Battlefield 2 did not work after windows reinstall?!

[trodas]

WTF?!

I just reinstalled my winblows and the damn slow game did not even work
anymore? Why?! No good game even do this! FarCry works, SoF2 works, CoD works, Doom3 works, Quake3 works, etc. WTF is wrong with Battlefield 2 there?!

Is there a way to make it work???

Or just reinstall this crap is the only one possible solution?!

I hope that such radical actions will not need, but... I also hope the patch 1.03 could be installed w/o having installed WITH THIS copy of winblows the BF2...! :hmm:

To put it technicaly short - I used Win2k SP3 and downgraded to less resources hungry (for better BF2 performance, SP2 is recommended by my friend SAE, a world-class O/C recordman for AMD-XP CPU's, all his records are on Win2k SP2 - fastest OS ever) Win2k SP2 and used Battlefield 2 v1.00. Slightly modified (the anims are gone and moded config so I could use MY keys...) yet for the first time I run it it just asked me for a d3dx9_25.dll file. I get the file from install DVD and it run, up to the menu. It can't get connected to any server and when I click on SinglePlayer, it silently exit to windows. So I reinstalled it and now it don't even show the animation - yet I can play it using MediaPlayerClassic... Just black screen and then silent exit to win.
uninstalling and reinstalling did not helping at all

Please advise.
No HW changes was made. Config in sig.
DirectX 9.0c - same as before-
Drivers - Zeropoints 76.44 - same as before.
OS - only slight change from SP3 to SP2...

Help? :cry: :cry: :cry:

[lcplsickoll]

Re: Battlefield 2 did not work after windows reinstall?!

Do a clean install and don't modify it.

[TrickyDickNixon]

Re: Battlefield 2 did not work after windows reinstall?!

that's interesting. do what the above suggested or try to grab a hold of win xp.

[trodas]

Re: Battlefield 2 did not work after windows reinstall?!

I did. Same result. Seems like something is out there... :hmm:
I tried uninstall, clean up registers for every battlefield references, install again (no modifications, of course) and run it. Not working.
I tried uninstall, install and not run, just update to 1.02 and - same again. I hope I can find some tech help where to look and what to kill to get rid of this issue :|:

[lcplsickoll]

Re: Battlefield 2 did not work after windows reinstall?!

Uninstall, Clean registry, empty recylce bin
reboot
INstall BF2 DON"T START
reboot
Install v1.02 Don't start game
reboot
update PB Don't start game
reboot
Start game. This is what I did for my last install and it worked well. Follow that procedure by the letter.

[trodas]

Re: Battlefield 2 did not work after windows reinstall?!

I will, sounds worth to try :)
Just one question. How to update PB? I tought it update itself - but hey, last time I get experience with it is with the SoF2 game :laugh:

But it updated itself quite nicely and run well, so... How to update PB w/o running the game?

[trodas]

Re: Battlefield 2 did not work after windows reinstall?!

Ah, uncle Google got the answer easily:

http://www.punkbuster.com/index.php?page=updatepb.php

So, I got the PBWEB.exee, put it right into the PB dir and run it and it seems updating my PB nicely :)

Slowly (my router/firewall showing only about 15 to 23k download speed, while my connection is capable of 128k DL speed, so, slowly...) but nicely

Done :)

PBWEB v2.2
This program is (C) Copyright 2002-2005 by Even Balance, Inc., All Rights Reserv
ed.

pbweb must be launched from the home "pb" folder where the game is installed.
If launched from another location, pbweb will not be able to update PunkBuster.

If you experience a problem with this program, please visit our support center
at http://www.evenbalance.com.

Starting pbweb to check for PunkBuster updates via world wide web
Initializing ... (please wait - ctrl+c to cancel)
************************************************************
Resolving www.evenbalance.com
Resolved to 69.44.156.109
Checking for PB Client updates
Game: bf2
Attempting to download pbsec.htm (please wait)
Received File pbsec.htm (1418 bytes)
Attempting to download htm\wa001360.htm (please wait)
Received File wa001360.htm (53230 bytes)
htm\wa001360.htm successfully converted to dll\wa001360.dll
Attempting to download htm\wc001199.htm (please wait)
Received File wc001199.htm (431457 bytes)
htm\wc001199.htm successfully converted to dll\wc001199.dll
dll\wc001199.dll copied to pbclnew.dll
Checking for PB Server updates
Game: bf2
Attempting to download pbsecsv.htm (please wait)
Received File pbsecsv.htm (1681 bytes)
Attempting to download htm\ws001162.htm (please wait)
Received File ws001162.htm (318940 bytes)
htm\ws001162.htm successfully converted to dll\ws001162.dll
dll\ws001162.dll copied to pbsvnew.dll
File already exists: htm\wa001360.htm
htm\wa001360.htm successfully converted to dll\wa001360.dll
Attempting to download htm\la001360.htm (please wait)
Received File la001360.htm (28137 bytes)
htm\la001360.htm successfully converted to dll\la001360.dll
Removed dll\la001360.dll - not needed
Attempting to download htm\ma001360.htm (please wait)
Received File ma001360.htm (17 bytes)

Mac Edition not needed for this game
File already exists: htm\wc001199.htm
htm\wc001199.htm successfully converted to dll\wc001199.dll
dll\wc001199.dll copied to pbclnew.dll
Attempting to download htm\lc001199.htm (please wait)
Received File lc001199.htm (562513 bytes)
htm\lc001199.htm successfully converted to dll\lc001199.dll
Removed dll\lc001199.dll - not needed
Attempting to download htm\mc001199.htm (please wait)
Received File mc001199.htm (17 bytes)

Mac Edition not needed for this game
pbclnew.dll copied to pbclsnew.dll
Press a key to exit

[trodas]

Re: Battlefield 2 did not work after windows reinstall?!

