Many people have had questions about how to make improvements to their computers so that Battlefield 2 will run better. Corsair has produced a document that just may answer that question by detailing how performance improves when you upgrade from 1 GByte of ram to 2 GByte for a variety of applications, including BF2. This improvement happens regardless of cpu platform or screen resolution which indicates that for your dollar, it is apt to be a better alternative than an upgraded processor or video card.

Read the document here (pdf): Performance Impact of Changing Memory Size from 1 GByte to 2 GByte

Thanks to Zardon at Driverheaven for posting the link originally.

EA Released the Beta of the BF2 Mod Tools today [and there was much rejoicing!]

Read about it here: Mod Tools Update

Download them here: Mod Tools Beta

There is a catch though;

Also worth noting is that the current Battlefield 2 Dedicated Server files are not yet compatible with Mods. DICE is already working on a fix for the Dedicated Server files that will be included with the 1.03 patch. In the meantime, this will not prevent Mods from being tested over the Internet entirely. For testing purposes, Mod Teams can still create a non-dedicated server game through the regular in-game multiplayer interface that will allow anyone to connect to your game, either locally or over the net, provided that the rest of the team connects by IP .

Weapons Unlock Community Update – 7/25/05

Profiles with all Weapons Unlocked

Many users logged into Battlefield 2 today to discover that they had access to all of the games weapons unlocked in their profile. We have fixed the root issue that caused this to occur and by tomorrow morning all users will return to having access only to the weapons which they had earned. Once our solution is in place, if you find that you do not have access to weapons appropriate to your in-game rank, please direct inquiries to the Support sites linked below. In some cases users may be prompted to re-select the Unlock weapons that they are eligible for (if you are eligible for two weapons you will get to choose the two you wish to have unlocked).

Users in the U.S., please visit http://eatech.custhelp.com to report your technical issue and one of our Support representatives will help you out ASAP.

If you are in Europe, visit the following link for support information/contacts. click here for EU Support

Sorry Atomm, youre fun is over now. Give us back those weapons soldier! 😉

Discovered this thread started by forum member “Zero2Zero” on TotalBF2

Well, what a wonderful few days it has been. Since EA didnt take the time to respond (or maybe even read) our emails about various stats-server security holes, it clearly showed us how much they care. Therefore, we came to the conclusion that modifying 5 million accounts wouldnt be that big of a deal.

That being said, accounts with ids from 40,000,000 to 45,000,000 now have all of their weapons unlocked.

What will be next week? Perhaps well give everyone their Distinguished Service Medal, or maybe well elevate everyone to the rank of Sergeant Major.

The balls in your court, EA. Times up at the buzzer, how well will you play?

Continue reading EA BF2 Stats Servers Hacked! →

In their July 21st Community Update EA provides us with information on BF2 Combat, a “Tour of Duty” allowing players to join large scale weekly battles. Also, a Ranked Server Admin Program has been released for those that wish to use it.

Finally, and most importantly, they provide an update on the soon to be released Mod Tools. This set of tools appears to be in a short closed beta period being tested by a small group of BF2 mod teams, and

“Barring a major issue being discovered, the editor is now mere days from being released. Not weeks, days!”

Good news all around.

Now that EA has got the important things out of the way like the Expansion Pack announcement and a call for good community websites to spotlight, they can get back to the more mundane jobs like resolving issues with the game. This is straight from EA:

GameSpy Login Issues
It has been brought to our attention that some users may be experiencing login problems when trying to log into GameSpy through the BF2 in-game browser. GameSpy is in the process of hunting down the problem to get it fixed they have determined that the issue is related to web sites tracking BF2 stats, the stats tracking feed may be turned off temporarily in order to speed up this process. However, it will be turned back on after this issue has been resolved.

HOTFIX Candidate Now Being Tested!
Listen up soldiers, this update is to inform you that EA and DICE have a HOTFIX candidate for Battlefield 2 v1.01 in testing now. What does this mean? It means the fix for the memory leak found in v1.01 is being tested and will soon be available. While were unable to specify an exact release date, rest assured, its not far off and we will keep you updated through this web space.

With Battlefield 2 still in its teething stage EA has announced that they are working on an expansion pack titled Battlefield 2: Special Forces. IGN has posted an interview with some of the design team from DICE Canada and here is a brief snippet that gives a good overview of the what is in this expansion pack:

“AJ Marini: Well, what we did was take out experience with Battlefield 2 and set it into a different environment. How do we change the game without changing the game that much. We dont want to change the fundamentals of Conquest but we really wanted it to feel like something different. So we started brainstorming and this idea of Special Operations kept coming up, so we ran with that idea.

The idea of Special Forces is the idea of night vision and all the other neat little things that they can do put into the Battlefield environment. So where Battlefield 2 is a playground for your regular grunt soldier, you put Special Forces in there and they can do all of these wonderful things that have the player feel like a super soldier now.

The battlefield environment is still Battlefield gameplay, but everyone feels a bit more powerful. They have toys and abilities that they wouldnt normally have in the regular Battlefield.”

I am not sure whether I should be happy about this or cry. The concept sounds pretty cool and fun, but I am having flashbacks to BFV where critical issues where left unresolved as the developer had moved on to BF2…..

Directly from the EA BF2 site….

HOTFIX for Battlefield 2 v1.01 Coming Soon
First off, a HUGE thanks to all of you who emailed me in regards to the memory leak found in the update we released earlier this week (v1.01). Your emails found their way to our production team and they’re in the process of evaluating what needs to be done in order to get this fixed. In the meantime, and since the 1.01 update is causing memory leakage on some systems, we recommend that you reinstall the game and NOT the v1.01 update we released earlier this week.

Reinstalling Battlefield 2 will not affect your in-game medals or ranked server statistics. EA and DICE are committed to getting a fix for v1.01 as soon as we possibly can and will continue to keep you informed through this web space in the coming days.

NOTE: If you installed and are running the newer server files (Win and Linux versions) we made available earlier this week, please revert those as well. We found that those files had the same issues with memory leaks as did the v1.01 update. You can download the older versions
here.

Reports are that the first patch for BF2 will be out today. The updated unranked server files have already been released,

Check the EA Battlefield 2 site for the download file.

Here is the change list (thank you PlanetBattlefield for the list)

* Fixed in issue that caused the Multiplayer Browser to become unresponsive.
* Fixed an issue where some game controls were not available to be rebound within the Options menu.
* Fixed an issue with increasing performance degradation on servers.
* Fixed a problem with shader caching on client/host : after the first map in a rotation, shaders would be loaded on the fly during gameplay.
* Fixed a crash with rebinding LMB
* Fixed a problem that caused environment mapping to not appear on reflective surfaces.
* Fixed a crash that happened when a client picks up a kit that doesnt exist anymore.
* Fixed a problem with AI when the game was paused for a long time: bots would become unresponsive and also shoot more accurately.
* LOD distances tweaked on certain objects.