By liquidat0r

What follows below is a selection of useful tips and information for Battlefield 2.

There are a range of commands - mainly designed for servers running BF2 - which can be activated via the BF2 command line. You can use these commands by going to your main Battlefield 2 shortcut you use to launch the game, right-click on it and select Properties. Then in the Target box, after the “C:\Program Files\EA Games\Battlefield 2\BF2.exe” +menu 1 +fullscreen 1 text, insert another space, then use any of the commands below. Each command must have a single space between it and the next command.

For example, one of the most commonly requested commands is to run BF2 in 1280×1024 resolution (or another custom resolution) - particularly for LCD displays which display the best image at their native resolution. To do this, change your command line to look like this:

• “C:\Program Files\EA Games\Battlefield 2\BF2.exe” +menu 1 +fullscreen 1 +szx 1280 +szy 1024

Note: The addition of the +szx and +szy commands that respectively set the width and height of the resolution to be used. Substitute other values for other resolutions (e.g. +szx 1900 +szy 1200). Also note that as of the 1.03 Patch, 1280×1024 is now a supported resolution and can be selected within the in-game settings, so you don’t need to use the +szx/+szy commands to force it anymore.

The following are the known command line commands for BF2, and descriptions where possible:

Note: For those of you not familiar with commands such as these there is one thing you need to know: After a command, enter a space and add the value. For most of these commands the value you will have to enter is 1, thus activating the command. To deactivate the commands either delete them or replace the 1 with a 0 (zero). The exceptions to these include commands such as ‘playerPassword’, mostly, the exceptions speak for them selves.

• +playerName - Set the player name

• +playerPassword - Sets the player password

• +joinServer - Join a server by IP address or hostname

• +fullscreen - Start game in full screen mode

• +nosound - Start game without sound

• +szx - Set resolution width

• +szy - Set resolution height

• +dedicated - Start in dedicated server mode

• +multi - Allow starting multiple BF2 instances

• +password - Set the server password when joining a server

• +config - Sets path to the ServerSettings.con file to use

• +maplist - Sets the path to the MapList.con file to use

• +lowPriority - Run the game with slightly lower priority

• +loadLevel - Set the level to load

• +wx - Position game window on the screen at certain x-position

• +wy - Position game window on the screen at certain y-position

• +demo - Sets the con-file with demo options

• +maxPlayers - Sets max players

• +gameMode - Sets the game mode

• +modPath - Sets the mod path (default /mods/bf2)

• +help - Displays help

• +ranked - Allows GamSpy snapshot sending

• +playNow - Use PlayNow functionality

• +port - Specifies the network port to be used

• +pbPath - Set the path to use for PunkBuster on multi-instance configs

• +hostServer -

• +checkForAvailablePatch -

• +checkForPatch -

• +ai -

• +restart - skips intro movies

Note: You must use the correct case for these commands to work - for example the +playername command only works if used thusly: +playerName - note the capitalized N. These all work as of the latest version, including commands like +joinServer.

As you can see, most of these commands are really only useful for those running BF2 servers, and the descriptions are fairly vague.

Perhaps the most useful command in this list is the “+restart” command. As it disables the intro movies completely without any risk from punk buster bans.

If you want to automatically be logged in each time you launch Battlefield 2, edit your BF2 Command Line as follows:

• “C:\Program Files\EA Games\Battlefield 2\BF2.exe” +playerName your playername +playerPassword your password

E.g:

• “C:\Program Files\EA Games\Battlefield 2\BF2.exe” +playerName DogMaN +playerPassword Banana1

Basically by using the +playerName and +playerPassword parameters in your command line - along with any other entries you want to put in there - you will automatically be logged in as soon as you start the game, skipping the requirement to click Login on the login screen.

Important For this to work, the playerName and playerPassword commands are case-sensitive. That is, you must enter them exactly as shown, for example +playerName, not +playername. Furthermore your user name and password are case sensitive as well, and must be entered precisely as you have them shown on the login screen.

The introductory movies to BF2, although fun to watch the first couple of times, fast become quite annoying, adding to the start-up times for the game, as well as the memory usage (the main movie is 135MB in size). To disable them permanently, I don’t recommend deleting the movie files - this may cause problems with verification of client information on certain servers and/or with Punk-buster.