Reboot and... not a thing changed. I give up. Running BF2 after winblows reinstall is simply NOT recommended - jsut delete and wipe out everything and start all over...

Seems to me that BF2 is too touchy application. My friend played up a little with custom map configuration, connecting to itself as server and such and well, when he has the fun and ended and want to join it's own server, the game refused, claiming that he altered the files.
He, meanwhile, restored the orginal file and even fixed the file datum - nothing helping.

Now, there is a border, to witch extend is the safety anti-cheating things reasonable. BF2 is going very clearly WAY over it, IMHO :hmm:

What a flaw for such a good game, DICE...
...or hey, Silents, WTF is going up with you, guys, back from the oldies-goldies Amiga times and demos such as my beloved Hardwired bad from 1991? :hmm:

[Gunny Highway]

Re: Battlefield 2 did not work after windows reinstall?!

Did you install the latest chipset driveres from the website of chipset or motherboard maker?

When you got the DX error it might indicate that you didn't install it right, when the game offered to.

If it worked before and not now then the error isn't with BF2, but rather that you haven't configured Win2K properly or same as before.
Two things that could also be wrong, if SP2+ have made changes that are needed for proper game play, then it is probably a good idea to use those, not to say that Win2K isn't supported, you can play on it but it still isn't supported.
If you operate outside the recommended OS, and when using other OS you choose not to use latest version then it is bound to cause problems at some point IMO.

WinXP can do everything that Win2K can, and you can set it up to Win2K look and feel easily so you don't get those awful themes.

[trodas]

Re: Battlefield 2 did not work after windows reinstall?!

No, I never run WinXP on my main machine, God forbid that! :cry:

I was running Win2k SP3 before. It is a CRT monitor. Old one, indeed, but still very nice picture :p

What DX error? All I got is a flick of black screen and then forced exit from BF2 back to win. All.

And well, the game designers should think about Win2k systems too. Not everyone want a resource hog system like XP. Not to mention that I downgrading to SP2 mainly to get even less resources hungry OS that with SP3, and therefore BF2 will run better. Just disabling these anims did a good job and almost kill the swaping on 1G ram config only (and 500MB (at all times)swap size) - so way to go :) I did not tried go back to SP3 - personally I think that it should run fine in SP2 as well an SP2 is fastest.

SP4 is a big "no-no" thing, since even 3DMark1999 or Vulpine GLMark stop working on SP4, while they run pretty well on SP3 and earlier systems, so... Something M$ fu.ked up there... (same for XP - SP1 kill the same apps + some more...)

Basically, I tried almost everything now - I think that the question should be narrowed to simple thing - did ANYONE reinstalled winblows and then run the BF2 w/o reinstalling it? And it it did not work, will reinstall fix it?

IMHO BF2 seems to be to be too much checking everything and I maybe screwed the ability to run BF2 on this windows copy for good, when I tried to run it w/o reinstall, as Im used to every (!) (except one stupid dictionary and PowerDVD) programs I using...!

PS. SP2 is my target (I will do even hardcore optimalization using nLite and then manualy optimizing services and stuff) because its resources requirments are smallest and therefore logically BF2 will run nicest on it :)

[trodas]

Re: Battlefield 2 did not work after windows reinstall?!

Problem solved in a amazingly simple way. Just run the BF2VoiceSetup.exe file, play with the sliders a little (w/o it don't work!) and click on save. Enjoy the crash that come (it happen for me even when I have my mic and my webcam with mic installed properly in Win2k SP3 - anyone got this working, anyway?) and then enjoy Battlefiels. It will work now

Unbelievable. Going to confirm this behaviour once again with fresh v1.00 !

[trodas]

Re: Battlefield 2 did not work after windows reinstall?!

Well, I tried to determine it for v1.00 and Im again stuck with notworking BF2 at all. Dunno, now it did not helping to run/crash the BF2VoiceSetup.exe

I wonder if there is someone, who did not have a problem with the constantly crashing BF2VoiceSetup.exe file very much, because it do it all the time for me, dunno why???

Bottom line - I slowly starting to dislike the game. The game itself aren't back, but the issues around it are sort of overhelming...

[alkajazz]

Re: Battlefield 2 did not work after windows reinstall?!

that's interesting. do what the above suggested or try to grab a hold of win xp.

Or Linux if you want to be CAAAAAAAAAAAARAZY!

[trodas]

Re: Battlefield 2 did not work after windows reinstall?!

No, I don't want to be crazy! :laugh:

At least I know that it is not the Win2k SP2, since the game works pretty well on SP2 too. It just did not run the BF2VoiceSetup.exe and therefore refuse to start. The BF2VoipServer.dll is the first file the game even load and when did not find some prefs or something missing, thanks to the crashing BF2VoiceSetup.exe, it exit.
I tried create a dummy 0 bytes file just named BF2VoipServer.dll to bypass the problem, yet it did not get accepted - the damn game check too much their files...

For you the BF2VoiceSetup.exe works?

[trodas]

Re: Battlefield 2 did not work after windows reinstall?!

Good news. After restart it works. So, it go like this:
After install, restart as required, then run BF2VoiceSetup.exe, enjoy crash, restart - and now will BF 2 run!

Laughable at best, DICE and EA ... shame, shame shame on them...