Warp2Search.net » News » July 2005 » Battlefield 2: The Video Card Controversy Part 2

Following the feedback received from the initial article: Battlefield 2: The Video Card Controversy, it appears this issue is far from clear and understood. Battlefield 2 requires new hardware in order to even startup, while in the past games have required new hardware in order to run smoothly at higher detail and resolution levels. Besides the fact that the minimum supported hardware, a Radeon 8500 is slower then the non-supported GeForce 4 Ti. With the upcoming release of Battlefield Modern Combat on the Xbox making this all the more laughable. Battlefield Modern Combat will be the Battlefield 2 Xbox port. The Xbox uses a tweaked version of the GeForce 3 running PS 1.3 and is programmed for in DirectX. This is clearly showing that DICE can make the Battlefield 2 engine run on GeForce 3/4 Ti hardware.



Upgrading
Many users attempted to respond by telling people to upgrade their video cards. Claiming the issue was no big deal and an upgrade was only $50. These people obviously do not grasp the situation nor understand the economics behind this ignorant response. GeForce 4 Ti owners, especially 4600 and 4800 owners paid over $375-$400 for their cards back in 2003. At the time this was the top of the line card. It played Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield Vietnam on the highest detail levels. Battlefield Vietnam was released only last year. GeForce 3/4 Ti owners completely understand that newer games will not be able to be played at the highest detail levels but being unable to even start the game is unacceptable.

AGP will be replaced with PCIe entirely. The latest GeForce 7800 is PCIe only and SLI can only be found on PCIe. When these owners upgrade they would obviously be going for a PCIe video card, requiring a new Mainboard, CPU and Memory. If they looked to run the game on the recommended hardware, this so-called "upgrade" is now pushing $1000. Not a $50 "fix" that would actually give them worse performance in other games.

Battlefield 2: The Video Card Controversy Part 2

Cimlite Junior Member Posts: 6 Joined: 2005-11-12

#61538 Posted on: 07/06/2005 01:47 PM "Battlefield Modern Combat will be the Battlefield 2 Xbox port. The Xbox uses a tweaked version of the GeForce 3 running PS 1.3 and is programmed for in DirectX. This is clearly showing that DICE can make the Battlefield 2 engine run on GeForce 3/4 Ti hardware." I stopped reading right there... These guys obviously have no idea what so ever what they are talking about. The console version Modern Combat is not at all the same game and most definatly not the same engine. If they had looked at any of the screenshots they would have found that out darn quick. The only thing the games have in common is the basic concept, enviroment and name.

tutu Unregistered

#61540 Posted on: 07/06/2005 02:23 PM It's a new game - people shouldn't expect old cards to play it. The industry needs to move on to better things!

BetrayerX Unregistered

#61541 Posted on: 07/06/2005 02:27 PM Link me for comparisons. Engine might look different because it might be scaled down, which is a normal thing in 3D engines design, and the talk about it in the article. I agree that leaving the GF3/4 users out is crap....and in the same way I always thought that NVidia could have something to do with the "no SM 2.x" support in SC Chaos Theory, this could be just the same, but with the other company.

Mertsch Moderator Posts: 3001 Joined: 2002-08-22

#61543 Posted on: 07/06/2005 03:07 PM so what you are saying is: let every OS simply support only the latest stuff ... means: when you have windows running you are only able to install it on SSE3 support CPUs which run on a board with DDR2 support and can only be installed on SATA disks .... right ?

RedFalcon Unregistered

#61544 Posted on: 07/06/2005 03:23 PM tutu - BS!

SuperTechie Unregistered

#61545 Posted on: 07/06/2005 04:14 PM This isn't just an issue of old vs new cards -- some very new cards aren't supported according to EA system requirements. What's up with excluding GF 6200, & GF 6600 series AGP cards?: Battlefield 2 has the following minimum requirements. If your computer does not meet these requirements, the game will not run properly if at all. * Windows XP (32 bit version) with Administrator rights. * 1.7 GHz or faster processor. * 512 MB or more RAM. * Supported 128 MB video card with the newest manufacturer drivers. * CD Version, 8x or faster CD/DVD drive. * DVD version, 8x or faster DVD drive. * 2.3 GB free hard disk space plus space for the Windows swap file and save data. If you would like to take advantage of the higher detail video settings Battlefield 2 offers, we recommend the following specifications. * 2.4 GHz or faster processor. * 1 GB or more RAM. * Supported 256 MB video card with the newest manufacturer drivers. Supported Processors: * Intel Pentium 4, Xeon, Extreme Edition, Celeron D. * AMD Athlon XP, Athlon 64, Athlon 64-FX, Sempron. Supported Video Cards: ATI Radeon * X700 (PCIe), X600 (PCIe), X800 XT Platinum Edition, X800 PRO, X300 series. * 9800 series, 9700 series, 9600 series, 9559 (RV350LX), 9500 series, 8500 seies. NVIDIA GeForce * 6600 (PCIe), PCX 5900 (PCIe). * 5800 series (AGP). * 6800 Ultra, 6800 GT, 6800. * FX 5950 series, FX 5900 series, FX 5700 series.

tutu Unregistered

#61547 Posted on: 07/06/2005 05:27 PM Everyone knows BF2 is going to be a very graphical intense game before it came out. We've had PS 3.0 cards for some time now, and yet that is hardly used by any game.. and the same for HDR Even Doom 3 runs great on a PS 1.3 GPU I want better graphics that all :P

Cimlite Junior Member Posts: 6 Joined: 2005-11-12

#61548 Posted on: 07/06/2005 05:48 PM I don't see what thats got to do with it... BF2 has support for PS3.0, it uses it for lots of things. Most obvious is the displacement mapping effects on sandbag walls. Anyway... I guess what people complain about is the fact that the card that they think should be able to run the game does not. Dice/EA probably just did not think it was worth the extra time to make it run on those cards, probably because they would not run the game all that well in a bestcase scenario anyway. Doom 3 running great on PS 1.3 gpu? I'd beg to differ. I've played Doom 3 on a high end GF4 card, the experience was not all that pleasant. Replaying the game on my current 6800GT card is a completly differant game, much better than the first time in every way imaginable. In the case of Doom 3 I'd actually had a better experience with the game if it had not run at all on a GF4 GPU. That's maybe just me though...

PTK1982 Unregistered

#61549 Posted on: 07/06/2005 06:35 PM Everybody knows that enjoying games at fullest you have to have top notch hardware in your pc. geforce4 WAS good card but it is now an old tech. if you could play with g4 it would be dia show. (btw this geforce4 whining is almost fun to read as chaos theory ps2.0 whining at rage3d).

Carlito_Brigante Unregistered

#61550 Posted on: 07/06/2005 06:50 PM what's the problem? Yuor card don't run the goddamn game? Don't play it. It's so simple, i don't understand what this fuss is about...

Juomaru Senior Member Posts: 115 Joined: 2002-03-29

#61551 Posted on: 07/06/2005 07:35 PM I thought that guy would learn his lession about his "blog", when people told him off in the comment section over here last time. But he comes back with even more rubbish. Obviously,he writes this b.s.to generate sensationalism/ controversy, in hopes of getting a wide group of audience to read his crap. (Then with enough traffic, start his own website, advertising revenue and etc.)

Warp2Search.net » News » July 2005 » Battlefield 2: The Video Card Controversy Part 2