shows. Personally I'll be pre-ordering BF3 just like BF2, because it is simply the best online FPS concept ever to be released.

[MPower06]

Re: Is it worth staying?

As far as I know COD4, CS, and etc dont have TV missiles, guided rockets, tank rounds, jets, choppers, all those things that is not a bullet fly pass your head...
If you got kicks by PB prolly because the Anitvirus software or firewall you have running in the background. I say you should close those processes before playing BF2. It worked for me.
And yes Im still gonna play this game for a while even though I have PS3 BFBC, COD4, GUITAR HERO<--FTW

[imported_kiwi]

Re: Is it worth staying?

Do you aim behind a moving target with RL weapons? :laugh:

I have a decent net, ping 20 with 0 packet loss and and I have a high end PC that can run 200+ FPS (highest settings) any 64 player map. Don't get me wrong, I will get BF3 as well but don't argue that BF2 hitbox is good. BF2 hitbox sux hard and it is probably one of the worst of all FPS


MPower06, it is not only TV rockets, missiles etc but infantry too

[waaah_wah]

Re: Is it worth staying?

Interestingly they all use the same asynchronous netcode model. Are you familiar with it?

An E6600 will run at 70% usage on COD4, but 100% on BF2.
COD4 and CS servers typically have about half the players of BF2 servers.
COD4 and CS maps are tiny compared to BF2.
COD4 and CS do not have highly detailed large moving textures (tanks, jets etc) everywhere.

Did you realise that having 64 on a server, 4 in tv mode (helo), and 2 in LGM mode (bomber) is the equivalent (in terms of load) of having 70 players on the server? The most I have ever seen in COD4 is 50.

BF2 simply pushes everything harder than anything else, and unfortunately sometimes it shows. Personally I'll be pre-ordering BF3 just like BF2, because it is simply the best online FPS concept ever to be released.

I can agree with you on the CS and CoD4 hitboxes, but what about ArmA? It pushes everything even harder than Bf2, and still you have good hitboxes, without the "missile passing though chopters" BS we have in Bf2

[Rugerdog]

Re: Is it worth staying?

Personally I'd rather have a harder to hit hitbox like in BF2 than one that is as large as those in COD4.

[The Laughing Man]

Re: Is it worth staying?

[quote]Lol. When are people going to realise that the hit detection problems are because of 2 things.

2. The server, your computer, and your internet connection (together) get pushed harder by BF2 than any other online game. This causes errors in the regions of msecs to become magnified, decreasing accuracy (by separating the hitbox and game entity models). This is best demonstrated at it's most extreme, where the games fastest moving player (the TV missile) attempts to strike another fast moving objects hitbox (the enemy chopper).

My PC is more than capable of running BF2 twice if not three times over, my internet connection is fine at 8meg and has one of the lowest contention ratio of those available in the UK. The server I played on is based in the same country as me so as a result I usually have a ping of 19 and the player I shot in the head had been lying prone sniping long enough for me to actually walk up to him have a 2 second think about weather to snipe, pistol whip or knife him and when I shot him in the head it missed.

Don't care what you say that's not acceptable and I don;t care how you slice it that's a core failure of the game engine that cannot be explained away by milli second errors.

An E6600 will run at 70% usage on COD4, but 100% on BF2.

So? CPU load stats mean jack, they are dynamically adjusted by your OS just because the little monitor provided with windows says 70% doesn't mean BF2 is using 70%. I can load my OC'd E6600 using TAT to over 60% before it starts to affect BF2. A game I played called Tibia (a 2D free mmorpg) uses 100% of whatever processor you run it on.

BF2 simply pushes everything harder than anything else, and unfortunately sometimes it shows.

Please six years ago I used to play a game called Tachyon The Fringe online using a PC powered by Pentium 3 with no dedicated graphics hardware on a 56K dial up. This was an FPS space shooter that incorporated some shockingly complex physics in the flight dynamics. This thing had missiles, guns, lasers, rockets and up wards of 32 players on the server and THAT had better hit detection than BF2 has. I am sorry but trying to say BF2 pushes the limits of anything is a get out of jail free excuse. BF2 doesn't push anything to any where near it's limits. Perhaps, just maybe back when it first launched it may have but PC tech has moved on a long way. Certainly far enough to render hit detection errors such as the one I described as totally unacceptable.

