Win 7 and BF2

[Ash2Dust]

Sharing some headaches I worked thru.

Installed Win 7 (32bit) and a new graphics card. Everything except BF2 went smooth.

First updated DirectX end-user from Microsoft (dxwebsetup.exe). I do that before I do any new game installs.
OK BF2 and SF installed clean. Then installed 1.5 patch. Then latest PB via pbsetup.exe from evenbalance.com
http://www.evenbalance.com/index.php?page=pbsetup.php
Bam! Crash to desktop when trying to start the game.
Remembering that I had the same issues when I dumped my CRT monitor for a widescreen LCD. I starting playing with resolution and refresh rates in the configuration file. No go this time no matter what settings I tried or match to my desktop settings.

So I copied over my BF2 settings from my XP install and got the game to start. Tried to play vanilla BF2. Bam! PnkBstrB.exe heartbeats stopped or was it PnkBstrA.exe heartbeats stopped?
Hmmm no pnkbstrA or pnkbstrB service running. Deleted PB folder. Went to evenbalance and downloaded PBSVC.
http://www.evenbalance.com/downloads/pbsvc/pbsvc.exe
Installed PBSVC and then manually updated PB again via pbsetup. Great started playing some vanilla BF2.

Then I tried to play some BF2 SF, loaded a server, click join. Bam! Back to servers screen with message about having modified content. OK, fresh install of everything wtf!

Decided that Dice's 1.5 patch may have issues. Edit a couple windows registry entries that had 1.50 and made it 1.30.
Downloaded EA's latest patch (1.41) from their website and installed. Then ran Dice's latest patch (1.50). Great SF2 works now.

It was time consuming and alot of guesswork. Anyways, for anyone doing a fresh install, heres what I'd do a 2nd time around:

1) Run dxwebsetup.exe
1) Install just BF2. Run it and see if it works offline.
2) Install SF2. Run it and see if it works offline.
3) Patch to 1.41. Run it and see if it works.
4) Patch to 1.50. Delete PB folder. Run pbsvc. Run pbsetup.
6) Pray and play online.

[matsif]

I've ran it with no problems on the RC1 64 bit, but that is the rc. only problem I've had is my wlan autoconfig screwing up my pings on everything, which is why I have resorted to playing mainly single player games.

I think you had the problem because you updated on a clean install. 1.5 is an incremental only patch and therefore has to be done after 1.41 is applied.

good info nonetheless

[Ash2Dust]

With the wlan, I'd yank the QoS Packet schedular off the adapter. I'd also change the wireless channel to 1 or 13 on the router in case neighbors are also using the generic default 6.

Also, if you're using a wireless mouse, try using a wired. I've shelved my wireless G7 mouse. Whenever anyone uses a laptop here with heavy bandwidth, the mouse movement gets choppy and ruins the game experience.

Run a ping test to your router with the -t option to look for any fluctuations over a couple minutes.
Then run a ping test to an IP address beyond your router for a couple minutes.

Also my old router and land phone fought each other. The phone is suppose to look for a good channel. But sometimes it decided to interfere with my router. Finally pinned that one down by calling my landphone while using a laptop.

As for neighbors, tell them to stop using their wireless router and wireless landlines.

[matsif]

ash the wlan autoconfig is the same as the Wireless Zero Configuration in xp, all its doing is searching for a better signal. normally non-intel drivers override this, but on my lappy I have only the intel drivers so I can't really do anything about it short of completely losing my wireless signal.

I've played with my g7 for quite some time now and havent had any problems with it, never had any huge ping fluctuations with any wireless activity until recently when I brought my lappy home. before I moved in at college, I only ran on wireless and never had any problems. now that I run off ethernet from the room, I get the problems whenever I run my wireless at home.

my desktop (running xp home sp3) has no problems with wireless, just my laptop (MSI GT627).

w/e, dragon age origins is quite fun

[.Sup]

Ran it as administrator? Also try to disable AA.

[ph1l0r]

mmmmmh. about to reinstall my pc at home. wondering if i'll give windows 7 x64 a shot or go with xp pro for another year or so. actually wanted to buy an ssd but seems like there's plenty things not really worked out yet ( intel pulling their ssd toolbox and firmware upgrade) so I'll wait :)

[Ash2Dust]

Matsif, I'm sure you've tried a bunch of things including sacrificing small furry animals.
Did you try stuff in this link?
http://www.hardforum.com/archive/index. ... 96212.html (wlan optimizer)
or the original link with voodoo solutions.
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-re ... 77463.html
or buy a wireless adapter you can get drivers for and disable your onboard.

Philor, I went with 32bit because I only have 2 megs of RAM and seen 64bit be a bit more of a pain in getting drivers for older stuff.
I have access to both thru MSDN so its not costing me anything to make a good or bad decision other than time. From what I've been reading SSD's have some serious issues that outweigh the benefits imo.

[ph1l0r]

I ordered exactly 4GB Ram. Would waste few Megs with XP 32Bit. But hell. Won't need the RAM anyway. Once the SSD stuff is settled regarding TRIM and stuff I might reconsider moving up to Windows 7. And as you said. All one can waste is time. Maybe I'll give Windows 7 a shot on another drive and see how far I get with it.

[matsif]

Matsif, I'm sure you've tried a bunch of things including sacrificing small furry animals.
Did you try stuff in this link?
http://www.hardforum.com/archive/index. ... 96212.html (wlan optimizer)
or the original link with voodoo solutions.
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-re ... 77463.html
or buy a wireless adapter you can get drivers for and disable your onboard.

I've tried wlan optimizer to no avail. the other link I'll try some of the other stuff this weekend when I go home as I don't have any wireless in my room to test it with.

the squirrels in my yard do not like me anymore, and apparently their sacrifice has gone unnoticed to the network gods.

[gomimin]

Phil, go for dual boot with XP Pro 32 and 7-64 - but install Xp first as 7 has another Bootloader that embeds XP boot.ini..., where you can put in

Code: Select all

/userva=2600

so that apps can use 2.6Gigs of those 3.5Gigs that XP32 is using...

Ash, drivers for 7-64 aren't a big problem as long as you're not using very old hardware, also for 7-Ultimate there's that Virtual XP (with free licence) where you could load drivers for 7 unsupported hardware. I tried with an old wacom drawing tablet and old Photoshop 6 (that's were loads of RAM come in handy)...

[Ash2Dust]

Seems Im not out of the dark with Win 7 and old games. With both DDO and BF2, the VOIP, in game VOIP, and even TS2 will eventually stop playing what people are saying to me. Everyone can hear me (confirmed thru chat), but I cant hear them. This usually takes anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes and I dont notice it until I'm wondering why no one is talking anymore. The game continues to play in game sounds and explosions just fine, just no voice from other players.

I have a X-Fi sound card. I've now installed the ALchemy software and hope that helps.

[matsif]

well ash,since you revived this thread, I will go ahead and inform you that wlan optimizer did end up fixing my connection issues. I had some settings in wrong before and wasn't running it in administrator mode, so it wasnt doing anything with my connection. now that I set it up right, I can play (as you all who I played with noticed today)