PC upgrade for BF2 - please help!

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  • Berrern
    Member
    • Jul 2005
    • 585

    #1

    PC upgrade for BF2 - please help!

    Hi guys.

    After about 40 hours with BF2 on Medium graphics without anti-aliasing (I've tried all AA options, both in my gfx control panel and in the BF2 options, but it never works o.O), it's time to upgrade. I'd like to play on "High" graphic quality, in order to see stuff better, and avoid all the "pixelating" of those nice textures everywhere.

    So anyway, I was wondering if anyone's got some experience with hardware and BF2? I think I need a new graphics card, and also maybe 1GB extra RAM - but is that it? Or are there other parts that are more important to upgrade, in order to get a performance boost?

    I'm currently running the graphics options on Medium (but I changed AA to 2x, even though it has no effect), and the Sound options on Hardware and High. When I try to put the graphics on High, it lags. It even lags a bit now, but that's only when I see 2-3 vehicles close to me engaged in heavy combat.

    Here's my specs:
    Asus A7N8X Deluxe
    AMD Barton XP2800+
    1GB Corsair Value S PC3200 (2x512MB sticks) [still 1 slot free]
    C drive (games/apps): WD Raptor S-ATA 10.000RPM, 37.5GB.
    D drive (installation files/videos/mp3s etc): WD S-ATA 7.200RPM, 200GB.
    PowerColor RADEON 9800PRO 128MB
    EDIT: Forgot my soundcard; SoundBlaster Audigy LS

    Oh, and I'm not a millionaire, so please don't recommend those mean, super expensive gfx cards

    Thanks for any help!
  • Blak_Phoenix

    #2
    The main thing to upgrade would be the extra gig of RAM, that would stop most of the lag, the video card should be able to cope with the higher graphics, but you may still find that when a few vehicles and some smoke s go off there is some lag there.

    Your harddiske are fast, which is good, the prosessor is of good speed so that shoundn't be a problem, so as i said before, if i were you id go for RAM, but if you really wanna go top graphics a ne video card would be gr8. :)

    Hope ive helped

    Comment

    • [COP]W@R

      #3
      I have about the same configuration (P4 2,8C, 2x512 DDR400, Audigy2) and the game runs very nice at 1024*960, all details on high, 4xAA and 8xAF in the Catalyst driver.
      I'm running BF2 with an ATI X800XTPE. I don't know the prize yet for this card but can highly recommend it.

      Comment

      • Berrern
        Member
        • Jul 2005
        • 585

        #4
        Thanks for your reply.

        The reason I think my gfx card is falling behind (even though it's a Pro), is because on the game box it says that 256MB video RAM is recommended.

        Either way, I suppose I could try the RAM upgrade first, and see how that goes..
        Is there any chance that my soundcard may cause some lag too - seeing as it's fairly old? An Audigy 2 (not Platinum, I don't need the bay) only costs about $100, so it's not too big of an investment. But is it needed?

        Comment

        • erknel

          #5
          Has a similar 9800 Pro, AMD setup and similar performance
          I do think 2GB ram helps a lot. I also think pretty much any 256mb graphics card helps a lot.

          In the end I went for Ati800XL and 2GB - awesome grpahics now.

          Comment

          • Blak_Phoenix

            #6
            Yes, that is a (bottle neck) so to say with the 128MB video cards, although it is a Pro version, the smaller amount of RAM will affect game play somewhat, if you can afford it i would suggect an upgrade of that too... If both the RAM and the video card are upgraded I see no reason for you to be able to run everything on high..

            May I recomend the following cards for your system:
            ASUS ATI X800PRO 256MB, $636 (Aussie dollars)
            Or if that is too expensive then the ASUS GF6600 256MB would be a good try at $235

            Good luck with whatever you choose to do :)

            Comment

            • glaeken

              #7
              I have a similar set-up to you but my graphics card is a 6800GT. I run with most things on high settings apart from textures which I keep on medium. To be honest the textures don't look much different between high and medium but you do notice a performance hit on the change. From what I have heard the textures need over 1Gb of ram for good performance on high. A few players claim 2Gb is the ideal amount.

              On resolution I am running at 1280x960 and I have 2xAA turned on. FPS is in the 60-90 region with no noticable performance dips at all. Keep in mind I am very fussy over FPS performance and will not accept any performance variation that effects game play so I could probably run higher settings with the odd performance dip with my set-up but chose consistent performance over all out pretty graphics.

              So anyway I think for what you want if you could go to 2Gb of ram and change the graphics card to something like a 6800GT or an X800XL and I think you would be there.

              On graphics cards If you go NVidia I would expect the 6800GT prices to drop quite a bit over the next month as the 7800 series becomes more widely available. The ATI prices probably won't drop as much for a month or two as their next generation card is not available yet.

              Comment

              • Blak_Phoenix

                #8
                Check out this link, if you have the money, this is what to go for...

                Comment

                • bogo24dk

                  #9
                  Ok guys i think i am to lucky i run bf 2 at high with 8x anti.
                  My comp specs are:

                  amd 2500 333 mh
                  abit an7 mobo
                  1024 ram
                  9800 pro

                  Why can i run with setting so high and can still play without lagging ?

                  Comment

                  • Blak_Phoenix

                    #10
                    There may be a few things happening here, one is that of which operating system people are using, another is how many and what background programs are running while the game is in operation.

                    Comment

                    • bogo24dk

                      #11
                      Well when i run bf 2 i close evrything i have msn , ie windows almost evrything that i don't need.

                      Comment

                      • Berrern
                        Member
                        • Jul 2005
                        • 585

                        #12
                        Thanks for the help!

                        Just one note.. Afaik my motherboard isn't compatible with PCI gfx cards, so I'll have to buy an AGP card. Or am I totally wrong?

                        Comment

                        • glaeken

                          #13
                          The reason you can play on such high settings is basically down to personal prefence. What some players call lag free I call laggy. You will find we all have completly different standards of what we call playable.

                          I come from a CS back ground and am very used to running at around the 100 FPS mark with no slow down so anything less then this really sticks out to me but I know many players on-line consider 30 FPS as perfect performance.

                          Lets not get into the argument about the human eye can not see more than 30 FPS either as it is not actually true. In truth you can not really compare the way the human eye works with FPS. Our eyes just don't work like that.

                          Comment

                          • glaeken

                            #14
                            Originally posted by Berrern
                            Thanks for the help!

                            Just one note.. Afaik my motherboard isn't compatible with PCI gfx cards, so I'll have to buy an AGP card. Or am I totally wrong?
                            ]

                            Yeah you will need to stick to AGP cards if your mother board does not have PCI-Express slots. This really is not much of a problem though as AGP performs just as well as PCI-Express at the moment and there are some good AGP cards available. NVidia are not supporting AGP with the 7800 series though but I hear ATI will be with their next card.

                            Comment

                            • Blak_Phoenix

                              #15
                              Very true :) ^^^^^

                              Comment

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