Why EA is not entirely to blame for the lack of foresight that is BF2

[DrunkenPirate]

Re: Why EA is not entirely to blame for the lack of foresight that is BF2

Thread edited, can the flamers and trolls please go away.

[Vasquez]

Re: Why EA is not entirely to blame for the lack of foresight that is BF2

Experiment ommitted for brevity.

Well, thanks for timing the time to check (you have BF2 installed at work? How lucky are you ). Interesting that the load times are not different. I'm not entirely sure why an non-compressed version would take the same amount of time to load as a compressed version, unless the API used to load it can't see it's uncompressed or something weird like that...

Hrm...

[rombaft]

Re: Why EA is not entirely to blame for the lack of foresight that is BF2

@topicstarter :

If you don't like it don't play it ; first , we did pay for the game, and second you are missing the point
think you could do bether : not me, but some guy on planet battlefield changed the code in the serverbrowser, and the serverbrowser got tested then by many people, everybody said the same, gamebrowser was fast, did not block, all filters worked, ....
hardware not good enough ?? please man, and about you claim 1Gb should be more then enough, well every review of BF2 says the same, the game consumes RAM way to many, and 1.5 to 2 gig is recomended, this comes from sites like tomshardware, anandtech, gamespot, ..... all the big sites said the same and expierenced bugs like everyone , so it aren't just some idiots having probs.

Then as said here before in this topic, they gave us a good browser in BF1942 years ago, but now they can't give it anymore, other games on the market work with multiple OS's and work with every videocard as long if it's stong enough, BF2 works only on XP, and only with some selected videocards, wich would mean the code can be focused on this and doesn't have to be compatible with tons of things, but still they have tons of bugs.

So yes I flame you, because you miss the point and you are probably the wurst programmer on this planet, you just won't understand a few simple basic rules and understandings

[Vasquez]

Re: Why EA is not entirely to blame for the lack of foresight that is BF2

rombaft,

I don't believe I've missed any point. You mentioned that the server browser got tested by many people and everybody said it was fast and that it "did not block". Could you perhaps point me to this reference? I also doubt they used the blocking term whatsoever, but I'm going to assume this was a misquote based on my original post.

Secondly, it's natural that the list of sites you mention would recommend 1.5->2gb of RAM. This came from their testing of the game. It still doesn't mean that it's right that the game should consume so much memory due to bad engineering.

But the clincher in your post, that I am probably the "wurst" programmer on this planet, sums up the inane ramblings elsewhere in your post. I suggest you think before you hammer out this sort of tosh on to your keyboard.

Peace out.

[TacticalSkirmish]

Re: Why EA is not entirely to blame for the lack of foresight that is BF2

Vasquez and others very interesting and intelligent discussion. Don't allow others to "de-evolve" the thread. Ignoring such comments is the only prudent thing to do.

My particular system cannot accept anything but RDRAM. If I was willing to spend a fortune I could upgrade from my existing 1 GB RDRAM setup to 1.5 GB RDRAM. Optimizing my OS and game settings is my only way of providing the best possible game experience. If the developers were to optimize their coding that would be most welcomed.

TS!

[mrbucket]

Re: Why EA is not entirely to blame for the lack of foresight that is BF2

EA sanctioned Dice to make BF2, Trauma studios was eaten by Dice (if thats right). It's been said that EA was just a backer and publisher of BF2. So who actually managed the making of BF2? Given a fair amount of time to create the game, and letting teasers out to the public well before the first release date, what the hell happened in the extra 6 months? The game was clearly mostly done(as seen in footage). Seems to me that there was mis-management somewhere.

What happened to SP/COOP? How could you offer the massive maps w/ numerous vehicles, planes, boats, and helo's, just to take them away for a single player game? Is the coding for bot support so difficult that it would simply take forever to accomplish such a feat?

How is it that "The All Seeing Eye" from yahoo can be faster and more precise when finding a server? Not to mention it does multiple game platforms on the same browser, and updates and downloads to boot.

