The AT Battlefield Bad Company 2 F.A.Q.

[Udgnim]

Guys i want to buy a retail copy instead of steam copy. How does this game update? do i have to manually download patches? or is it like steam and auto updates it for you.

it updates when you log in your account within the game

 

[Jesusthewererabbit]

When I installed on Wednesday, it just downloaded once. Took about an hour on my slow ass internet, but I couldn't really tell that it downloaded three or four different patches.

 

[GullyFoyle]

Guys i want to buy a retail copy instead of steam copy. How does this game update? do i have to manually download patches? or is it like steam and auto updates it for you.

You run an updater program that checks for updates before starting the game. If there are no updates, it proceeds in to the game, if there are updates, it asks you if you want to download and install them first.

 

[pontifex]

man, i think choppers are harder to fly in this game than in BF2.

 

[GullyFoyle]

Hey Gully...or anyone else that seems connected...

any eta on a new patch?? I cannot keep the game running...everything was good before this last patch...but now I'm getting the same thing that everyone else is reporting in the forums...BSOD...game just stops...etc...

very frustrating...

thanks,
Chappie

I have no info on the next patch. I am concerned about the patch process. If you reinstall from scratch, does it apply all the patches in order? Or, are you running the Steam version, which should come in fully patched?

Before reinstalling, are you wiping the existing program, and the data directories under My Documents? Are you saving and restoring an old config, which might be part of the problem?

What are the details on your hardware configuration?

 

[GullyFoyle]

Hi all

Few questions regarding my gameplay experience. Any info is great and appreciated. :

-my spotting enemies ability cuts out sometimes. I'll be hitting "Q" button several times, and no spot. Sometimes it will come back on if I hit caps lock. Is this because I use a USB keyboard or something?
-My artillery also cuts out sometimes, but for the whole game (not out of artillery strikes, its just not loading at all).
-What does Caps Lock do?
Threads merged. I'd say a dozen BC2 threads is sufficient.

Anandtech PC Gaming Moderator
KeithTalent

Alot of your questions have been answered.

-There is a "cool down" on spotting, if you spot too much you can't for a while, while it "cools down". This is to prevent spot spamming all over the map to light up people you can't actually see.
-I pcked up a sniper kit to see if he had the mortar strike yesterday, and I couldn't get it to work. Maybe you can only do it a few times? I haven't earned the mortar strike yet, because I always feel guilty playing sniper).
-No idea on the caps-lock. What makes you think it does anything?

 

[Childs]

man, i think choppers are harder to fly in this game than in BF2.

Yeah, I installed BF2 so I could practice flying and was doing well, so I hopped into BC2, hopped in a chopper, and crashed right away! lol Afterwards I was looking around and I guess the flight controls are inverted or something in BC2. I need to dig around a little bit more, and maybe just practice on an empty server.

BTW, there were some fierce battles on the ATOT server last night. Good stuff. The lowest person in our squad was like 20/12, and at worst like 16/20, yet the competition was so good the defending team always won. I think most of the server was > level 20. I always forget to use to the ATOT tag, but there was maybe 6 guys using it, all on the same side. Good times!

 

[tvdang7]

whats your ram usage for this game? im wondering if 2 gigs will be sufficient.

 

[zylander]

Stats are finally up;

 

[Chappie]

I have no info on the next patch. I am concerned about the patch process. If you reinstall from scratch, does it apply all the patches in order? Or, are you running the Steam version, which should come in fully patched?

Before reinstalling, are you wiping the existing program, and the data directories under My Documents? Are you saving and restoring an old config, which might be part of the problem?

What are the details on your hardware configuration?

Thanks for the reply Gully,

Specs,

Phenom II x3
2 gigs of ram
Radeon 5770 video card
onboard sound.

I dual booted a different version of windows and am currently downloading the game from Steam ...again..

I'll let you know how it goes.

When the game does run, it's flawless...all medium settings with a dash of AA and AF..looks great and is great fun...but I get the dreaded sound and video freeze...The whole system locks up and I have to physically restart the system..press and hold the button.

Very frustrating...it did not do this before the patch...

thanks,
Chappie

 

[zylander]

Does the veterans registration site not work for anyone else? The page loads but when I push the add persona button it just keeps loading for ever and never actually goes on to the next page.

 

[Demo24]

Alot of your questions have been answered.


