The AT Battlefield Bad Company 2 F.A.Q.

[VashHT]

Really sorry if this has already been brought up previously, but I'm getting terrible performance with BC2 beta on my GTX 295. I have to take shadows, AA/AF, and HBAO all the way off just to get a stable 60 fps. Anyone else having issues?

From what we've been hearing nvidia cards have pretty bad performance in the beta. Some people have mentioned that the newest beta drivers help quite a bit. I've been running the beta with all the settings pretty much maxed(4xAA instead of 8xAA) at 1900x1200 and it runs great for me.

I get around 60FPS running around with it dipping into the 40s during heavy fighting, so it stays really smooth for me. I'm not sure if vsync is really working in this game or not, but it's on for me right now so I might be able to crank out a few more fps if I turn that off.

 

[EvilComputer92]

They better fix the performance issues in this game or I'll be cancelling my preorder and getting it for 360, since this is a obvious console port anyway.

 

[Jschmuck2]

They better fix the performance issues in this game or I'll be cancelling my preorder and getting it for 360, since this is a obvious console port anyway.

Yeah! That'll show em! Buying the same game from the same company on a different platform! Harumphharumphharumph.

It's a beta. And an old one at that. Deal.

 

[EvilComputer92]

Yeah! That'll show em! Buying the same game from the same company on a different platform! Harumphharumphharumph.

It's a beta. And an old one at that. Deal.

I'm not trying to boycott the game. I think the game is great. I am simply buying it for a platform where it runs better.

It's not an "old beta". An "old beta" doesn't release a month before the full game does. A proper beta would have released at the same time the PS3 one did so they had much more time to fix the issues. There are several idiotic console oriented decisions that they don't even see as issues. Like having only software audio instead of a hardware option, placing an additional strain on CPU. Not to mention this game tanks on any dual core.

This game has already been released to manufacturing. At this point your either looking at patches or nothing at all.

 

[VashHT]

I'm not trying to boycott the game. I think the game is great. I am simply buying it for a platform where it runs better.

It's not an "old beta". An "old beta" doesn't release a month before the full game does. A proper beta would have released at the same time the PS3 one did so they had much more time to fix the issues. There are several idiotic console oriented decisions that they don't even see as issues. Like having only software audio instead of a hardware option, placing an additional strain on CPU. Not to mention this game tanks on any dual core.

This game has already been released to manufacturing. At this point your either looking at patches or nothing at all.

Alright you're being a little unfair considering you have an old opteron CPU (if your profile is correct). Running the game on a mid range video card and a really old dual core proc and complaining about performance is a little unfair.

EDIT: I also just wanted to add that software audio usually only takes a few % of a processors nowadays. It's certainly not like it used to be where hardware audio would actually give you a FPS increase.

 

[scooterlibby]

Performance has been pretty bad on my system, which is no slouch, but I'll be reserving final judgment for the full release. Also, I am hoping to be done with SLI and have Fermi or a pumped 5870 soon after the full release.

 

[uclaLabrat]

I'm not trying to boycott the game. I think the game is great. I am simply buying it for a platform where it runs better.

It's not an "old beta". An "old beta" doesn't release a month before the full game does. A proper beta would have released at the same time the PS3 one did so they had much more time to fix the issues. There are several idiotic console oriented decisions that they don't even see as issues. Like having only software audio instead of a hardware option, placing an additional strain on CPU. Not to mention this game tanks on any dual core.

This game has already been released to manufacturing. At this point your either looking at patches or nothing at all.

The sound on software issue wasn't decided by DICE, it was decided by microsoft when they introduced Vista. Sound hasn't been done on hardware since Vista came out, when they eliminated direct sound completely and moved it to software.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

not for those of us who play these games competitively.

Playing video games competitively is so dense with douchebaggery that it has collapsed into a black douchehole.

 

[Vdubchaos]

I'm not trying to boycott the game. I think the game is great. I am simply buying it for a platform where it runs better.

But looks LOT worse.

Do yourself a favor, do side by side comparison of 360 and PC. I have with Modern Warfare 2, it's NIGHT and DAY.

When you do it you will see how outdated 360 hardware really is....they downgrade the game in order for it to be playable (simple as that)

 

[Eugene86]

I masturbate often enough without having to jack myself off with FPS numbers while playing games. I play the game, it feels smooth. If you want to be a pretentious dickwad then that's your prerogative. Now if you don't mind I'm going to go jack off. To porn.