Instead, simply rename the relevant files in your \Program Files\EA Games\Battlefield 2\mods\bf2\Movies\ directory to something else (e.g. rename the Intro.bik to Intro.backup). The files to rename are: Dice.bik, EA.bik, Intro.bik, Legal.bik and Welcome.bik. This will mean the intro movies are all skipped as BF2 starts to load. If you find the movies playing in the background of the Login screen and Settings screens annoying, you can also rename the menu.bik and menu_loggedin.bik to something else as well.

If you’ve also renamed/removed the menu.bik and menu_loggedin.bik movies, and don’t want a dull grey background in the in-game menus, then download this small BF2 Menu Movies .zip file, and extract the contents to your \Movies directory. These small files (100KB each) show the BF2 logo in the background, and look much nicer.

Removing all the original movies from the game can save over 250MB of data being loaded up during the start of the game and being placed into memory - this will help smooth your game play particularly for those with less RAM. If for any reason you experience any problems with the game after renaming the movies, simply rename them back to their original names.

Note: Instead of the above, you can simply use the +restart command line command in your BF2 startup icon.

• C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2\mods\bf2\Settings

Most of the settings in these .con files can and should be altered using the in-game options. However there are a few things you can adjust which are unique to the .con files:

Video.con

• VideoSettings.setResolution 1280×960@75Hz

This setting controls your current resolution in Battlefield 2. The format is Width x Height@Refresh Rate. If you cannot start up BF2 and change the resolution from within the game, try altering it here to help you start-up the game. In particular when you want to launch BF2 for the first time and the game just crashes back to desktop, you can change the resolution from its default of 800×600@60Hz to one your monitor supports. Note, however, that certain resolutions are unsupported and entering them here will not work

• VideoSettings.setTerrainQuality 4

• VideoSettings.setGeometryQuality 4

• VideoSettings.setLightingQuality 4

• VideoSettings.setDynamicLightingQuality 4

• VideoSettings.setDynamicShadowsQuality 4

• VideoSettings.setEffectsQuality 4

• VideoSettings.setTextureQuality 4

• VideoSettings.setTextureFilteringQuality 4

All of the above settings can be adjusted from within the in-game Video settings. However the highest they can be set to is High from within the game (a value of 3). By setting them each to 4 in Video.con (as shown above), you will have them displayed as ‘Videosettings_Ultrahigh’ in the in-game Video settings screen, and some people believe this increases the graphics quality to Ultrahigh levels. I didn’t see any impact from this change, but if you want the absolute best quality in BF2 give it a try.

Profile.con

This file contains details of your on-line account including the user name (GameSpyNick), the Email attached to that name, and the Password (encrypted). You can’t change these details here - doing so will have no impact on your on-line account, except maybe cause problems logging on or with Punk buster. You may find this file useful if you have forgotten your e-mail address associated with your account

General.con

• GeneralSettings.addServerHistory

These settings show you the last servers you have successfully connected to. This list is handy because it provides the server names as well as the IP Number and Port Number. You can use these details in the Server Browser window to quickly connect to the same server again. The quickest way however is to simply go to the ‘Favorites tab’ which has a record of the last 20 servers you’ve played on as well as any servers you’ve tagged as favorites. See the Multi-player section of the In-Game Settings section for more details.

Controls.con

This file contains all of the control mappings for actions in the game. The file structure is quite complex, and rather than cover it at length here, I recommend you see this detailed thread on the Planet Battlefield Forums: Anatomy of Controls.con

Updating your punkbuster

When an update for punkbuster is released it will automatically download through Battlefield 2. Although this process saves you the effort of updating punkbuster your self, it will give you lag as the update downloads. The updates are not necessarily big but there are lots of them. Instead of Battlefield 2 manually trying to do it in game, quickly do it with this easy fix (may not work if its already updated). This tweak will work for America’s Army and also any other game that uses punkbuster. Punkbuster also changes issues in performance in their patches so it is well worth downloading the latest driver.

