Cupcakus Posted January 7, 2003 Share Posted January 7, 2003 Oh where do I begin... A couple years ago a largely ambitious project came out called WW2 online... Excited beyond believe of a persistant WW2 battle, I rushed to pick it up. After the $50 shock to my wallet to pick it up I hurried home and installed it only to find that if I didn't have more than 256 megs of RAM installed, the game takes over 15 minutes to load. When it finally did load the game was only 20% complete, and just about every feature the box said it had, it did not. Battlefield 1942 was supposed to be the answer to the void that left in our hearts. And it delivers. While WW2 Online was intended to be a realistic sim, BF1942 is more of an arcade action shooter. My first game of BF1942 involved getting into a tank driving about 20 feet and immedietly being engaged by an enemy tank. Another player jumped into the machine gun position of the enemy tank, so I jump out and pick him off with my sniper rifle, my tank explodes... so I run into the plane that just happens to be sitting there, and drop a bomb right on the enemy tank, fly over the enemy base, bail out, and call in an artillary strike on my way down, where I was promptly taken out with a rocket. I like to call it a cross between WW2 online, and Tribes. The online world is not persistant, and is as far from a WW2 sim as you can probably achieve :-) Tanks are remarkably easy to operate just use the arrow keys and mouse button to shoot. No gears to worry about... and they can scale most terrain with ease. Planes are equally as easy to operate, but take practice to get the hang of... There are no real controls, just the mouse for pitch and roll, and the arrow keys for speed and yaw. The landing gear automatically raises and lowers as you approach or leave the ground... but I can guarantee you you will not be landing... you will either lose control, get shotdown, or bail out in a strategic spot to beat the enemy there. There are a plethera of other vehicles as well... Jeeps, APC's, etc... There are also several stationary weapons that can be manned, Huge artillary cannons, machine gun bunkers, AA Flak guns. Most naval ships can be boarded and used as well... including submarines! Aircraft Carriers and Destroyers can be operated... as well as the personell carriers for launching an invasion of a beach, you know the kind :-) There are several game modes, including the never tired CTF, but the most popular and exciting game is Conquest. Conquest pits both teams on equal ground, fighting over control points in the center of the map. Each team is given an equal number of "tickets" at the start of the match. When you're team's tickets reach 0, you lose. Each team member that dies is -1 ticket... If your team controls more than half of the control points the opposite team will take ticket loss on a per second basis. Controlled points are also new spawn points for your team and can be used very strategically to win a match. The game simply is everything it should be... The absolute best WW2 online game ever made... period. But, It has some shortcomings... First... it's dang resource intensive. On a 1.6Ghz AMD, 64Mb Geforce 4, 384Mb RAM it runs unplayable at all but the lowest detail settings. The single player mode is boring, boring, boring... As expected it is just the same maps and modes (Excluding CTF) of the multiplayer game, with uninspired, weak minded, AI bots. Even on the hardest setting I was able to breeze through the single player mode without many problems. Network Lag... This is unfortunetly the only element of the game that makes it completely unplayable for most people. The game came out a month ago or so, and has sold a large amount of units, however there are only 1500 or so players online during peak play time. Why? Because Network Lag makes the game unplayable... and there is no way to avoid it. Scince the first day I bought this game, I have been unable to play it online for more than 5 minutes... Wait 20 seconds/Spawn/Lag/Die(repeat) is a typical online session. Sniper rifles and rocket launchers are pretty much useless online, as objects you are aiming at will be no where close to that when the projectile reaches it's target. Even on EA's own servers with only 3 other players, there was lag. 56k users... don't even try this one :-) I hold out hope that future patches to the product will address the lag, Tribes was laggy at the start too and became one of the best online games released... only time can tell. But this game is uninstalled from my computer until then, unfortunetly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mustangarrett Posted January 7, 2003 Share Posted January 7, 2003 I think your min. system specs are a little off... that computer is still considered a fairly good performance system... the game cant possibly be that demanding... the demo runs great with everything high on my computer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maximebeauvais Posted January 7, 2003 Share Posted January 7, 2003 everything work great on my pc @ high detail pc3 800 512 ram gforce 32 however, I don't find this game very fun on single mode. I prefer Medal of Honor!!!!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjessop Posted January 7, 2003 Share Posted January 7, 2003 The game is VERY demanding of resources and don't even think about running it in a minimum configuration. You need to clean up your startup files and optimise everything for it to run properly. Once you do get it running well, your in for a real treat, it's awesome. I have a 2.1 gig Athlon XP with 512 meg, 7200 rpm drive, and Gforce 4 ti4600.....it don't get much better.......and I can still get my system to bog down at times even with broadband. Jerry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mustangarrett Posted January 7, 2003 Share Posted January 7, 2003 that doesnt make any sense... I have just about the same configuration as you just I have a crappier vid card than you do... and it runs great on my system Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hank Posted January 7, 2003 Share Posted January 7, 2003 I've been singing the praises of this game since I got it and brought it up a few times on this board. I LOVE it - best multiplayer game I've played. I have lowly P3-700, with an obsolete Geforce DDR card, and it actually runs pretty well (win XP, 768Meg RAM). I've noticed HUGE changes in performance depending on the video driver though. I had an increase from 10 to 28-30 fps when upgrading drivers at one time. I'm limited to multiplayer games of 30 people or less or my system does fall down. I have very fast cable internet access. I think we should start an AA BF1942 clan! