More BF1942 Tips & Tricks

[[AK]Hylander]

Alright I know quite a few of you are having a tough time with the performance in game. I did myself when I first started and I was shocked because I have a rather high end system (only a GF3Ti200 but still). So here are a few things and also common things to try and get better performance.

First of all some general stuff:

Skip Splash/Intro Screens: You simply locate your Battlefield 1942 Directory and get into it, you'll see a file called "Movies". Once your in it, there will be only 3 files in there and all you have to do is delete them or remove them whatever you feel like. Don't worry it won't corrupt the game or anything. Next time you Exe the game it will go straight to the Main Menu.

Controls: Make sure you setup/save all your controls perfectly to what you perfer or like, doing so will make you a better player. A lot of people ask how to fly the planes and what's the best method? Well it's more of a personal perference, but I only use the keyboard when I fly of course many people think it's near impossible, it just takes practice. If your not good at using the "Keyboard, Keyboard + Mouse" then try using a joystick. Using a joystick/gamepad whatever you want, makes flying for some people real basic and easy to perform pinpoint stunts such
as flying under the bridge or doing loops. Also not many people Realize that if you push g.. it'll switch for a pack that's lying on the ground. So if you are an assault and see a medic pack, pick it up, heal yourself, then pick your pack back up. Same thing with Anti Tank and so on. This is a HUGE tip and is usefull in MANY situations.

56K Connections or Bad Connection Speeds: Quite a few people complain about the lag there getting and there's many reasons why it could be happening. It could be your Computer Hardware/Specs and they don't meet requirements, Connection to the Internet is Bad, The Server that's hosting the game doesn't have the correct settings or it's being hosted on a slow connection, etc. Obviously turning down the Video/Sound settings can improve your Ping, but the infamous "1024 Ping" when you start can be fixed. There's a bug in the In-Game Browser Menu that randomly loads the Server Stats/List even when your playing a game in a Server. I found that if you play with the Filter Settings, there right below the perference List that it improves your Ping A LOT!! I set my Player size as 30 and usually around 55 Servers show up, so if it does load during my game it won't Spike my Ping Majorly. I never jump higher then 350ms + Ping and normally sticks around 220ms-290ms. Try playing around with the Filter, it will help and make sure when you Update the Server List that you Manually type back in the Player Number else it won't stay.

Operation of Vehicles/Planes/Ships Etc: Instead of explaining all of this, take a look at the controls in the game and set them up right! Basically little known stuff such as Ammo Boxes, Health Lockers, APC Vehicle can Refuel other Vehicles in a 10 Foot Radious and anyone who sits in the back of it gains health back and ammo, If your flying the Heavy Bomber you can make the Torpedo zoom across the water if you fly extremely close above the ocean water, Sniper Rifle Zoom and when shot you can hold down your mouse button to keep the zoom on untill you let
go, Shooting at Airplane Engines does "Around 2x Damage", Vehicles "Tanks/APC" basically have no Armor in the Back and not a lot on the sides, Etc. Remember F9 gets rid of the HUD in a plane


And now to fix some video issues:

First of all make sure you have the latest video drivers and most recent bios. This should help some. Also make sure in your bios that you have the right Video Aperture size set for the amount of RAM you vid card has. I just realized that mine was set to 32 when I had a full 64 and the differnece was AMAZING.

Second a BIG part of whats taking up all the CPU is the sound. Try messing around with the sound setting some and lower them down to 22KHz or even 11KHz and the quality to medium or low. I have turned off the music on mine (even though it is good) because it helps out on my loading times some. If you have a decent sound card I would enable Hardware Support which will put all the sound power onto the sound card and free up more time for the CPU. But if not just set the number of channels lower. This has been shown to help out A LOT.

Next to make sure your drivers are doing any extra fancy stuff that they don't need to be doing. GO to display properties (either through control panel or right click on desktop and go to properties and go to Setting>Advanced and there should be a tab for your card. Go to it and there will be a list of options. What we want to do is make sure 3D Antialiasing is turned OFF. Under Direct3D Turn Texture Anisotropic Setting to 0x and make Mipmap detial elvel Best performance (this one should help lots also). Finally under OpenGL turn off Vertical sync and Antisotropic Filtering. Hopefully one of these settings should improve your performance. (I'm not completely sure which the game runs under OpenGL or D3D so just do both)

Now you should be able to tweak around in the in game video settings enough to get something that runs decent. I'm runnin at 1024x with medium effects and graphics 60% textures and 100% distance viewing and all the extra stuff turned off. It looks good and runs REALLY smooth in almost all situations.