This is relatively simple to do. Once you have downloaded the file I recommend you keep it and use it regularly

Step 1: Visit this site and scroll down to the pbsetup.exe link

Step 2: Either run or save the program. I recommend that you save it.

Step 3: Click add game and select “Battlefield 2”

Step 4: Click Update

Reducing the number of punkbuster hard drive checks

Punkbuster scans your hard-drive for problems every 20 seconds. As you may have guessed, this causes a lot of lag. This process will increase the amount of time in between punkbuster checks to 500 seconds (the maximum). By the way, in case you were worried, this is 100% safe with punkbuster, and will NOT cause any problems with Punkbuster thinking you are a cheater. Punkbuster even recommends this on their website.

Step 1: Join any BF2 online server that is running punkbuster, preferably a ranked one.

Step 2: Once you are in, and respawned somewhere, press the ` key. This key is located on most keyboards above the tab key and to the left of the 1 key

Step 3: Once you have pressed this, a large white box should drop down with a load of text in it. Type “pb_sleep 500” (without the quotation marks) and hit the enter key

Step 4: Once you have done this, make sure the box is still up and type pb_writecfg to save your settings

Info For more information on the way that punkbuster works visit their website. You can also go to their tutorial pages for players and Admins for more information on punkbuster commands

Ever wondered what these icons mean? Here are some simple explanations of the icons in order of left to right

Server Load

The bar icon on the far left of the server browser indicates the load on the server machine. It is common for this icon to be red.

Server OS Icon

This next icon appears as a computer box, a penguin or a ‘64’. These icons represent the OS the server is running on.

The Box icon represents all Windows servers The Penguin icon represents Linux servers The 64 icon represents Linux 64 bit CPU servers.

Game Mod/Mode Icon

The next icon represents the game mod/mode being run on the server. If there is an exclamation point the server will be running a modified version of Battlefield 2.

Ranked Icon

The icon that appears as military chevrons represent whether the server is ranked or not. If the icon is not present the server is not running a ranked version.

VOIP Icon

The headphones icon represents whether a server has player Voice Over IP Communication activated. If the headphones are present then VOIP is turned on. If the icon is not present then there is no VOIP communication on that server.

[n]PunkBuster Icon[/b]

The PunkBuster logo icon indicates when a server is running PunkBuster software to help prevent player hacks. Always make sure to play on servers running PunkBuster to ensure a quality play experience.

Content Check Icon

The monitor icon represents whether a server has content check enabled. Content check prevents players with edited files from playing on these servers. To further ensure a quality play experience players should always look for servers with content check enabled.

Password Icon

The lock icon indicates whether a password is set for accessing the server.

Source

As many of you will know the patching system in battlefield 2 sucks immensely. In this section I will show you how to install battlefield 2 without getting any errors.

Note: I would recommend always using the full patches rather than the incremental patches, they are a lot less buggy. Also, downloading them from a reliable source such as BF2S will help.

Just BF2.

1) Install BF2. 2) Patch to the latest version.

1)For those that have BF2:SF with version 1.12.

  a) Install BF2.
  b) Install Special Forces – SF will automatically patch to 1.1, and then install itself; thus installing patch 1.12.
  c) Patch to the latest version – Either 1.12-latest (incremental) or the latest full patch.

2)For those that have BF2:SF with version 1.2.0

  a) Install BF2.
  b) Install Special Forces – SF will automatically patch to 1.1, and then install itself; thus installing patch 1.2.
  c) Patch to the latest version – Either ‘1.2 to latest’ (incremental) or the latest full patch.

 1) Install BF2
 2) Install BF2:SF
 3) Patch to version 1.21 (I think)
 4) Install BF2:EF
 5) Patch to the latest version

 1) Install BF2
 2) Patch to 1.21 (I think)
 3) Install BF2:EF
 4) Patch to the latest version

More Help

A program that automatically patches The EA Downloader should tell you all the information you need

This is relatively simple. All that is required is to duplicate your Battlefield 2 directory, I will explain:

If, for example you would like to run version 1.03 and the latest version, do this:

 1)    Completely uninstall 
 2)    Install BF2
 3)    Make a copy of “C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2”
 4)    Name the copy “C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2_1.0”
 5)    Patch to 1.03
 6)    Rename “C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2” to “…Battlefield 2_1.03
 7)    Change “C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2_1.0” back to “… Battlefield 2”
 8)    Patch to 1.3
 9)    You now have a normal BF2 directory running 1.3 and directory running 1.03
 10)    Make shortcut to v1.03 on your desktop (duplicate normal BF2 one); change the target to:

• “C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2_1.03\BF2.exe” +menu 1 +fullscreen 1

If you also want to run SF, AF and EF then simply don’t patch the normal BF2 folder, like I stated above, straight to 1.3. Just go through the normal process of installation.

