Need assistance w/ Battlefield 2 and 2142

[cdubya42]

I have a feelin' this is going to be related to either my monitor(Widescreen) or my video card(more likely). But I figured I'd post here just incase.

Ok first here's what's happening then I'll post my specs.

At first I thought my problem was Vista so I installed Windows XP Pro w/ SP2(haven't tried SP3 yet). At any rate I install the games and update them w/ the latest respective update. I then try to launch the game and it shows the splash screen, screen goes black for a few secs then blamo back to the desktop I go. So I then try to launch it windowed mode (+fullscreen 0 tag)as recommended by the support section provided by EA. I get in there but when I try to join a game in progress and it begins to optimize the textures it CTD again. So I try to launch the game again and now even in windowed mode I can't even get to the menu, black screen for a few seconds and I'm seeing my desktop again. I've tried forcing my native resolution that didn't work. I'm at my wits end w/ these titles. It's given me texture errors on launch or when trying to join games and I've tried reinstalling the patch but to no avail. And one last thing...

HELLLLLLP!!!!! :wall:

Specs:

Windows XP Professional SP2
AMD 64 X2 4200+
3GB DDR Ram
160GB Western Digital HDD
SATA Samsung DVD Burner
EVGA Geforce 8600 GT 512MB PCIEx
nForce 4 Chipset
Acer 19" Widescreen LCD Native Res is 1680x1050
Battlefield 2 Complete Collection w/ Patch 1.41
Battlefield 2142 w/ Patch 1.50
Onboard audio

all using latest availible drivers and updates

[SOSTrooper]

I'm leaning towards a bad video card, but have you tried other 3D games to see if they load successfully?

[DrFoo]

Did you recently switch monitors? I had the first problem you described when I went from a CRT monitor to an LCD monitor, although that had something to do with saved settings in my profile which would fix itself during a reformat. Otherwise like SOSTrooper said it's probably the video card.

[cdubya42]

I'm getting ready to try Black Hawk Down to see if it'll launch or Joint Operation... I'll let ya know if either are a success. I was thinking maybe it's due to the fact that the games I'm trying to play are Direct X 9 games but the card is a Direct X 10 card I dunno if that really matters or not.

I've had the monitor for little under a year but this is the first time I've tried to play these titles w/ it.

[cdubya42]

Well BHD works flawless... purhaps I need to try something like 3DMark to see if it will work ok.

[cdubya42]

well from what I've found it is related to my card but it's more something to do w/ EA titles not liking the drivers from reading over at nVidia's forums it seems as though there are several others having issues the same same as I have been... stinks though I really enjoyed playing these games.. guess i'll be researching a new card to buy.. yes i like them that much :-P

[SOSTrooper]

Probably will want to look into ATI cards. Something like a HD 4850 is in very good price/performance ratio.

[cdubya42]

well... I finally got this thing running.. well kinda atleast.. i had purchased new ram earlier this year because i thought i was having issues w/ only having 1GB of ram so i bought a 2gb ocz ram kit... I had 2 512 sticks of old samsung ram that i had for years that was ddr 333 so i figured it needed to be upgraded too... i also had a single stick of corsair ddr 400 however the memory timings were different on all of the sticks except the kit.. so at any rate the timings on the kit were 3-3-3-7 and the corsair was 3-3-3-8 and the other two sticks were CAS 2.5... so i put those in to try them and it allowed it to atleast load but the performance was terrible.. i'd move my mouse and it wouldn't do jack for atleast 30sec. so i decided to try the kit w/out any of the others... it allowed me to get in there but same glitchy performance so i took a look at my memory timing settings in my bios... well.. they were supposed to be being set by SPD(auto) but for some reason they were junk so i had to set them manually.. no biggie there.. at any rate i can now finally play it again.. but i need to get a new video card and a good sata hard drive preferably 2 250's or 500's... so now the search is on and btw.. how's that 4850 perform for ya in real world gaming not benchmarks..

[DrFoo]

The 4850 will own any game out right now except maybe Crysis (which it probably won't be able to run at ridiculously high resolutions with very high settings). It's something around 30% faster than the 8800gt/9800gt from what I remember.

[cdubya42]

cool.. i absolutely hate my 8600... was by far the biggest let down i've ever experienced w/ an nvidia card i'ver had to date.. i knew i shoulda just stuck w/ ATI cards .. :-D... thanks for the reply and the info.