[stilla-killa]

Re: Is it worth staying?

I am still having fun with this game and probably will until BF3 comes out.

[Lazza66]

Re: Is it worth staying?

I can agree with you on the CS and CoD4 hitboxes, but what about ArmA? It pushes everything even harder than Bf2, and still you have good hitboxes, without the "missile passing though chopters" BS we have in Bf2

With an average of about 8 players per server the comparison just doesn't make it.

Do you aim behind a moving target with RL weapons? :laugh:

The inbuilt deviation was the reference to RL weapons, not lag / hit detection. Please read posts before replying to them.

I have a decent net, ping 20 with 0 packet loss and and I have a high end PC that can run 200+ FPS (highest settings) any 64 player map.

I simply don't believe you have zero packet loss, nobody does. You may have an ace rig, but it's not the server is it.

Don't get me wrong, I will get BF3 as well but don't argue that BF2 hitbox is good.

Nobody has, are you suggesting they have?

BF2 hitbox sux hard and it is probably one of the worst of all FPS

Please elaborate, do you mean the hit detection sux vs. other fps?

[QUOTE=The Laughing Man;2145924]

My PC is more than capable of running BF2 twice if not three times over, my internet connection is fine at 8meg and has one of the lowest contention ratio of those available in the UK. The server I played on is based in the same country as me so as a result I usually have a ping of 19 and the player I shot in the head had been lying prone sniping long enough for me to actually walk up to him have a 2 second think about weather to snipe, pistol whip or knife him and when I shot him in the head it missed.

So did you get a dust puff on the player model?

Please six years ago I used to play a game called Tachyon The Fringe online using a PC powered by Pentium 3 with no dedicated graphics hardware on a 56K dial up. This was an FPS space shooter that incorporated some shockingly complex physics in the flight dynamics. This thing had missiles, guns, lasers, rockets and up wards of 32 players on the server and THAT had better hit detection than BF2 has. I am sorry but trying to say BF2 pushes the limits of anything is a get out of jail free excuse. BF2 doesn't push anything to any where near it's limits. Perhaps, just maybe back when it first launched it may have but PC tech has moved on a long way. Certainly far enough to render hit detection errors such as the one I described as totally unacceptable.

Please, 20 years ago Elite was a 64k vector graphics space simulator for the Commodore 64. It had shockingly complex physics and in flight dynamics. It had missiles, guns, lasers, rockets, and had better hit detection than Tachyon ever had. They are apples and oranges.

How much BF2 dedicated server experience have you got?

[|D|-Jaws]

Re: Is it worth staying?

One thing to keep in mind guys is that if hitbox detection gets fixed....it's fixed for everyone. So if you die alot now.....be prepared to die alot in the future.


If you want better hitbox detection:

1. Try enabling Vsync on your graphics card. Don't argue, just try it

2. Follow these steps here:

Usersettings.con

This file is found under your \Program Files\EA Games\Battlefield 2\mods\bf2\Settings directory. There are two particular settings of interest here which are reported to help reduce the inaccurate feel /hit detection of weapons fire in BF2:

SettingsManager.floatSet GSDefaultLatencyCompensation 0.100000

This setting controls latency (or 'lag') compensation, which involves the game attempting to offset the delay between information being sent from your machine to the server and back again (as measured in milliseconds by your Ping). In games without client-side latency compensation, you have to lead your target by a certain amount, since whenever you fire a weapon your bullets will actually register in the game world with a delay equal to your Ping. In BF2, whenever you fire a weapon, whatever appears in your crosshairs at that particular moment is registered as being hit, regardless of where they actually are at that point in time. This removes the need to predict where your target will be based on ping delay, and makes the game feel more responsive. However it can also introduce quirks like ducking behind a wall and still being hit.