I think you misunderstood my intention. I don't play games looking at the FPS either, but I know for a fact that if the frame rate is below 30 or so, I am not too happy with the performance as I start noticing choppiness.

This is different for every person, which is why I hate when people answer a performance related question by saying that their game plays very smoothly.

When Crysis was just released, I had this guy at school telling me that he runs it with every setting maxed out perfectly on his laptop... I didn't believe him and, sure enough, when he showed me the game, it was running at around 10fps. For him, the game ran very well. For me, it was just a slide-show.

 

[GullyFoyle]

Playing video games competitively is so dense with douchebaggery that it has collapsed into a black douchehole.

LOL, it's starting to feel like ATOT in here...I hope some moderator doesn't move the thread...

 

[GullyFoyle]

Interesting items from other forums:

Hardcore Server List at the ZiiP Community.

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Filtering your serverlist to show only local servers at Overclock.net forums.

If you have been playing the new Battlefield Bad Company 2 beta, you probably know all about the horrible server browser. You are probably looking for a way to get rid of all the servers from other countries especially. Well, now there is a way (thanks to a big tip from dardf over at NFC, he deserves full credit for this ).

How to do it:
Open the BFBC2Beta folder in your documents folder. If you are on windows 7, it will be located here -> C:\Users\[username]\Documents\BFBC2Beta
Open GameSettings.ini in notepad or some text editing software.
Scroll to the very bottom of the file and replace the line that starts with FavoriteGames= with FavoriteGames=Chicago;Virginia;Cali;Texas;Denver;S an Jose;Atlanta;Dallas;NY;New York;Seattle;Quebec;Montreal;LA;WA;WDC;
Save the file
Boot into the game and in the bottom right corner there is a servers tab, use that instead of the one under multiplayer at the top.

All that does is search for any server that have the string "Chicago", "Virginia", "Cali", etc.. in their server name. So, it can also have many other uses such as if you wanted only hardcore servers, you could add "hardcore;" to the end of the semi-colon separated list and it would return only hardcore servers.

Note for users outside of North America, You can use the same trick but replace the string of North American cities with cities from around you. So, for example if you are in the UK you might use FavoriteGames=uk or if you are in Israel you might use FavoriteGames=Israel.

Hopefully that helps people, because as of now the beta has a fairly poor server browser and it is fairly time consuming to find servers

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Bazajaytee of DICE says it will take more than 15 C4 to blow the M-COM crate in the retail version.

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If that happens, here's a guide on how to take out a building housing the crate with 6 C4 or less: FocusedGaming.com.

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Here's another good one from FocusedGaming, general tips and tricks thread. I especially like this suggestion about C4'ing trees in strategic positions!

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Posted today by user MikaelKalms on forums.electronicarts.co.uk:

The rendering programmer is making patch preparations. We should get one out (some perf improvements and compatibility fixes) this week. That is, unless something huge and unforeseen shows up tomorrow.

I had ideally hoped to have had a patch out yesterday, but we were finding several bad crashes in the singleplayer game, which took something like 3 full days of attention from almost all the dev team.

Note: User appears to be A.K.A. Kalmalyzer on Twitter (DICE lead PC Dev), but he does not have DICE tags on the forum. Asked to confirm the identity of the poster on the forums, repi said on Twitter "I think so"... Edit:: User has DICE tags now.

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[Zargon]

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Bazajaytee of DICE says it will take more than 15 C4 to blow the M-COM crate in the retail version.

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If that happens, here's a guide on how to take out a building housing the crate with 6 C4 or less: FocusedGaming.com.

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Here's another good one from FocusedGaming, general tips and tricks thread. I especially like this suggestion about C4'ing trees in strategic positions!

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the buildings can easily be patched to be stronger as well.

I know its less realistic, but it really distrubs the point of the game mode to do it that way. there will be a regular game mode not focused on mcoms with the retail version.

 

[Jschmuck2]

Man I'm glad to hear they're upping the MCOM's resistance to C4. That will sure as hell make rush mode more fun.

 

[VashHT]

Performance has been pretty bad on my system, which is no slouch, but I'll be reserving final judgment for the full release. Also, I am hoping to be done with SLI and have Fermi or a pumped 5870 soon after the full release.

DICE's engines have never worked well for multi-GPU setups for me. When BF2142 was coming out I had a 7950GX2 and the game ran better with SLi disabled.

 

[VashHT]

Man I'm glad to hear they're upping the MCOM's resistance to C4. That will sure as hell make rush mode more fun.

