Graphic settings, system performance?

[machstem]

I know this has been posted before, but for some odd reason, the forum search option was being buggy with me (page cannot be found)

Anyway, here is what I need to know.

I posted this issue a couple nights ago, and have since been scratching my head trying to figure it out. First scenario:

- My friend and I accidentally both got booted from the server, and our accounts yesterday. We logged back in, rejoined the server. My friend was mentioning how BF2 was reoptimizing his shaders for whatever reason, yet he hadn't changed a thing. Once he was in the game, he realized that everything was cranked to the highest possible settings, at least from what he could tell. And all this, without having touched one setting. He then proceeded to disconnect and check his video settings, and oddly enough, the settings were still set as they once were: medium. He hadn't closed the game yet, rejoined the server, same thing: great graphics, no lack in performance. He turned off the game for the night, returned today, only to find it back to medium settings.

I asked him to change his graphic settings to high, for everything. He joined a LAN game, and he mentioned he could hardly even move without it lagging.
-----------------------------
Now, I had this same thing happen to me a while back. All the shadows were enabled, the lighting was set to high, etc etc. The game ran flawless, and looked even better than when I set my system with everything on high.

I guess my question should be the following:
How could a MSI 6600GT 128mb run settings even higher than the settings that are allowed for his type of card (screenshots shows me at least 6xAA with textures being higher than "high") His screenshots look nicer than my x800 XL 256mb

It's even compareable to the intro video for BF2, if not nicer.

Since I know he's not joshing me around, and I've had it happen, can anyone explain this? Has anyone else had this happen before?

Here is a recap:
- game kicks you out to "login" screen
- no settings changed; user logs back in
- graphics are extraordinary, setting your graphic settings on high doesn't even look this nice

Also, since I've noticed some of you have 7800 GTX 256mb cards, what are the "highest" settings you can have enabled. All I see are "high" and 6x AA. Are there any settings higher than these? If so, why can't we see them? GPU limitations? example: I can see 6x AA for my card, but he can only see 4x AA

Thanks for all the input in advance folks!!!

PEACE

[HyperBlade]

Re: Graphic settings, system performance?

Actually i have had this, i run a 6600gt, and i have shadows on low, then all of a sudden practising on dalin plant, shadows appeared. when i loaded it up. Some weird **** happenign their.

[machstem]

Re: Graphic settings, system performance?

Actually i have had this, i run a 6600gt, and i have shadows on low, then all of a sudden practising on dalin plant, shadows appeared. when i loaded it up. Some weird **** happenign their.

Were your graphics like 10x better than before? Even better than if you crank them yourself? And if so, is there much lag? From what he was mentioning, he had no lag whatsoever.

[ConscriptVirus]

Re: Graphic settings, system performance?

wow that sounds so bizzaree.it makes me think that when ea is optimizing the shaders, it is acutally taking away from game performance...

[machstem]

Re: Graphic settings, system performance?

Oh, and one thing he mentioned, was when he looked down at a satchel he layed on the ground, it looked exactly (a little brighter) than the satchel you see in the BF2 intro video. He could see the wires, etc. I'll try and get him to send me the screenshots, I can't see where I downloaded them to.

Amazing stuff. It's what BF2 is supposed to look like, what made me love the game so much.

PEACE

[machstem]

Re: Graphic settings, system performance?

Anyone?

[badasafish]

Re: Graphic settings, system performance?

I have had this optimizing shaders for an additional time happen to me quite a lot... but once it has "reoptimized" the game runs like ****e!!! I have to quit the game, delete the cache and then get the drivers to do an original optimization again. My ISP keeps lagging me out at the moment, and im wondering if this is causing BF2 to not shut down properly or something.

As for noticing the game looking better i couldnt tell.. it looks the bomb already

[machstem]

Re: Graphic settings, system performance?

I have had this optimizing shaders for an additional time happen to me quite a lot... but once it has "reoptimized" the game runs like ****e!!! I have to quit the game, delete the cache and then get the drivers to do an original optimization again. My ISP keeps lagging me out at the moment, and im wondering if this is causing BF2 to not shut down properly or something.

As for noticing the game looking better i couldnt tell.. it looks the bomb already

Thanks for your input.

I am trying to figure something out. Which videocard are you running, and in your graphical settings, would you be so kind as to mark down which settings are available to you. For example: Your Anti-Aliasing will display what is avalaible to your videocard, I can see a max of 6x. Can you makr down each "highest" setting you have for each available option?

Thanks again

[hrpuffnstuff02]

Re: Graphic settings, system performance?

I have a hinting suspicion that the battlefield 2 game runs differently depending on your processor and video card (and no I'm not just talking about performance). I have a p4 2.4 and a Raedon x850xt with 768mB ddr ram and after playing battlefield for a couple hours, my game starts to get real laggy and slow. Then when I go to exit the game, the game continues to run (as shown in task manager) and the game's music can be heard through my headphones for about 45 seconds to a minute after closing the program. I don't think this is overheating of my hardware as well, because I can feel the air coming out of my case and it's not hot, just warm.

As to your graphics query, I am at a loss, for I am computer retarded .

[machstem]

Re: Graphic settings, system performance?