When your at work, or school, or whatever you do, think of how much work you can do in 6 months. This is your only mission in life, to do as much work as you can for 6 months knowing you have a deadline. Do you still think they spent a fair amount of time fixing problems?

It took them a year and a half to get BF1942 where it was mostly perfect. But it never had as many glitches as BF2.

I still love this game, all things aside. But we are all beta testers as far as im concerned. We paid for this.

[Jesse]

Re: Why EA is not entirely to blame for the lack of foresight that is BF2

Then as said here before in this topic, they gave us a good browser in BF1942 years ago, but now they can't give it anymore, other games on the market work with multiple OS's and work with every videocard as long if it's stong enough, BF2 works only on XP, and only with some selected videocards, wich would mean the code can be focused on this and doesn't have to be compatible with tons of things, but still they have tons of bugs.

So yes I flame you, because you miss the point and you are probably the wurst programmer on this planet, you just won't understand a few simple basic rules and understandings

I'm having trouble understanding this...are you saying you support making the selection of hardware to run a game very limited acceptable? Even people with the "focused on" hardware are having troubles with the game. There's a difference in taking the time to optimize something to fit the particular architecture of said piece of hardware, and just limiting the hardware you can play a game acceptably with just because flexibility wasn't on the programmers agenda (or even in their vocabulary).

To some extent, I agree that you can optimize code to take advantage of the way a piece of hardware is designed, even down to the logic circuits. But RAM is RAM. You have different brands, they may have different ways of acheiving the same goal, some might have good features, but the key thing is it's RAM. The computer still accesses it in the same, basic way. And this is where Battlefield 2 fails. I personally have 1.5GB of RAM, my computer isn't a powerhouses, I don't run on all high settings, but the game still runs for me. (I do have sympathy for those who can't even play a game without the game crashing though). However, the game is just not fluid at all in the way it operates.

"Verifying Client Data" takes just as long, if not longer, than the actual loading process. As we all know the server-browser is far from efficient, and an entry level computer programmer could probably write the filters better and more efficiently than BF2 has implemented them. (I mean c'mon, they had BF-1942 under their belt and the thing works way better than the one we've been handed in BF2) The way the game handles input is also laggy, as anyone who likes to switch quickly from C4 to the detonator will tell you (or any other switches for that matter). Even try typing, and make the last letter in the chat the letter e, and hit enter as soon as you type E. If you're in a vehicle, you'll probably be ejected. Why? The game forgets the E is meant for the chat, not the game, and boots you out as it still sees that in the input stream.

I completely agree with Vasquez, and the truth is, given the source code for a lot of BF2 features, most hobbyist programmers probably COULD do a better job than DICE has done on this. (and I'm not removing EA from blame totally, they do own DICE, afterall, so it's basically liability on their behalf for allowing it or even rushing DICE to cause more problems) Honestly, a patch creates a memory leak after memory issues are already a problem? As has been said 1000's of times, "Do they even test these things?" The answer is probably no, and they apparently don't debug or try to make code more efficient either.

[HF_Martini6]

Re: Why EA is not entirely to blame for the lack of foresight that is BF2

The're many Points why this Game is as buggy as it is now.

- DICE did a f***ing bad Job coding some stuff ( i mean, most ppl have 1GB or 1.5GB RAM but not 2GB or more and not everyone has a NVidia Graphics Card)
- EA did push DICE to release the Game, whatever it was ready or not.
- The Beta Testers probably didn't take enough time or had none or didn't know s*** or they didn't Test it at all.

And there are sure more reasons for all this probs.

[Angerf1st_NL]

Re: Why EA is not entirely to blame for the lack of foresight that is BF2

Actually i do blame EA for this, they got their knife on Dice's throat. It's EA who kept pushing the hard working developers to their limit to get it done on time, if not they just release the barely working beta as they do with the rest of their games.

[rombaft]

Re: Why EA is not entirely to blame for the lack of foresight that is BF2

OK, I admit, I am a moron, realy, I just looked at the topic title and read extremely fast over the topicstarters post, this fast I actualy thaught he was defending the BF2 code, engine, ....

