Maybe this will end all the threads about SF performance

[Domicinator]

You have to have pretty strong character to play Special Forces. There are many new challenges in this game that were not present in vanilla BF2, and many new gameplay elements. Among them are crashes to desktop, poor framerates, unoptimized environments, lost server connections, and a buggy server browser that has still never been fixed.

The fact of the matter is that this expansion pack is not selective about who's machine it will and will not run on. You could have a bazillion gigs of RAM and an Nvidia 7800 SLI configuration with a top end CPU and it still might not run correctly on your machine. That's just the facts. Some people with awesome machines run it fine, some don't, some with crappy machines run it fine, some don't. What you have to let go of is idea that you can actually make it work the way you want it to.

You can try to get help. You can go to EA's forums, heck, you can try THIS forum. You can tell them all the things you've done to make it work, including a fresh install of the game AND Windows. EA will be unresponsive. The people on this very forum will tell you that it's your machine because they don't have any problems. (It's becoming quite obvious that if you can run this game at all the highest settings that you're in the minority.) In the end, I can only suggest one thing if you're chugging FPS rate is getting you down:

You HAVE to turn down your settings, and you should avoid 64 player servers. I know, I know. You have a great PC that far exceeds the system requirements for this game. You just spent about $9 billion on your new gaming rig and don't see why you can't get SF to run when you spent all that money. IT'S NOT YOUR PC. Give up and turn your settings down, or soon you will stop enjoying the game. You are not going to get any help here or in the EA forums, because nobody knows why it's happening, and then everybody becomes an expert on what you should do, because it runs fine on their PC. Trust me, the people that have no problems with this game are a rare breed, and sometimes they're probably just plain lying.

There will probably be a new patch down the road. This has happened with all the Battlefield games, and with one that looks as realistic as this one is trying to look, there are going to be problems. Could they have been avoided? Definitely. But EA rushed it out, and they'll either fix it or they won't. In the meantime, enjoy the game for what it is and have some fun. Turn your dynamic lighting and shadowing down to low, put anti aliasing on 2x, do whatever you have to do to get it to run. Then, play it. You'll love yourself for doing this because you'll actually start enjoying the game again.

I'm telling you all this because I have a PC that can run F.E.A.R., Half Life 2, Half Life 2 Lost Coast, FarCry, etc. on all the highest settings and I have trouble on SF with framerate. I'm building a new gaming rig this month with more RAM, more video horsepower, and much better processing power, and am fully expecting this game to possibly still not run on the highest settings due to poor coding. And I'm ok with that.

[Alcorr]

Re: Maybe this will end all the threads about SF performance

Good post, good points, EA sucks.

[wbcninjaofmist]

Re: Maybe this will end all the threads about SF performance

smart man , a bit long winded but true to the point.... we have ourselves a fun but sloppy piece of software.

[3Libras]

Re: Maybe this will end all the threads about SF performance

I suffer from bad framerates too, but only on certain maps/areas. Submarine pens on Leviathan = noplz. SF just doesn't really ring my bells, and I've been playing more and more vanilla. Other than the unlocks, which are fun, buying the expansion hasn't justified itself yet. :<

Tony montana = noob toob whore. How depressing...

[[Ret]B|Kayess]

Re: Maybe this will end all the threads about SF performance

about time someone told everyone to shut up, stop whining and turn down their settings, good post (ill still have mine on hight tho muahaha, mine runs smooth, i just reinstalled, it got rid of the CTD bug, and my controls for chopper/plane work in vanilla again, after reinstall)

[EzyStyles]

Re: Maybe this will end all the threads about SF performance

totally agree. I have 2 gigs DDR2 ram, 7800GTX and im running at 1024x768 with medium details, no AA and still runs like crap esp the aircraft carrier level. 64 player maps just kills my system and frame rates of like 10. seriously buggy.. wish EA will release a patch very soon..

[imported_TheDragon]

Re: Maybe this will end all the threads about SF performance

OP
well written
lucky here
10124x780, 1.5Gb ram, x8ooXL
2xaa. shadows and lites off
rest high
60 +hz
as I said lucky - worked on 1st install
BTW
getting 90 hz on vanilla BF2

[vbl]

Re: Maybe this will end all the threads about SF performance

Tony montana = noob toob whore. How depressing...

Not at all. He only used it to kill groups of enemies, and he used the rifle for most of his kills.

[Domicinator]

Re: Maybe this will end all the threads about SF performance

OP
well written
lucky here
10124x780, 1.5Gb ram, x8ooXL
2xaa. shadows and lites off
rest high
60 +hz
as I said lucky - worked on 1st install
BTW
getting 90 hz on vanilla BF2

I run the machine in my sig with dynamic shadows and lights on low, lighting on medium, and anti aliasing on 2x. Everything else is on high. With this setup, I can run any map pretty smoothly, except for Warlord which still hiccups every now and then. The only other thing I do is stay out of the 64 player maps. There are so many people in those that have their machines cranked up too high and bogging down the server that it eventually crashes or lags down to about .5 fps. Oh yeah, I also do a restart before every session of SF. It seems to help when I clear out the RAM and start fresh.

[Tobacco]

Re: Maybe this will end all the threads about SF performance

about time someone told everyone to shut up, stop whining and turn down their settings, good post (ill still have mine on hight tho muahaha, mine runs smooth, i just reinstalled, it got rid of the CTD bug, and my controls for chopper/plane work in vanilla again, after reinstall)

Nice post, and I don't mean to steal your thunder, but I've been saying this(turn your settings down) for what seems like forever. As far as SF goes, yeah I think it's lame, but worth the $30 for the unlocks/stun grenades in Vanilla BF2 .


