Battlefield 2: The Video Card Controversy

[GeneralAres]

Popular Technology.net

As a PC Gamer you expect to upgrade, you expect that at some point your hardware will not run the latest games acceptably. Battlefield 2 does not even give you that option. It attempts to make all non DirectX 9 compatible video cards obsolete. Which means all GeForce 4 and older video cards will not run Battlefield 2. You cannot even start up the menu. Neither Electronic Arts nor the game's developer DICE have any plans to fix this. Even though the GeForce 4 line of video cards has enough horsepower to render the game it is not compatible with Pixel Shader 1.4. Emulation to Pixel Shader 1.3 would easily make the game playable on these cards but redundant texture checks make this difficult to implement.

The response from Electronic Arts on the Issue was:

"We've been talking to Benjamin Smith on the development team about this. There are no plans to implement GeForce 4 support in a patch. The engine was not built to run acceptably (performance or appearance-wise) on the GeForce 4 series of cards."

Then why does it run on slower cards such as the ATi Radeon 8500? The performance of this card is no better then the GeForce 4 line except for the inclusion of Pixel Shader 1.4 support.

 

[sandorski]

meh, was bound to happen soone or later.

 

[Czar]

nothing wrong with that

 

[Seeruk]

If you wanna play a game with a cutting-edge gfx engine.... you need a cutting edge system.

Deal with it.... after all my Audi A4 aint gonna win me a Grand Prix...

 

[Emultra]

I think they mean that the GF4 is purposefully left out without a proper reason.

If it really couldn't run the game, then it would be logical. The thing is, it can. It can even start the game with some tweaking of the game files. However, the following check points in-game make it much harder to continue.

But the way it is now, it's pretty much "the GF4 cannot run our game" - "yes it can, all you need to do is to drop the numerous shader checks that block it out for no reason" - "the GF4 wasn't meant to run our game"...

 

[otispunkmeyer]

pretty good for a TWIWMTBP game isnt it

more ATI cards are supported than NVidia cards, and if u look in the manual theres no mention of support for the 6800U PCI-E either! lol
and im sure most ATI' cards will run it faster than their NV equivalents....TWIWMTBP really doesnt make sense most of the time.

the 8500, although has PS1.4 was ATI's answer to the GF3, then NV hit back with the GF4. its a bit of a shame that valve can make HL2, one of the best looking games out there, run on lowly hardware such as the radeon 7000 etc, yet BF2 which in all honesty is nothing special to look at requires you have a DX9 part, and if you want any level of performance something 9800pro or better is needed.

valve should stop making games, and turn to teaching!

 

[akubi]

runs like a champ on my little 6600gt. sell your gf4 and buy a cheap 6600gt for like <150

 

[NatePo717]

yup. my 6600GT can run it ~60 FPS on high settings with no shadows at 1280 x 960. It's good stuff.

 

[Stuxnet]

The complaining is a little unfounded if you ask me. The system requirements make no bones about not supporting the GF4 line of cards. Like someone else said, if it was economically advantageous/feasible to include additional GPU's in the scope of compatibility, I'm sure they would have done so.

 

[Emultra]

But it's not that complex. All they would have needed to do is to try less hard in implementing shader checks and it would have worked.

This is no big financial decision; it's a piece of unnecessary code.

 

[Farmer]

Well, I got a friend whose upgrading to a 9800Pro from a GFC4 just to play BF2. By the way it runs on FX-cards, I dont think the game will fare very well on GFC4s anyhow.

 

[Stuxnet]

Originally posted by: Emultra
But it's not that complex. All they would have needed to do is to try less hard in implementing shader checks and it would have worked.

This is no big financial decision; it's a piece of unnecessary code.

I'm sure it's not that simple, or they would have done it. Do you truthfully understand how to make the game compatible with PS 1.3? I sure don't... and unless you do, it's a little foolish to just wave your hand and say "it's easy to do because it's unecessary code". My guess is that it would have required a separate execution path (aka: MORE code) and time/budget constraints prevented this. This is just my speculation, but I'm sure it's safe to say that if it was as easy as you claim, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: Emultra
But it's not that complex. All they would have needed to do is to try less hard in implementing shader checks and it would have worked.

