Battlefield 1942, facing the reality

skuz · September 29th, 2002, 01:44 AM

I think it fits more in general discussion than action.

2 days ago, me and my brother bought one copy of Battlefield 1942. We had played the demo and really enjoyed it so we were impatiently waiting for the complete game.

Both our systems played the demo fine at 1024x768x32 medium details. We also do play it fine in the complete game... when we're not a server.

Whenever there's AI in this game, the performance drops down to the basement. Even though we set the AI to use "only" 15% of the CPU time, the unfortunate one that is the server must drop down his settings to 640x480x16 with low details to be somehow playable. This is especially true for open areas like the Midway battle.

I'm mainly a single player guy. I plan to use this game for single playing mainly, with the occasional LAN game. The AI is so hungry for CPU power that it isn't funny.

I noticed this on some EA games from the last year or two. Now I'm not even sure I want to buy NFS6 as planned.

There is no way the min system requirements can play this game when I see such a hit with a 1.3 GHz with twice the required RAM and a Radeon 9000.
Where did these sys requirement come from ?
What type of computers do programmers use ?
And what's happening to EA ? It's really hard to find something specific on their site nowadays. You have to dig a lot to find patches or info/support for a game more than 1 year old.

Bob The Great · September 29th, 2002, 01:52 AM

Ouch! I haven't played that game yet, but it seemed right up my ally. But now you have me thinking again. What type of systems are you using?

I have one XP 1800+ with a Radeon 8500 AIW 64MB and a 1Ghz Duron with a Radeon LE. Are those systems in the same range as yours?

As gamers we require more and more from the games. They constantly grow larger and more complex. Our computers must grow too. IT's all part of civilization as while we grow we must have more jobs and so we must want more so more must be delivered and jobs are opened so we can pay for more. The problem is going to be whne we run out of resources. But they predict that to be sometime in my 90's so I have no real probs.

Any way Basicly they are getting more complex as time goes on. More routines. More what if's. Sorry, but we just gotta keep upgrading

or

depending on your currenty $ situation.

Redwolf · September 29th, 2002, 01:53 AM

The system requirments are the bare minmum required for the game to play even the least bit properly.

It sounds like an issue that will be patched though.

jerrygarcia · September 29th, 2002, 01:55 AM

Sorry, but what is AI?

DVNT1 · September 29th, 2002, 01:56 AM

artificial intelligence (the computer opponent)

Bob The Great · September 29th, 2002, 01:58 AM

Artificial Inteligence. Basicly it's the computer controled bots in the games. They have programed responces for different situations. They do not have true inteligence as they would just quit and go find someone to date online instead of be killed by a tribe of pale geeks all day.

skuz · September 29th, 2002, 01:59 AM

None of use are in the XP line, but we're over the Minimum and recommended settings. I have a 1300 Duron, 256 MB RAM and Radeon 9000. My brother has a 1000 T-Bird, 416 MB RAM a Radeon 8500.

We don't have the latest, but we're not so far I think. We have to make the old K6-2 500 a dedicated server when we're playing with computer-controlled opponents.

As a single player I'm very frustrated to have to change settings depending ont the mission type.

Bob The Great · September 29th, 2002, 02:03 AM

sorry, yah you mentionend your system earlier. My bad.

That really bites! I sure hope they fix this with a patch. Any one with nVidia have this prob? Also are you both usuing the same ATI drivers for your cards? It might be driver related.

skuz · September 29th, 2002, 02:08 AM

We have a friend with a GF2 who can't get satisfying performance with a 1GHz PIII on any setting, so he gave up and another with a GF2 GTS that just can't play the game without crashing to desktop. No one in my friends circle has a newer nvidia card to compare.

As for drivers, my brother is using the latest from ATI, while I have one revision older from the 3rd party company that made my card (Sapphire).

Epyon9283 · September 29th, 2002, 02:10 AM

Do you by any chance have SB cards? If so, make sure you got the latest drivers. ALso, you might also want to go into dxdiag.exe and turn down the sound acceleration to basic. I dont have an SB card but lots of people have problems with them and the game. The DX sound tweak really helped me though. I got similar specs. 1.4ghz athlon, 512mb pc2700 ram, radeon 8500 128mb. I can run with bots using 20% and I only encounter the occasional slow down. My friend that has a 1.3ghz athlon, 512mb pc133 , and a geforce 2 gts, can run the game at high detail at 800x600 without any major slowdowns. I run at 1024x768 at full details.