T

[Guidon666]

Re: Maybe this will end all the threads about SF performance

about time someone told everyone to shut up, stop whining and turn down their settings, good post (ill still have mine on hight tho muahaha, mine runs smooth, i just reinstalled, it got rid of the CTD bug, and my controls for chopper/plane work in vanilla again, after reinstall)

Huh?

About every 3rd post, and at least half the posts complaining about frame rates are met with this same statement "Turn down your settings". Nothing new was stated here. Simply a new post saying what a lot of people have bee saying for a long time.

But... I havent run into any of the lag/problems... etc so I am also one of the lucky ones who just sit back and watch people complain.

Domicinator:
There are so many people in those that have their machines cranked up too high and bogging down the server that it eventually crashes or lags down to about .5 fps.

Not sure I understand this (And dont clim to be a computer savy person), But how do other people haveing there setting on high... bog down the server? I was under the impression that the server essentially just tracked and sent data relevant to player location, aim, action ect.... Not wether I have my settings on High with dynamic shadows etc. Maybe I simply misunderstand what you are saying, but I am baffled!! I would have figured that it is not so much the people whose machines are set high... but rather those that have poor connections (Ping rate) that would do more harm.

As far as Restarting to get your RAM back.... There is a program called Cacheman

http://www.outertech.com/index.php?_charisma_page=product&id=2

That is free and may save you from having to restart your system just to play a game. I use to use it prior to adding another gb of RAM.

[LaserCobra]

Re: Maybe this will end all the threads about SF performance

I'd be curious to know what people are setting their graphics card to. No one makes that distinction and only talk about in game settings.

Card settings:
AA = 4X
AF = 8X
Image Settings = Performance
All my optimization features are ON (i.e. Trilinear optimization, thriple buffering, etc)
I render only 2 frames ahead verses the default 3

In game settings:
1280 x 1024 @ 75MHz
Terrain = M
Effects = H
Geometry = H
Texture = M
Lighting = M
Dynamic Shadow = M
Dynamic Lighting = M
Texture Filtering = M (same function as AF)
AA = OFF (no sense in overriding a setting I already have enabled in the card's menu. can also cause stability issues if you have card set to something and game to another)
Sound = M
Render = Software
EAX = OFF

Remember that even IF your sound card is in the list of supported devices for EAX sound, it takes a lot to process all that data which = frame drop...

Vanilla I average 70-80FPS
SF I average 50

Asus P4C800-E mobo
Intel 2.4CGHz @ 3.00
1Gig Kingston HyperX PC3200 @ 420MHz
BFG 6800GT OC @ 402/1100
OLD SB Live Value sound card
Wester Digital S-ATA Raptor HD

[Jofaba]

Re: Maybe this will end all the threads about SF performance

I agree that by this point it's easy to almost forget the fact that there is a game involved that some of us aren't even getting to get our hands wet with because we're obsessed with trying to get a steady 50-60fps. It's also very apparent that no matter how much you scream at the expansion what your super-rad specs are, it won't even look you in the eyes before it starts laughing. However, a good addition or even a sticky, would be HOW to go about lowering your settings.

Sure, it sounds simple. Just got into video, change a few things, save, close, clear your cache and then reoptimize. But why kill your vanilla specs if it was running fine? I've been playing around with setting up "multiple profiles" since someone suggested it to me, but I'd personally, and I'm sure it'd be a huge help to the community members less technically inclined, to see a simple tutorial on creating multiple profiles that let you choose between different specs without having to create multiple account names (thus splitting up your awards/etc).

I thought I figured it out when I made a copy of "0001" and renamed it "0002", made desired changes in the two, cleared my cache and reoptimized both. However, 0002 didn't reoptimize. Unfortunately I don't know enough to say whether both profiles share the cached files and whether that's okay.

That said, there's only one thing keeping me from giving up the search for Special Forces set on all high, and that's the fact that I actually got to that point once. Unfortunately, something in my registry or elsewhere was causing ServerLauncher to boot me from my own LAN even though both were 1.12 patched. After that I fell back into the same problems. But I was once there. *shrugs* but yeah, I kinda give up for the most part. I get to go back onto my 10k rpm Raptor tomorrow because my replacement is due, and if it's the same old same old, I'll submit to lowered settings. But what's the best way to go about it and keep vanilla BF2 on high? Thanks in advance

[IndianScout]

Re: Maybe this will end all the threads about SF performance

if you want great performance and still play on 64 player servers

head to the new NVIDIA A64 servers, things scream and no lag..

[[1966]Zombiefly]

Re: Maybe this will end all the threads about SF performance

I had major problems with SF crashing to desktop and being laggy on my athlon xp 3000, 1gb ram and geforce 6800gt. Before sf and 1.12 patch, everything was fine.

I have however, found a fix.

If you go and buy the following:
athlon 3800 x2 processor, asus sli-premium motherboard, 2gb corsair ram, geforce 6800 Ultra

it will work. Full settings for sound/graphics.

Come on, its only around £700 GBP. what's wrong with you all? :laugh:

The bottom line is (as has always been) EA/DICE don't care. They never test anything, and don't really care if it works for you or not. They take the money and fix things randomly, issuing infrequent patches and "expansions" when they feel like it.

Things have never been any different with the battlefield series. They ARE NOT going to change their ways now. It sucks as the battlefield series is amazing, but hey, that's life