This is no big financial decision; it's a piece of unnecessary code.

I do not think that your assessment is true, you can disable the shader checks and play with a GF4 if you want (single player or non-punkbuster servers) but it's UGLY. Things do not have the correct colors, for example. This leads me to believe that the shader checks are there for a reason.

 

[Emultra]

That may be true. But being more flexible with shaders is still something they should have done (look at HL2 for a good example).

Not that it affects me personally.

 

[Stuxnet]

Originally posted by: Emultra
That may be true. But being more flexible with shaders is still something they should have done (look at HL2 for a good example).

Not that it affects me personally.

Note that HL2 took 6 years to develop... Battlefield 2 has been in development, AFAIK, for a little less than 3 years. It's possible - especially with EA in control - that DICE did not have the time and/or money to make the game as scalable as HL2. So, they chose to build the game for the current generation of video cards. If they were forced to make a choice between current gen and last gen, I personally think they made a very wise decision. BF2 is getting a lot of praise for how good it looks, and I know it's quite posh to say "graphics != gameplay", but I think that's a load of BS and I don't think that a fraction of the people who say that actually believe it. Part of what makes BF2 so good is that it really pulls you into the atmosphere. That atmosphere is made up of the teamwork, graphics, controls, sound, etc. Graphics are a very important part of a very complex puzzle...

But I digress . It's too bad that owners of those cards have to hack the game to play it, but the system requirements were honest and I have a hard time faulting DICE (or even EA for that matter - development cycles are already out of control). Part of being a PC gamer, in my opinion, is operating under the risk that you'll have to upgrade as new tech hits the market. My strategy has been one of staying a product cycle or two behind the times. I'm just now retiring a 9600Pro that I bought two years ago (for $199 I think) and replacing it with a 6800GT (for $350). If I get 2 years out of the GT, I'll be happy. If I couldn't stomach the upgrades, I'd resign myself to an Xbox.

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: Emultra
That may be true. But being more flexible with shaders is still something they should have done (look at HL2 for a good example).

Not that it affects me personally.

'Should have done' is an easy thing to suggest when you are not paying the bills nor looking at revenue requirements.

People here (me included) have no idea of the actual market makeup, and how each market differs for each game.

One possible explanation is that Valve potentially had more low end machine cusomers because of all the people who played CS on less than modern hardware, but EA/DICE did not have the same market % or low-rated systems, so they made a different decision on spending their resources.

My point is that it's easy to say what they should have done when you don't have to worry about time and money, but if there's anybody who would demand features if they thought they'd be profitable it's EA.

I would be willing to bet that it is not a decision that they made lightly, and I'm sure a reasonably thorough market analysis preceeded that decision. If the decision were made by a different company I would be more inclined to believe that it was a seat of the pants decision, but we're talking about a game published by EA, and if they thought it were important, I think they'd have no qualms telling DICE early on that GF4 support NEEDS to be a part of the game... or else.

 

[Emultra]

Thing is, I don't see that many shaders in operation in BF2. There seem to be none in the terrain (unlike HL2), and aside from the water and some effects, how extensively are they used?

Then again, maybe nVidia paid the companies to willfully and purposefully exclude support for the GF4 cards, so that people would buy 7800GTX's instead.

TWIMTBP.

 

[Concillian]

I'm sure EA would not pass up that opportunity if nVidia offered.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: Emultra
Thing is, I don't see that many shaders in operation in BF2. There seem to be none in the terrain (unlike HL2), and aside from the water and some effects, how extensively are they used?

Then again, maybe nVidia paid the companies to willfully and purposefully exclude support for the GF4 cards, so that people would buy 7800GTX's instead.

TWIMTBP.

The blurring from concussion effects are Shaders, aren't they?

 

[shortylickens]

Originally posted by: akubi
runs like a champ on my little 6600gt. sell your gf4 and buy a cheap 6600gt for like <150

Agreed. The GF4 Ti series was great back in their day. But times have changed. You need more modern hardware to match the modern software.

And I stand by my old philosophy:
You need (AT LEAST) a $200 video card every 2 years, or a $400 video card every 4 years if you want to keep playing games. And thats only the bare minumum.