Hope this helps some of you and if you need any further help please post.

BTW to get FPS just press the ~ key and type
console.showfps1

it'll appear in the upper left coner and you can get rid of the radio buttons by pushing F8

[Hale]

My system ( /w modest video card) ran smooth as silk on the AK server last night. I've come to the conclusion that the EA servers lag out the ass on the larger maps.

Its a shame because its damaging the game. They should limit their servers to 24 players.

[Widowmaker]

The EA servers are so much crap.

Last week I still had my Geforce2 GTS 64MB DDR card. I had to play the game at 800x600 (which still looks great and was perfectly fine to me) with effects at LOW and detail at MEDIUM and textures at 60% with 100%viewable range. Ran great, looked great.

Now I have the GEFORCE 4 ti4600 and am playing the game at 1024x768 with all settings CRANKED and it runs smooth as silk and looks great, the water now looks amazing where as before it was functional. I never play games at higher resolutions than 1024x768 because then it starts gettng difficult for me to make out text and such and always hits performance. To me the graphics difference between, say 1024x768 and 1280x1024 is minute and not worth it.

It is tough to find a good server, look for one with a good CPU and a green dot on the in game browser. Even though the EA servers show as having good status I have always lagged very very badly on them. I don't bother with those servers any more.

[[AK]Hylander]

Widowmaker,

I agree.. I have a 19in monitor but once I start going above 1024 resolution, the text gets too small.

When I'm sim racing it's not that big a deal as you aren't reading text much, but in other gaming - especially in team environment - you need to be able to read text.

[Hale]

Here a tip:

If you park a tank on a repair bay, it will be virtually indestructable. Any damage that you take that does not kill the tank outright will be repaired almost instantly. Unless someone can shoot you in the rear for an instant kill, it will take 2 or 3 enemy tanks to take you out.

[Hale]

Another Tip:

If you get blown sky high, but not killed, by a nearby explosion (or a 'friendly' direct hit with FF off) the impact with the ground can kill you even if the initial damage doesn't. You can open your parachute while airbourne to prevent the impact damage with the ground.

I saw someone do that right in front of me the other day in a game. It never would have occured to me that you can use the parachute other then when bailing out of a plane.

Edit:spelling

[Widowmaker]

Drive a jeep off a high cliff and exit and parachute down for a fun stunt.

[Hale]

Tip:

Never chase an engineer. Try to kill them at long range or circle around and get them from the back or sides.

[[AK]Faxman]

Never chase an engineer. Try to kill them at long range or circle around and get them from the back or sides.

Quiet, you fool! You'll reveal the engineer's best kept secret!

[Widowmaker]

Here is a tip I just read on the BF Comunity site.

In lieu of an "auto run" feature, to save our strained wrists during long hikes across the map, you can get yourself running and while holding the "w" key to run you press the button for chat (team or all does not matter) and you keep running.

I'll have to play with it to see how it works. Can you close the chat and keep autoruning? Can you steer with the mouse while auto runing? Can you shoot (or reload) while auto runing? I guess I'll find out later.

I'm all for an auto run key like EQ and WWIIOL have but opening chat may work just as well.

[Zorro]

Originally posted by [AK]Widowmaker
Here is a tip I just read on the BF Comunity site.

In lieu of an "auto run" feature, to save our strained wrists during long hikes across the map, you can get yourself running and while holding the "w" key to run you press the button for chat (team or all does not matter) and you keep running.

I'll have to play with it to see how it works. Can you close the chat and keep autoruning?

No.

Can you steer with the mouse while auto runing?

Yes.

Can you shoot (or reload) while auto runing?

Yes (No, you're in a chat window)

I guess I'll find out later.

I'm all for an auto run key like EQ and WWIIOL have but opening chat may work just as well.

I stumbled on this quite by accident during the demo. It's pretty effective for when you're swimming away from a sunken ship or ditched plane, but that's about it... I suppose it would be good for the big land maps, too, but most of the time on those, I'm driving, anyway... This is almost like the old EQ "auto run" was before they actually made an auto run button, except that you stop running when you close the chat dialog.

[Widowmaker]

Thanks Z.

It is not all that useful then.

C'mon DICE, give us an auto run key! (or double tap for auto run would work too).