In any case, this setting controls the default latency compensation applied, and the normal value is 0.100000 = 100ms. Some people claim that by adjusting this value to match your average ping in the servers you play, it can improve hit detection. For example, if you typically have a 50ms Ping, setting this to 0.050000 should improve the feeling of accuracy in the game. To be honest having experimented with this setting in isolation I didn't notice much difference either way. I believe the latency compensation is actually dynamic, only starting at the default value given in this setting, and adjusting to match your average ping over time. However even if it isn't, in general you can try to match your Ping with this setting to see the results. Note that lowering this setting well below or above your average Ping will only add to lag and may decrease your accuracy at best, so stick with keeping it equal to the Ping you get on most servers.

SettingsManager.U32Set GSInterpolationTime 100

Interpolation is a technique used to increase the smoothness of an online game. Basically interpolation is the prediction of where a particular moving object or character is currently located in the game world, based on data received on where they were and where they are. For example if an enemy soldier is running across the screen, interpolation allows their movement to appear fluid, calculating their predicted movement across the screen even though your computer is receiving only periodic updates of where they actually are. So instead of seeing a person jerkily warping from point to point, you see smooth animated motion all the way along. This especially helps to keep things smooth if/when packets are momentarily lost between the server and you; the game knows where the player currently is, where they were a moment ago, and calculates and displays the movements in between.

By default, Battlefield 2 appears to have a 100 millisecond buffer for interpolation. The problem with this is that while making things appear smoother, it also means that when firing upon a fast-moving object you may miss where they actually are as you're effectively facing an additional 100ms delay. At least that's the theory, and in general in my experimentation I found slightly improved hit detection results (and no noticeable increase in jerkiness) by using a lower value of 50 or even 30 for this setting. Note however that this variable should not be set too low (and certainly not a value of 0) as it will result in increased warping/jerky movements, and if you generally have a ping higher than 100 you shouldn't lower this setting. For those who do try this, also remember that the improvement from lowering this setting is not dramatic, since we're talking a difference of say 50ms (1/20th of a second). However particularly in situations where your opponent(s) are moving fast and/or erratically your accuracy should be noticeably improved.

It is important to understand that the generally inaccurate feel of most weapons in BF2 is intentional, as realism has been sacrificed for the sake of gameplay. Techniques to steady your aim such as going prone and using short bursts can help improve hit rates. Furthermore it appears that much of the time the lack of hit registration is due to lost packets. I've noticed the Battlefield series suffers quite a bit from packet loss, often manifesting as serious warping or jerkiness, getting caught against walls or other barriers, and incidents where you can appear to be firing at an unmoving target at point blank range and still somehow miss with most bullets; information is being lost to/from the server.

The key thing to note about both settings above is that unfortunately neither I nor anyone else knows for sure what the real story is - only EA/DICE know the truth about how their netcode works, and they've stated nothing to clarify these settings. What I've written above is based on my own experimentation, understanding and research about these settings. For the most part I haven't found any problems with PunkBuster by using the recommended settings above, though some servers may be very strict and not allow these values to be changed. If altering these values seems to make things worse for you, or you experience more jerkiness, lag or disconnections, reset them to the defaults shown above and leave them be.

[Lazza66]

Re: Is it worth staying?

SettingsManager.floatSet GSDefaultLatencyCompensation 0.100000

floatSet = dynamic variable that WILL be changed regardless of whatever you set it to.

Default = a starting value of 100ms will be used, until the game has sampled your true ping, ignoring whatever you might have set the default value to anyway.

I've verified this by using extreme values, e.g. 0ms, 9999ms, and my value was overwritten so quickly it didn't make a single bit of difference, not even during the first minutes of gameplay.

SettingsManager.U32Set GSInterpolationTime 100

What your post completely misses mentioning is that this is also a packet loss compensation mechanism. With a setting of 100ms the game is being told to keep a time slice of game history of 100ms from which to draw the game state on screen. If you have this set to say 50 and are losing packets then the game entities are more likely to lag around the screen than if it's set to 100. There is also subjective evidence that a high setting of 400ms fixes chopper hit boxes (hit detection).

This...
"it also means that when firing upon a fast-moving object you may miss where they actually are as you're effectively facing an additional 100ms delay."
...is false. There is no additional delay, all online games show a game state on screen that has already passed as above. I have played with the game in it's raw state (i.e. 0ms interpolation) and it is very very strange, it's like everything has got epilepsy, very hard to hit things that are shaking around.