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
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