If you have the money: A $400 video card every year is needed for peak frame rates.

 

[MoboMojo]

The complaining is a little unfounded if you ask me. The system requirements make no bones about not supporting the GF4 line of cards.

Well, apparently not ALL of the boxes list the system requirements, so that would make the complaints pretty valid.

My early teenage son likes playing battlefield/strategy-type games. He's got a decent system (Athlon64/3200+, 1GB Corsair memory), but he's on a budget and decided to keep his Geforce4 4200TI video card. He bought BF2 today in Target and the box DID NOT have any system requirements listed -- but it did have the Nvidia logo on it. So he bought it (he's heard some of the hype from friends at school). Took it home tonight and the game won't even start. He called me to take a look to find the problem. When I told him that the 'readme' file says he video card can't run the game, he got pretty pissed --- and I don't blame him one bit. He doesn't have the $$$ to blow on a new video card (even on a HOT deal).

The game's going back to Target tomorrow for a refund --- I don't care if the package was opened. Its deceitful for a game to be sold with very state-of-the-art video requirements that are not specified outside the package. EA and Nvidia should be ashamed to put out a POS game that won't even run in a dumbed-down mode on a perfectly good (and pretty fast) video card.

 

[imported_FishTaco]

Originally posted by: MoboMojo

The complaining is a little unfounded if you ask me. The system requirements make no bones about not supporting the GF4 line of cards.

Well, apparently not ALL of the boxes list the system requirements, so that would make the complaints pretty valid.

My early teenage son likes playing battlefield/strategy-type games. He's got a decent system (Athlon64/3200+, 1GB Corsair memory), but he's on a budget and decided to keep his Geforce4 4200TI video card. He bought BF2 today in Target and the box DID NOT have any system requirements listed -- but it did have the Nvidia logo on it. So he bought it (he's heard some of the hype from friends at school). Took it home tonight and the game won't even start. He called me to take a look to find the problem. When I told him that the 'readme' file says he video card can't run the game, he got pretty pissed --- and I don't blame him one bit. He doesn't have the $$$ to blow on a new video card (even on a HOT deal).

The game's going back to Target tomorrow for a refund --- I don't care if the package was opened. Its deceitful for a game to be sold with very state-of-the-art video requirements that are not specified outside the package. EA and Nvidia should be ashamed to put out a POS game that won't even run in a dumbed-down mode on a perfectly good (and pretty fast) video card.

The system requirements aren't on the box, they are on one of the two stickers that seals the box shut. One sticker has an EA logo background and says "Security Device Enclosed" the other sticker has the system requirements. If the box didn't have both stickers sealing the box it might have been previously opened. Also the sticker with the system requirements is very specific about which chipset is supported.

You might suggest to your son to try demos first from now on, that way he won't have a problem buying a game his rig can't run.

 

[GeneralAres]

You might suggest to your son to try demos first from now on, that way he won't have a problem buying a game his rig can't run.

There are plenty of people who are running into the same problem. Some preordered, some picked it off the shelf. The reasoning is simply that the GeForce 4 line is not obsolete in that it can run Doom3, HL2 and Farcry fine. So why would would anyone expect it to not even startup BF2? It is one thing getting it on a GF4 and it running only on the lower detail levels then to not be able to even start up the game!

 

[igowerf]

It's ironic that the demo has the nVidia logo as one of the intro movies.

 

[Seeruk]

Originally posted by: GeneralAres

You might suggest to your son to try demos first from now on, that way he won't have a problem buying a game his rig can't run.

There are plenty of people who are running into the same problem. Some preordered, some picked it off the shelf. The reasoning is simply that the GeForce 4 line is not obsolete in that it can run Doom3, HL2 and Farcry fine. So why would would anyone expect it to not even startup BF2? It is one thing getting it on a GF4 and it running only on the lower detail levels then to not be able to even start up the game!

Doom 3 is 6-12 months old already
Likewise HL2
Farcry is over 12 months old

Technology cycles are 18 months

Your card was already pushin its limits with Farcry - get over it and be thankful it lasted as long as it did!