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cupcakus Posted January 7, 2003 Author Share Posted January 7, 2003 I am using XP... that may or may not contribute to the resource demand I find. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hank Posted January 7, 2003 Share Posted January 7, 2003 Oh and the planes are MUCH easier to fly if you have a decent joystick. I'm online every weekend - usually super early in the morning before my kids get up If anyone here was interested in some organized play - say the word and I'm all over it. For those of you having performance problems - check your video drivers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mustangarrett Posted January 7, 2003 Share Posted January 7, 2003 well... how many of us have the game?... we could also get a MOH clan going... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hank Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 Cupcakus what kind of 'net connection do you have? I generally can find servers with a ping of 70-110 ms, and gameplay on them is very smooth, virtually no lag. I am limited to about 30 players though, but I think it's due more to my cpu speed? I would really think the game would be flawless on a system w/ your specs. I run the game @ 800x600 with medium detail with no problems at all. There are some performance threads on the '42 website forum. Anyone seen the upcoming total conversions that are in the works? www.bfcentral.com The StarWars conversion looks really promising. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cupcakus Posted January 8, 2003 Author Share Posted January 8, 2003 I am on a 1.2mbps DSL line... and experience no lag on a lot of online games that get major lag complaints... When I can play BF1942 online, I only play when my ping is less than 50ms and I still lag/die almost immedietly into playing the game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hank Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 I'd go read some of the performance threads in their forum. There is no way in heck it should work that good for me if it doesnt for you. Like I said earlier, video drivers were huge for me. If I get in the middle of a huge battle, with tanks blowing up, planes over head and shells flying all over I will bog down to 5 or 10 fps, but it usually very short lived. I think typically run 20 fps + online with 24-30 people in the game. My Geforce DDR card is first gen with only 32 meg of Vram. I can't imagine that 384 meg of system RAM is short. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjessop Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 that doesnt make any sense... I have just about the same configuration as you just I have a crappier vid card than you do... and it runs great on my system If you do some research I'm certainly not the only person claiming the game is resource intensive. I have everything cranked up, and generally it runs fine, but it can have it's moments. The game is huge and the environments very detailed. If you have a card with poorer perfromance than mine I assume you have many of the video options turned down and hence get better or acceptable performance. I'm not bagging the game, I'm hooked big time! Just don't try running it on anything less than the "reccomended system" on the box, forget the minimum system unless you mind 5 minute level load times Jerry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raijin Z Posted January 9, 2003 Share Posted January 9, 2003 The only problems I used to have with BF42 were the HORRENDOUS inaccuracy of the machineguns at short range, and the vehicle tleportation that came about when the server hosting the game wasn't a quad-P4 with 2GB of ram and an OC12 connection. Players wouldn't jerk around, but it was rather impossible dealing with planes and jeeps. Someone scratched my BF42's disc 1 all to hell, so I had to use disc 2 to authenticate. No problem, until I installed the latest patch. The game crashed before maps started loading. I uninstalled the game, and tried to reinstall it. OOPS! I FORGOT DISC 1 WAS RUINED. Now I have to download a bin/cue of disc 1 and burn it... but my CDRW drive died of old age, and my cable connection flaked out. yay. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjessop Posted January 9, 2003 Share Posted January 9, 2003 Can't help with the scratched disks but I too have made the same machine gun observation. I did some deeper digging into some of the online docs (the written one is incomplete IMHO) and they tell you that "short bursts" of fire are much more accurate, don't keep firing as each shot becomes less effective. It's such a great game! jerry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hank Posted January 9, 2003 Share Posted January 9, 2003 I'm going to overclock my 700 tonight and do a little benchmarking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yar Posted January 10, 2003 Share Posted January 10, 2003 BF 1942 is EXCELLENT. I picked it up earlier this month, and it's the best game I've purchased since Warcraft 3! My username is "Kraken" I'm running a P4 with 2 gigs of ram and a Gforce 4, and it still was choppy without the patch. However, once I installed the patch, everything was fine. Hmm....I know this has been suggested before, but how about an Atari Age Battlefield 1942 clan? Like...the 109th River Raid division? It would be great! Hmm...Mustang and Hank, you'd want in, right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mustangarrett Posted January 10, 2003 Share Posted January 10, 2003 hell yeah Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hank Posted January 11, 2003 Share Posted January 11, 2003 I'm in. I play whenever possible, but my time is limited. My BF'42 nickname is Ghengis. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hank Posted January 12, 2003 Share Posted January 12, 2003 I just bought the parts to upgrade my PC tonight. 2.4Ghz Intel, Asus Mobo w/ Intel 845PE chipset, 512MB PC2700 RAM, and a Geforce Ti-4200 128MB. Detail set to max, captain, full speed ahead! Not that I needed to spend $600 right now, but I think I can sell my old crap for $300 or so. Anyone need a P3-700 w/ 768meg of Ram, Geforce DDR, Linksys Enet, SBLive and a case? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hank Posted January 16, 2003 Share Posted January 16, 2003 I assembled my new hot rod last night. Wow - I can run BF '42 at 1024 x 768 with detail set to high with 60-70 frames per sec. So where's that server and when are playing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yar Posted January 16, 2003 Share Posted January 16, 2003 Saturday-check noon to 10. That's when I'll attempt to start a game. I'll post an announcement in Off Topic when It's up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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