I have a hinting suspicion that the battlefield 2 game runs differently depending on your processor and video card (and no I'm not just talking about performance). I have a p4 2.4 and a Raedon x850xt with 768mB ddr ram and after playing battlefield for a couple hours, my game starts to get real laggy and slow. Then when I go to exit the game, the game continues to run (as shown in task manager) and the game's music can be heard through my headphones for about 45 seconds to a minute after closing the program. I don't think this is overheating of my hardware as well, because I can feel the air coming out of my case and it's not hot, just warm.

As to your graphics query, I am at a loss, for I am computer retarded .

Yeah, my system is a AMD 3500+ with a x800 XL.

I found out something neat, if you go into your "My Documents" folder, if it's the case, and open up your profile folder (mine was /profiles/0001) and edit the video.con file, you can set the first several options from 3 to 4. 4 I think is the most you can set it to, as when you get into the options, you'll see "VIDEOSETTINGS_ULTRAHIGH" or something.

I'll be testing this out, as it'd be super sweet to run it on something higher than high :)

PEACE

[Clayton Gold]

Re: Graphic settings, system performance?

Ive had this exact issue before as well. My hardware is in the sig.

I always attributed it to my video card being too hot, as its overclocked probably too high for what my box should be able to handle, but it usually runs like a dream on all medium, with terrain and effects on high.

I'll have to look into this a bit better now, if others are having the exact same issue.

I'll run it after work tonight and see what happens

[machstem]

Re: Graphic settings, system performance?

Alright...interesting.

I cranked everything to VIDEOSETTINGS_UltraHigh, essentially "unlocking" the ultra high features by manually editing my video.con file, and replacing the "3" (high) with "4" (ultra high).

My FPS are about the same (45-60fps; in console (type ~) you can find out by typing the following command line: renderer.drawfps 1)

I don't understand. Why would the game run the same with both settings? I get the once in a while choppiness, but it's a given. I need to clean out a couple things, raise my virtul memory a bit, I want to run some more tests.

The best way to see the graphical difference would be to look at the detailed textures of the game, such as the guns, satchel charges, character faces, symbols on the helicopters, the radar. I noticed by increasing the settings from 3 to 4, that the shadows aren't as "pixeled" as they were.

In conclusion, I really don't think you'd need a 7800 GTX to run this game at full settings. All it takes is a little video.con tweaking, increasing your virtual memory settings to a minimum of 1536 and a max of 3072. This will definitely help anyone with a 6600GT 128mb card. I have seen the performance increase first hand.

I'll keep you all posted.

PEACE

[hrpuffnstuff02]

Re: Graphic settings, system performance?

Yeah, my system is a AMD 3500+ with a x800 XL.

I found out something neat, if you go into your "My Documents" folder, if it's the case, and open up your profile folder (mine was /profiles/0001) and edit the video.con file, you can set the first several options from 3 to 4. 4 I think is the most you can set it to, as when you get into the options, you'll see "VIDEOSETTINGS_ULTRAHIGH" or something.

I'll be testing this out, as it'd be super sweet to run it on something higher than high :)

PEACE

Thanks for the tip! I'll be sure to try it out.
One thing: when I opened the video.con file in notepad to edit the code, do I set all of the options with numbers to 4 or just one of them?
This is what it shows you:
VideoSettings.setTerrainQuality 2
VideoSettings.setGeometryQuality 2
VideoSettings.setLightingQuality 2
VideoSettings.setDynamicLightingQuality 2
VideoSettings.setDynamicShadowsQuality 2
VideoSettings.setEffectsQuality 2
VideoSettings.setTextureQuality 3
VideoSettings.setTextureFilteringQuality 2
VideoSettings.setResolution 800x600@60Hz
VideoSettings.setAntialiasing 4Samples
VideoSettings.setViewDistanceScale 1
VideoSettings.setVideoOptionScheme 1

Thanks

[ConscriptVirus]

Re: Graphic settings, system performance?

optimize ur pc first

[machstem]

Re: Graphic settings, system performance?

Thanks for the tip! I'll be sure to try it out.
One thing: when I opened the video.con file in notepad to edit the code, do I set all of the options with numbers to 4 or just one of them?
This is what it shows you:
VideoSettings.setTerrainQuality 2
VideoSettings.setGeometryQuality 2
VideoSettings.setLightingQuality 2
VideoSettings.setDynamicLightingQuality 2
VideoSettings.setDynamicShadowsQuality 2
VideoSettings.setEffectsQuality 2
VideoSettings.setTextureQuality 3
VideoSettings.setTextureFilteringQuality 2
VideoSettings.setResolution 800x600@60Hz
VideoSettings.setAntialiasing 4Samples
VideoSettings.setViewDistanceScale 1
VideoSettings.setVideoOptionScheme 1

Thanks

I changed all of these to "4"

VideoSettings.setTerrainQuality 2
VideoSettings.setGeometryQuality 2
VideoSettings.setLightingQuality 2
VideoSettings.setDynamicLightingQuality 2
VideoSettings.setDynamicShadowsQuality 2
VideoSettings.setEffectsQuality 2
VideoSettings.setTextureQuality 3
VideoSettings.setTextureFilteringQuality 2

ConscriptVirus, what do you mean by optimizing? Other than defrag, knowing your BIOS and configuring it, latest or best video drivers, etc. By changing the virtual memory settings, I have noticed a huge difference, not only in gaming, but in general. I never tinkered with it, because back in the day, using Windows 9x, I accidentally crashed my system by changing its values, and have since never bothered.

I guess after 14yrs of working with computers and optimizing systems, I'm still learning some basics.

PEACE