Battlefield 2142

[Koroush Ghazi]

Managed to play a couple of hours of BF2142 last night. Mixed results I have to say.

The game kept booting me with a 'PunkBuster' error message. It turns out you have to leave the PnkBstrA service enabled for the game to work (previously I don't recall this being necessary).

With the PunkBuster boots fixed, the game then proceeded to crash twice upon joining a game - which has never happened before. Not a good sign.

Then after a while the game seemed to stabilize, but unfortunately on several servers the lag was much worse than before. Almost unplayable in some cases, and certainly everyone was publicly complaining about it so it wasn't my machine. Let's hope this is just due to the post-patch surge putting a strain on the Master Server and nothing more permanent.

In terms of gameplay, it has definitely improved for me with the reduction of the APM blast radius. I don't have any major gameplay complaints now, with the possible exception of the Titan gun spam, but I'm not sure how EA can fix that (the gunner dying if their turret is blown up is one change I'd suggest).

Anyway the game is finally coming to a completed state, and if they resolve the lag issues to some extent then I may well get back into it more permanently

[burnttoast_87]

By the time they fix all the small issues with the BF2 engine games i.e. BF2 and 2142, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars will be out. Maybe that will be a motivator for them as many regular BF players are looking to switch over. That said the game is in a lot better state than it was at release and i still enjoy it immensely.

[ChaosBahamut]

Originally Posted by Koroush Ghazi

Managed to play a couple of hours of BF2142 last night. Mixed results I have to say.

The game kept booting me with a 'PunkBuster' error message. It turns out you have to leave the PnkBstrA service enabled for the game to work (previously I don't recall this being necessary).

Yeah, as of PB Client version 1.7, PnkBstrA is not optional. Personally, I don't find it to take up a whole lot of resources, but regardless. I have yet to play as of the 1.25 patch as I have been busy, but I'll get back to you if I've been having crash on server join issues with this one. (which would be a new event for me personally, as lag aside I found BF2142 to be decently stable)

[Chickenfeed]

I was curious if anyone has had any issues running this game on Vista x64. I've recently added another dual channel kit of ram so i decided to give this game a spin as i know the engine likes its memory. Thing is though it appears not to get along so well with x64 as far as i can tell. I attempted to force XP SP2 compatibility mode on the exe but the game won't even detect the DVD when i do this.

Main problems i am having is random slowdowns and heavy hard disk usage ( i've seen my memory usage go up to 75% and it was still paging by the looks of things...)

One thing i found is a 1024MB page file is not adequate even with 4gb of ram. I am trying 2048 currently but i think that may not even be sufficient ( BF2142 gets memory errors out the wazoo with a 1024mb page file ; sanity check.dll in particular)

Anyways if anyone has any insight into this it is much appreciated.

[Whizzer]

Be sure to check article. It was enough for me to order another 2GB Ram and it should be here tomorrow. I probably won't be using Vista, but at least I'm set for the future in terms of RAM. Good luck using 4GB RAM. 64 bit Vista should take full advantage of it. Just remember to take out 2GB when reinstalling or Vista might crash while installing.

About the pagefile, 4GB might be recommended with such a huge amount of actual physical RAM. I have been using it for a while with 2GB and it smoothes gameplay just a bit more.

[eligy]

I've just ordered 4GB as well.... Might not see the entire benefit under xp Pro, but vista x64 will hopefully game a lot better

[Chickenfeed]

One thing ive noticed with games like 2142 is that windows seems to stay alot more responsive while its running. Considering theres adequate memory for both the game and windows, the transition between the 2 is much smoother. I now find i can task change out of the game and open up Firefox or what have you and the system still feels responsive. Game loads a tad faster but not noticeably enough to really care.

I've been getting a particular blue screen and windows reports it to being video related but oddly it didn't start until i put in the 2 additional sticks of memory.
Hopefully i can figure out what thats about. Considering i had 2142 running flawlessly on 32bit vista im going to have to believe its related to x64 and 2142 conflicting in one way or another.

XP Pro will address 4gb minus the 768mb for your 8800 so you'll have 3.25gbs to work with. Regardless of running on 32 or 64bit windows unless the game is 64bit windows can't address more than 2gbs to any single exe from what i've heard.

[Whizzer]

Originally Posted by Chickenfeed

One thing ive noticed with games like 2142 is that windows seems to stay alot more responsive while its running. Considering theres adequate memory for both the game and windows, the transition between the 2 is much smoother. I now find i can task change out of the game and open up Firefox or what have you and the system still feels responsive. Game loads a tad faster but not noticeably enough to really care.

That's good to hear. I was really getting insane when I had only 1GB (the other stick didn't function). 2GB on my old machine feels good again, but still unresponsive sometimes, but that might just be the single core CPU.

Originally Posted by Chickenfeed

I've been getting a particular blue screen and windows reports it to being video related but oddly it didn't start until i put in the 2 additional sticks of memory.
Hopefully i can figure out what thats about. Considering i had 2142 running flawlessly on 32bit vista im going to have to believe its related to x64 and 2142 conflicting in one way or another.

Well, 4 sticks do put more strain on the memory controller etc, so you might want to supply some more voltage in the BIOS. Then run memtest 4 times with 900MB for every stick and see if it remains stable for about 6-12 hours. Also, don't expect to overclock as far you could with 2 sticks either. Sometimes it's possible, sometimes it isn't.

Originally Posted by Chickenfeed

XP Pro will address 4gb minus the 768mb for your 8800 so you'll have 3.25gbs to work with. Regardless of running on 32 or 64bit windows unless the game is 64bit windows can't address more than 2gbs to any single exe from what i've heard.

I was quite surprised by reading that last week too, while researching, but I do believe 64 bit can address up to severel TB of RAM to any process if necessary. It simply remaps the Video RAM outside the physical DDR RAM and then it's playtime.

I will have to go 64 bit Vista (don't have XP Pro x64) eventually to make use of it, but 3.25 GB should still help a bit with the /3GB switch.

[Chickenfeed]

Xfire seems not to get along with 2142 in vista ( FEAR and xfire also dislike each other) Played that game for good 2 hours last night and there were no problems this time but who knows. I also adjusted the page file to 4094mb so that may have helped as well.

I am already giving my memory max recommended volts (2.1) and it is at stock clocks ( running 1600fsb with 1:1 memory speed )

The video error appeared to stem from the beta DX10 nvidia drivers. I reverted back to the older ones and it has been fine so far.

[Koroush Ghazi]

Perhaps feeling the heat from ET:QW, a beta 1.40 patch has been released. The only link I have on this at the moment is from my ISP's website:
http://games.internode.on.net/conten...e=news&id=1430

=================
XIII. UPDATE 1.40
=================
- Fixed an exploit that would allow commanders to call Orbital and EMP strikes before it had fully recharged.
- The Clark RDX Shotgun can now detonate other nearby explosives.
- EU Assault Rifle recoil and deviation have been slightly reduced.
- Bianchi and Shuko LMGs recoil reduced.
- Clark Shotgun rate of fire increased.

FEATURES
- Added an autosave to kit customisations. After you customise a kit and spawn in with that kit, the customisation will be automatically saved until you change it and spawn in again. Note that you must spawn in with a particular kit for it to be saved.
- Added a new map, Highway Tampa.

I get the feeling BF2142 may be coming to the end of its life, perhaps EA has another game lined up for the franchise (BF3142, set in space?)