-I pcked up a sniper kit to see if he had the mortar strike yesterday, and I couldn't get it to work. Maybe you can only do it a few times? I haven't earned the mortar strike yet, because I always feel guilty playing sniper).

Mortar strike has a 30 sec timeout period, but unlimited uses. It bugs on me sometimes and won't stay open, or doesn't fully lock on to something.

 

[Rent]

Mortar strike has a 30 sec timeout period, but unlimited uses. It bugs on me sometimes and won't stay open, or doesn't fully lock on to something.

This happens to me as well... I'll try and use it and it just kicks back out of the zoom. Pretty annoying, I have no idea why it happens.

 

[Chappie]

quick update ...thought I was onto something...but no luck..

I did a fresh install of the game on a brand new install of windows 7 64 bit. played well for a round then bangoooo!!!! freeze up.

I did not install the realtek high def audio drivers but that wasn't it....man this is frustrating.....

any ideas???

Chappie

 

[Demo24]

This happens to me as well... I'll try and use it and it just kicks back out of the zoom. Pretty annoying, I have no idea why it happens.

And then you get some guy that walks in front of you screwing up the position timer.

 

[imaheadcase]

I love almost everything about this game, except one, the biggest POS ingame browser I have EVER seen.

Not only is it bad, its terribly designed. DICE can not for the life of them make a server browser in any BF game, BF2 was also the worse.

Filters don't save?
No region settings?
Why the frack would "Play now" put my on a UK or aussie server when i'm in the US?
No ping showing in game? WTH, even running admin mode does not fix it like they said, never mind the fact no other game requires such bs.
Adding to favorites takes FOREVER, its like it is refreshing the whole server list every time you add a server.

The worst part is, not only do they never fix this crap, they don't allow other programs to allow you to connect through. Anyone remember Gamespy and All Seeing Eye? Or KALI? Man those made it so simple to play games.

sorry had to get that rant off my chest, i just got tired of spending 20min to find a frackin server to play on.

 

[imaheadcase]

quick update ...thought I was onto something...but no luck..

I did a fresh install of the game on a brand new install of windows 7 64 bit. played well for a round then bangoooo!!!! freeze up.

I did not install the realtek high def audio drivers but that wasn't it....man this is frustrating.....

any ideas???

Chappie

Its the 2 gigs of ram. Not %100, but i'm pretty sure thats it. Upgrade to 4 or more, i'm guessing the video card and system memory are not working right.

 

[bob4432]

i haven't played the retail yet, but did get it installed -

it is just one big install - got good speeds - 1.4-1.8MB/s d/l

and as far as ram useage, when i had the beta in, my max ram useage for the whole machine peaked @ 1.8GB, so figure the machines idles, so ~1.3GB for the game peak. again, this was the beta.

will hopefully get on retail tonight or tomorrow, also running xp 32bit - 4850 w/ a e2160 @ 3GHz - 1920x1200 (don't know what setting yet but will probably either go low or 1680x1050 & med).

 

[Zenoth]

The first time you ran it, did it download a butt-load of patches?
I was wondering what it would look like for someone installing now, for the first time. I think there have been around three or four patches, ioncluding the Day-1 one. Does it do them seperately, or roll them all up in to one?

Does your main splash screen, after the EA video, and before the login screen covers it up, show "522174" down in the lower right corner?
Are you running the BFBC2Game.exe or BFBC2Updater.exe?

What is wrong with redeem code? Is it saying invalid code, or something? What is the code for, Limited Edition? AK-47 unlock?

º I wasn't aware of any patches, are they available for manual download and installation? I've typed "Bad Company 2 patch" on Google and found nothing.

º The splash screen after the EA videos and before the login screen does not show any numbers of any types on any of the four corners of the screen, it's just the main game's splash screen with the soldiers on the background and nothing else.

º I'm using the BFBC2Game.exe to launch the game.

EDIT:

As a side note, I've clicked on the BFBCUpdater.exe for the first time, and it showed that my version was older than the new one, and now it's updating files as I type this. The thing is that had I not tried that manually I would have never had my game being updated at all. I thought that DICE/EA would make it so their game would automatically update, but apparently it wasn't the case.