The first time you install BF2, I recommend duplicating the installation folder and calling it bf2_1.0. Doing this will enable you to do a sort of system restore if you need to.

1. Download this program and get this plugin
2. Navigate to:

• C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2\mods\bf2\Common_client.zip

then

• Sound/Menu/music*

1. Open “load_MEC_music.ogg” with Audacity and save it as an mp3 (to, for example, your desktop)
2. That’s it, your done!

Punkbuster no longer likes you modifying your Objects_Client.zip file in anyway shape or form. I do not recommend doing this to your BF2 game any longer. However, if you have made a custom mod then this could be used in there.

Navigate to:

• C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2\mods\bf2\Common_client.zip

then:

• Sound/Menu/music

Rename “load_MEC_music.ogg” to “load_US_music.ogg” and rename “load_US_music.ogg” to “load_MEC_music.ogg”

This will mean that when you load a map you will hear the US loading music, which you would never normally hear.

Punkbuster no longer likes you modifying your Objects_Client.zip file in anyway shape or form. I do not recommend doing this to your BF2 game any longer. However, if you have made a custom mod then this could be used in there.

1. Download this program and get this plugin
2. Open any .mp3 file (or any media file supported by ‘Audacity’) with Audacity.
3. Click ‘File’ —> ‘Export as Ogg Vorbis’
4. Name the ogg file “load_MEC_music.ogg”
5. Put the new file in (replacing the original):

• C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2\mods\bf2\Common_client.zip

then:

• Sound/Menu/music

6) That’s it your done!

The first time i did this was in version 1.0, maybe 1.01. I used my own music, having got bored of both the MEC and US tunes. I did not have a problem with punkbuster.

I can say only this: If you are concerned about f*cking your game up (due to punkbuster) and being forced to do a complete reinstall then do not do this tip. I never had a problem but if punkbuster has been updated so that it will block you for modifying ‘Objects_Client.zip’ then you never know...

I have discovered a way to change the details associated with your BF2 nickname. Some people may have already known this but it seems that most don’t. This is a list of the details you can change:

• First Name
• Last Name
• Email Address
• Birthday
• Country
• Zip/Postal Code
• Password

The following items are associated with GameSpy website and Arcade only and will result in mail.

• Connection Speed
• Gender
• Address
• Street Address
• Street Address (cont.)
• City
• State or province
• Homepage

To login and start changing your details follow this process:

1. Go to the Gamespy Login Page
2. Under the “Existing Users – Log in Here” section: leave the first box selected and enter your email (the one associated with your bf2 account) and your bf2 account password
3. One logged in click ‘Update Profile”
4. The next part is self explanatory: enter the details you want changed, you will have to fill in your name and Postal/Zip code (don’t panic you don’t receive an junk mail)
5. Once finished enter your current password and click “Save and Finish”

You may have noticed that there is a nickname field. I made a test account (so I did not screw up my other account) and tried this out. It did not work, it looked like it was going to but it didn’t. It has occurred to me, however, that it may take time to update on the servers. If this is the case then I will let you know ASAP

The final step is to delete your account (from the log in screen on BF2) and retrieve it again, this will update your profile and it’s information.

I do not want to take credit for creating all of the information in this guide. Most of it came from Tweakguides. However I have added much of my own material. There are many more things that you can do with your Battlefield 2 to improve it, such as:

• Changing your localization files - Changing the text on you HUD
• Reducing lag - Tips on how to minimize lag whilst playing Battlfield 2
• Modifying maps to your taste - Spawning extra vehicles etc.