I agree with this, rush mode is so much more fun when the defenders actually have a chance to defuse.

 

[Tab]

DICE's engines have never worked well for multi-GPU setups for me. When BF2142 was coming out I had a 7950GX2 and the game ran better with SLi disabled.

They're aware of SLI/Crossfire Issues, check out the ea.co.uk forums for more information.

 

[Zargon]

there is nothing more borin than them c4'ing the mcoms and ATV's ahead super fast to do it again

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

When trees fall is there a collision engine for them so that they can kill or injure players?

 

[EvilComputer92]

Alright you're being a little unfair considering you have an old opteron CPU (if your profile is correct). Running the game on a mid range video card and a really old dual core proc and complaining about performance is a little unfair.

EDIT: I also just wanted to add that software audio usually only takes a few % of a processors nowadays. It's certainly not like it used to be where hardware audio would actually give you a FPS increase.

My profile is not correct. I'm running a Core 2 Duo at 3.9 Ghz with 4GB RAM. It runs every game I have better than any Core 2 Quad because it runs at higher clocks and most games do not take advantage of 4 cores. There is no reason a console port should have this kind of performance. Also, how exactly is a GTX 275 a mid range card? I have it overclocked past GTX 285 speeds and it runs every other game flawlessly at 1920x1200.

The sound on software issue wasn't decided by DICE, it was decided by microsoft when they introduced Vista. Sound hasn't been done on hardware since Vista came out, when they eliminated direct sound completely and moved it to software.

Microsoft isn't forcing DICE to do anything. I can name you a dozen games that take advantage of hardware audio since vista came out. This is a decision made by DICE, not by anyone else, and it was made because they were too lazy to change the audio code that was designed for the multi core procs of consoles over to the dedicated audio hardware that PCs have.

 

[VashHT]

My profile is not correct. I'm running a Core 2 Duo at 3.9 Ghz with 4GB RAM. It runs every game I have better than any Core 2 Quad because it runs at higher clocks and most games do not take advantage of 4 cores. There is no reason a console port should have this kind of performance. Also, how exactly is a GTX 275 a mid range card? I have it overclocked past GTX 285 speeds and it runs every other game flawlessly at 1920x1200.

Then by all means buy it for the 360, I don't really care lol. From what I've noticed though a lot of people with nvidia cards are having performance problems, have you tried the newest beta drivers?

 

[uclaLabrat]

My profile is not correct. I'm running a Core 2 Duo at 3.9 Ghz with 4GB RAM. It runs every game I have better than any Core 2 Quad because it runs at higher clocks and most games do not take advantage of 4 cores. There is no reason a console port should have this kind of performance. Also, how exactly is a GTX 275 a mid range card? I have it overclocked past GTX 285 speeds and it runs every other game flawlessly at 1920x1200.



Microsoft isn't forcing DICE to do anything. I can name you a dozen games that take advantage of hardware audio since vista came out. This is a decision made by DICE, not by anyone else, and it was made because they were too lazy to change the audio code that was designed for the multi core procs of consoles over to the dedicated audio hardware that PCs have.

Isn't that why creative developed Alchemy? Because the audio calls went to software, and not to hardware? So alchemy re-routed the calls as a wrapper and directed them to the sound card?

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=79408

Sound about right?

 

[VashHT]

Isn't that why creative developed Alchemy? Because the audio calls went to software, and not to hardware? So alchemy re-routed the calls as a wrapper and directed them to the sound card?

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=79408

Sound about right?

I think it depends on whether the game uses openAL or directsound3D.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

When trees fall is there a collision engine for them so that they can kill or injure players?

I think so. A tree fell on a friend of mine and killed him.

Anyone else annoyed by how effective FRAG grenades are at destroying cover?

 

[EvilComputer92]

Isn't that why creative developed Alchemy? Because the audio calls went to software, and not to hardware? So alchemy re-routed the calls as a wrapper and directed them to the sound card?

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=79408

Sound about right?

No, it's not. Alchemy was developed to restore EAX and Directsound 3D in games, not hardware audio. EAX is Creative's propriatary technology and has been depreciated to allow OpenAL to become the standard. OpenAL is now the audio standard and is supported in Vista, and includes all the features of EAX. Alchemy was developed to allow older games that had EAX to work in Vista.

Your own link says so
"Hardware audio will not be disappearing with the launch of Windows Vista. Games that support OpenAL today will continue to provide full hardware-enhanced 3D audio under Windows Vista."

So it's purely the fault of DICE.