I think I have you to thank for pointing out about the updater executable, and I have EA/DICE to point at for not telling us when the game launches in the main menu via a dynamic message at the bottom of the screen about trying to update it manually via the updater in the game's installation folder. That was a spectacular lack of communication between the devs and the players, no wonder why so many persons have problems with this game right now.

 

[GullyFoyle]

º I wasn't aware of any patches, are they available for manual download and installation? I've typed "Bad Company 2 patch" on Google and found nothing.

º The splash screen after the EA videos and before the login screen does not show any numbers of any types on any of the four corners of the screen, it's just the main game's splash screen with the soldiers on the background and nothing else.

º I'm using the BFBC2Game.exe to launch the game.

EDIT:

As a side note, I've clicked on the BFBCUpdater.exe for the first time, and it showed that my version was older than the new one, and now it's updating files as I type this. The thing is that had I not tried that manually I would have never had my game being updated at all. I thought that DICE/EA would make it so their game would automatically update, but apparently it wasn't the case.

I think I have you to thank for pointing out about the updater executable, and I have EA/DICE to point at for not telling us when the game launches in the main menu via a dynamic message at the bottom of the screen about trying to update it manually via the updater in the game's installation folder. That was a spectacular lack of communication between the devs and the players, no wonder why so many persons have problems with this game right now.

Only the latest version shows a version number in the lower right corner of the screen. I was trying to determine if you were running the latest version, and that was the easiest way to figure it out.
Another guy started a separate thread, that had the exact same problems as you, that also got it from EA down loader. Sounds like the EA downloader installation screws it up by not running the updater on a normal basis.
Good luck, and let us know how it turns out.

 

[Zenoth]

Only the latest version shows a version number in the lower right corner of the screen. I was trying to determine if you were running the latest version, and that was the easiest way to figure it out.
Another guy started a separate thread, that had the exact same problems as you, that also got it from EA down loader. Sounds like the EA downloader installation screws it up by not running the updater on a normal basis.
Good luck, and let us know how it turns out.

The updating of files was done properly and now the game shows up a version number at the splash screen, I can now see games on the server browser...

But... there's a new problem now. Approximately ten seconds after the games show up on the server browser the game then immediately crashes back to the Desktop.

Is that also a known bug? I went on the Punkbuster's web-site and downloaded the latest version of the files to be put inside the pb folder, just to make sure it was properly updated, and it didn't help the case, it still crashes after I refresh games on the server browser.

 

[pontifex]

i was playing in empty servers to test settings and equipment and try to learn how stuff works and it almost never failed that some guy would join the server and then start attacking me. i didn't want to do play against just 1 other guy so I just quit out. it was rather annoying.

Why would anyone want to join a server with just 1 other person in it, especially on this type of game? it doesn't make sense to me.

 

[GullyFoyle]

The updating of files was done properly and now the game shows up a version number at the splash screen, I can now see games on the server browser...

But... there's a new problem now. Approximately ten seconds after the games show up on the server browser the game then immediately crashes back to the Desktop.

Is that also a known bug? I went on the Punkbuster's web-site and downloaded the latest version of the files to be put inside the pb folder, just to make sure it was properly updated, and it didn't help the case, it still crashes after I refresh games on the server browser.

So you wait a few minutes for the server browser list to populate, it finally shows up, then it CTD's before you select a server to visit?

Doesn't sound like a common problem to me.

I don't think it's Punkbuster. It would only kick you after joining a server. I'll look around...

 

[Zenoth]

So you wait a few minutes for the server browser list to populate, it finally shows up, then it CTD's before you select a server to visit?

Doesn't sound like a common problem to me.

I don't think it's Punkbuster. It would only kick you after joining a server. I'll look around...

The "temporary fix" from what I've found on Google is to simply use the "Play Now" function, which I did, and it does work, I finally managed to join a good ping game with some players in a fun map, being able to play the game I bought after 36 hours is a good sensation. As long as the Play Now method works I'll deal with the rest, it's up to DICE to fix their damn server browser, I'd still prefer to filter the types of games, settings and maps I want to play in than to rely on their own quick match stuff, but in the meantime it's better than nothing.

 

[Chappie]

Just got done with about an hour long session...might have fixed it...seems I have 2 high definition audio devices listed in device manager...not sure why!?

I disabled one....no sound at all in windows...switched to disabling the other...sound in windows and the game was rock steady...

weird..

Chappie