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.

How many owners have already upgraded from a high end GF4 to a low end GF5? How many know that they purchased a slower though more "compatible" card based on bad online advice? Instead of looking at the facts: VGA Charts IV. A GeForce 4 4600 is faster then even a GeForce FX 5700, as well as a Radeon 9600.

Notebook users who have GeForce4 Go GPUs have absolutely no way to upgrade without replacing the entire notebook. Yet they can play games such as Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 without any problems. How are they supposed to "upgrade"?

Supported List
Battlefield 2 only supports the following video cards:
(minimum 128MB)

Radeon X700 (PCIe)
Radeon X600 (PCIe)
GeForce 6600 (PCIe)
GeForce PCX 5900 (PCIe)
GeForce 5800 Series (AGP)
ATI Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition
ATI Radeon X800 PRO
ATI Radeon 9800 Series
ATI Radeon 9600 Series
ATI Radeon 9550 (RV350LX)
ATI Radeon 9500 / 9700 Series
ATI Radeon 8500 Series
ATI Radeon X300 Series
NVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra
NVidia GeForce 6800 GT
NVidia GeForce 6800
NVidia GeForce FX 5950 Series
NVidia GeForce FX 5900 Series
NVidia GeForce FX 5700 Series

Here is a list of unsupported cards.

Note: GeForce 4 MX users have to upgrade. The MX card is nothing more then a glorified GeForce 2 and does not have any pixel shader support. So even the Shader Mod cannot help you.

Response from a Game Developer
"I think this is a poor decision. Dropping support for the GF4MX series is justifiable (since they're really GF2s), although not the best business decision, but lack of support for GF3/4 is not. Yes there's the ps_1_3 limit in D3D and the NV_register_combiners issue in GL. Yes there's the 96 constant limit.

Both are not difficult to surmount - Cg can generate 'fp20' code which is equivalent to ps_1_3 on GL, and is basically a scripting tool for NV_register_combiners. nVidia even provide code to run that through GL.

The 96 constant limit is mainly an issue with hardware skinning, since bone matrices eat up constants for breakfast. Solutions include splitting the skeleton in half, or having the option to use a lower detail skeleton (which would be a good option for scalability anyway).

Neither of these issues are very hard. Material and skeleton systems should be designed to be scalable anyway. So this is one of 3 things:

1. Laziness
2. Technical snobbery
3. A crushing lack of time

I suspect the latter. But don't pretend this is a good technical decision - not only is this issue very solvable - it's run-of-the-mill. Locking out all the people with GF3/4's is not a good business decision either. Some people in here seem to think the only people who matter are those who are capable of pulling out cards and upgrading them every 2 years. That's very short-sighted, and rather arrogant and elitist - there are LOTs more ordinary PC users who don't do this, and excluding them just accelerates the move away from PC game playing to the simpler technical experience of consoles."

Xbox Yes PC No?
Battlefield Modern Combat is scheduled to be released in the fall of 2005 on the Xbox. Which is nothing more then a port of Battlefield 2 to the Xbox. Since the Xbox's graphic processor is a tweaked version of the GeForce 3 and the Xbox uses DirectX as an API, it is quite clear Battlefield 2 will and can support PS 1.3 and the GeForce 3/4 Ti line. If DICE/EA does not release a BF2 patch at the time of Modern Combat's release to support GeForce 3/4 Ti owners, it will clearly show DICE's development team to be hypocrites.

Comments?

hi, i have a dell dimension 3000 and its basically brand new, however i just found out it has pci bus, not even PCIe or AGP.... im ticked off with dell and ive been looking for new videocards that are compatible with battlefield 2 and my computer and this is basically all ive found

http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=706547

Do u guys think that would run battlefield 2 on my computer?