No, don't get me wrong, I you read my first reply you will understand I find the BF2 code bad, like topicstarter with many flaws in it , and indeed the massive use of RAM isn't quite normal but I think it's explained by the fact BF2 doesn't work like any other game, other games there engine can handle more inteligent ways to render there maps because they aren's so big, BF2 maps are large and also in hight , then take the viewdistance wich is very big and not like in many other games where you see a sort of background, in BF2 you realy see the rendered map.

Now, for example the HL2 engine, creates extreem details and doesn't use this kind of massive ram.
But the engine renders only parts, everything is devided in this engine and it's possible because the game never asks for more, now you will say the maps are also very big, well, this is a yes and no, you will never find the engine rendering as much as in BF2 where it's needed because you are playing the whole map in one time and need the whole map, what happen one one side of the map affects the total other side,(can't explain it very good, hope you will understand) . also the HL2 engine works with a kind of backgrounds , wich fools you with the viewdistance, but BF2 can't do this because what happen far away is truly happening in the game because you need this in this kind of gameplay.

For the rest, I don't find the thread anymore about the guy who changed the code of the browser, it was even here a sticky for some time.

DICE programmers did deliver us a very good game, many features, very good gameplay, but the code is terrrible, wish some other studio made BF2

[Vasquez]

Re: Why EA is not entirely to blame for the lack of foresight that is BF2

Actually i do blame EA for this, they got their knife on Dice's throat. It's EA who kept pushing the hard working developers to their limit to get it done on time, if not they just release the barely working beta as they do with the rest of their games.

As I've said before, I agree DICE were under pressure. However, BF2 was not something they had to do from "nothing". When was BF1942 released? Even if they used nothing from the original codebase (which I doubt), 80% of BF2 existed in some form or another. Ok, the 3D engine might have been a rewrite/upgrade but the network concepts/gameplay are not that much different (aside from the squad/commander aspect which from a coding standpoint is childsplay in the grand scheme of the project).

[Seal]

Re: Why EA is not entirely to blame for the lack of foresight that is BF2

lag-free environment. Many games have achieved this in less than 1gb of memory, yet BF2 struggles. I wonder why.

I have 768MB RAM and it doesent lag, my friend has 512MB RAM and it just lags the first minute of a game.

[BurnTheWeed]

Re: Why EA is not entirely to blame for the lack of foresight that is BF2

BF2 was even delayed a long time by EA to give DICE more time to code.

[Vasquez]

Re: Why EA is not entirely to blame for the lack of foresight that is BF2

OK, I admit, I am a moron

It takes a man to admit that

, realy, I just looked at the topic title and read extremely fast over the topicstarters post, this fast I actualy thaught he was defending the BF2 code, engine, ....

This would have been why I was flummuxed by your post :)

** EDIT **: Actually, I should have rethought the topic a little more, it can be a bit misleading...

Now, for example the HL2 engine, creates extreem details and doesn't use this kind of massive ram.
But the engine renders only parts, everything is devided in this engine and it's possible because the game never asks for more, now you will say the maps are also very big, well, this is a yes and no, you will never find the engine rendering as much as in BF2 where it's needed because you are playing the whole map in one time and need the whole map, what happen one one side of the map affects the total other side,(can't explain it very good, hope you will understand) . also the HL2 engine works with a kind of backgrounds , wich fools you with the viewdistance, but BF2 can't do this because what happen far away is truly happening in the game because you need this in this kind of gameplay.

You're right in that they use two different methods of rendering the "arena". As I mentioned in a previous post GTA San Andreas "streams" the map in very well to prevent having to keep the entire thing in memory, but I think the BF2 maps may be too small to warrant this kind of technology.

DICE programmers did deliver us a very good game, many features, very good gameplay, but the code is terrrible, wish some other studio made BF2

Agreed.

[strathound]

Re: Why EA is not entirely to blame for the lack of foresight that is BF2

I'm running with 512MB RAM. No problem. :)