Thanks in advance
-fat tony

p.s. great work on the shader hack and everything guys

fattony,

That card should technically work being it is a DirectX 9 card. However the LE versions are usually rather slow, so while it will start the game, do not expect great performance. I'm guessing it will run ok on low detail but that depends on how much memory and the speed of your CPU. BF2 requires 1 GB to run smooth, 512MB is the minimum.

I wish we could take credit for the Shader Mod but we unfortunately did not write it. You can thank the guys over at Game Deception.

Heh check this out

:rofl:

That sums it up, another reason I only play realism mods. It eliminates alot of the stupidity. Rather the stupid people die quicker. :)

Update: To get rid of Rainbow color textures with the shader mod, try running the game in low detail level, that has worked for quite a few people.

Update: All the shaders have been converted and they need people to help test them. This will allow any bugs to be fixed and for them to be optimized for optimal performance. If you can help please go over and do so. Shader Mod The more people helping the quicker it will be done.

Thanks :joystick:

I have a BFG nvidia GeForce5200 and have used the NVTweak although i have to use the lowest settings for BF2 i can play the game with little problems. Most of these are from laggy servers. So all of you with these cards you have an option. :2thumbsup:

The 5xxx series supports PS v1.4 so there is no reason it should not work. The reason it is not officially supported on the box is probably for performance reasons. The GF4 Ti 4600 is a faster card then the GF5 5200. Which is part of the argument.

yeah...i blow the min specs out of the water...but because my chipset is a GF4 Ti 4600 i cant play?! i dont even know what to say to that.

oh yeah...and i cant get any of the links for the shader mod to work...

i would like to comment on that...but so far no dice. haha get it...dice. assholes.

Download the Shader Mod here.

so the shader mod got the game running...havent gotten to play any yet. but what the hell is uniquenick and why cant i play multiplayer?

#1 I don't know, #2 they may ban you from official multiplayer servers:

Some info from the Readme:

-Works on gforce4ti boards ONLY
-does not work on gforce4mx boards
-does not work on ANY ati boards
-the shellshock effect will always be a black screen
-you will always get "random light blue trianges"
-TV guided missles will never work
-don't connect to any punkbuster servers running this mod, you WILL BE BANNED

I cannot find the shader mod anywhere, and all the links supplied are out of date. Can anyone who has the file upload it somewhere?
Thanks in advance.

The site that was hosting it went down. I have been unable to locate it since. If anyone has any information please email me.

This site has the mod and a cache of the forums.

It might just be that some new games won't work with the Geforce 4 cards. I just tried the Stubbs the Zombie demo. It didn't work (my card wasn't supported) Which is funny because it runs on the Halo engine and Halo works on my computer.

It doesn't work that way. If the game supports a certain version of DirectX that your card does than it has to work. Otherwise there is a either a bug in the driver or the game itself.

Or the game is just not programed to work with your video card.

But that is not how DirectX works. They program for DirectX not specific video cards. So if the game supports a version of DirectX you card supports then there is either a bug in the driver or the game.

Of course if a card doesn't support DirectX 9 features than it wouldn't work.

Exactly. If the game requires DirectX 9.0 then any card that does not support DX9 will not work. This has nothing to do with a game being programmed for a certain card or not.

Hello, my card, GF4 MX 440 (AGP), is not supported in any case and it's about time for me to upgrade it anyone... the only thing I've noticed about the supported list is that they are very headstrong about PCI-e, something that i'm (pretty) sure my computer doesn't have. So I ask what would be a good choice for a card around $100 that will work with the game (if possible, I'd like to stick with AGP). At Best Buy the pick that I like is the:

BFG GeForce 6200 OC 256MB DDR AGP Graphics Card

...but I do not know if this would work


thanks

Any GeForce Card newer than the GF4 should work. However how fast it will work is another story. PCI-e is just another interface like AGP (only faster) and in no way is it a requirement for BF2.

While this post is really old it should be noted that the forum for the Shader Mod moved here.
http://img280.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screen0013fa.jpg
Also Battlefield 2 isn't the only game Oblivion has a similar mod