Battlefield 2142 Demo available for download from EA

Battlefield 2142 Demo just become available for download. Full version hits the stores early next week!

Posted by 42 [PC Gaming] ( October 11, 2006 11:24 PM ) Permalink

Check out the latest Battlefield 2142 E3 demo Video

While you're waiting for the Battlefield 1.3 patch to be fixed you can entertain yourself by checking out the E3 video for EA's latest addition to the Battlefield series - Battlefield 2142.   Expected release date Q4 2006.

You can find the video here

Posted by 42 [PC Gaming] ( June 02, 2006 06:02 PM ) Permalink

Ageia's PhysX processor finally hits the market

Check out the article at Hothardware for a more detailed review of BFG's, and I believe the industries first gaming PPU (physics processing unit). Designed to offload (funnily enough) physics calculations from the main CPUs similar to how 3D graphics processing was moved away from the CPU back in the days of 3dfx. Look for games and consoles to start taking advantage of these chips and the associated APIs (the PPUs function can be software emulated I believe? but at much reduced performance - need to check that out) over the next 6 to 12 months. This has potential to change how we interact with gaming environments, and how they react to us :)

Posted by 42 [PC Gaming] ( May 09, 2006 09:31 PM ) Permalink

Sun making moves into the REAL gaming world - online

With the Darkstar Project expect to see more of Sun in the online gaming world. It is about time someone developed a scalable backend framework for gaming, and I'm glad it is us. Maybe now we'll see real massively multiplayer worlds, where people can move from one world to the other seaminglessly. Imagine, first person shooters such as the Battlefield, unreal, and quake series, extending their battlegrounds from single maps with one-off, round based game play with no affect on a larger scale to a 'realistic' campaign style play where multiple 'maps' are played across the theater of combat! Your squad can /join/progress/unjoin battles (maps) while still maintaining the consistency and flow across the whole game (or multiple maps). The outcome of a battle in one region can affect battles in others (reinforcements and supplies can now make it to your squad for example when the battle one sector behind you is won)

Posted by 42 [PC Gaming] ( April 05, 2006 11:23 AM ) Permalink

Is there a pattern here with EA?

Argh, seems like things just don't work well with EA. I downloaded and installed the latest booster pack for BF2 (the euro pack) and sure enough, it didn't work 'out-of-the-box'. After searching and searching I found a support article that told me I needed to change my account alias to match the account I play online with and not the AE alias I purchased the game with. A bit of automation or messaging during install would have REALLY helped reduce the frustration levels and MAXIMISE game playing time :-) That said, the Euro pack looks good from the first couple of hours.

Posted by 42 [PC Gaming] ( March 15, 2006 06:04 PM ) Permalink

Battlefield 2 patch 1.21 FIXED!!!

Thanks to the lads at http://www.forumplanet.com/planetbattlefield/topic.asp?fid=13392&tid=1860751 I have finally been able to play Battlefield 2 since I loaded the 1.21 patch. Problem I had was the dreaded connection lost within a couple of minutes of game play. The solution, update PB externally to BF2 (details in link).

Posted by 42 [PC Gaming] ( March 13, 2006 11:10 PM ) Permalink

No time for playin games :(

Though managed to install FEAR on my new system, just need to 'test' it out...

Posted by 42 [PC Gaming] ( February 08, 2006 11:24 AM ) Permalink

BF2 SF - Need more memory, 1GB don't cut it anymore

Ever since upgrading my video card and installing the Battlefield 2 Special Forces expansion pack my machine has been running dog slow. Half life 2 is fine and can be run at high video settings so I know this is not attributed to the card in itself so am guessing it is a combination of the additional memory required to handle the higher quaility textures and the add-on itself. So looks like a memory upgrade will be in the works for post-xmas :-)

Posted by 42 [PC Gaming] ( December 21, 2005 09:54 AM ) Permalink

Battlefield 2 Stat tracking

I've taken my stats out of my blog and placed it in the frame at the side to keep it persistent, all I need to do now is find more time to actually play BF2. Need to get to 8,000 points now for the next rank (EA changed all the rank requirements as of the 1.03 patch).

Posted by 42 [PC Gaming] ( October 18, 2005 12:53 AM ) Permalink | Comments[0]

Gaming life goes slow

Only have a global score of 3900 in battlefield 2, a long way to go until my next rank (12k mark I understand)... n e e d m o r e t i m e :-(

Posted by 42 [PC Gaming] ( September 07, 2005 09:01 PM ) Permalink | Comments[1]

Zboard - gaming keyboard

Purchased the zboard a few days back after looking at it for some time. The zboard features an exchangable template that allows you to configure the key layout (well, purchase the key layouts :-)) for different games, my attraction was to the BF2 layout. Takes a while to get used to but once you adapt to having the sprint, prone and crouch keys in a different (strange) place the keyboard is actually quite good, not sure I'd say it was worth spending the extra dosh on over an standard keyboard but it does look the look.

Posted by 42 [PC Gaming] ( August 28, 2005 12:00 PM ) Permalink | Comments[0]

Battlefield 2 1.02 patch is out, fixed punkbuster errors with rend9x.dll

Game played normally without it for a while but kept getting a strange punkbuster error before realising needed patching. Had a problem installing though but found this link helpful.

Posted by 42 [PC Gaming] ( July 17, 2005 05:55 AM ) Permalink | Comments[1]

Battlefield 2 is here, and here to stay!

Battlefield 2, the highly anticipated followup to Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield Vietnam was finally released yesterdaty, June 22! After playing the multiplayer demo for about a week now I was keen to grab my copy for some full on butt kicking, squad based action... I was not disappointed. Without a doubt, as well as the upgraded graphics engine and better physics (rag-doll deaths are a nice add) this games strength is really in the squad and commander features EA have concentrated their efforts on. Looks like I'll be off to get a headset later today...

Posted by 42 [PC Gaming] ( June 23, 2005 08:35 AM ) Permalink | Comments[0]

Battlefield 2 multiplayer demo

Downloaded and played the 500+ MB multiplayer demo for Battlefield 2 last night, damn fine game and looking forward to the June 22nd release date!  Apart from the updated graphics engine there is the addition of the commander and squad modes, these two features alone make the game! Performed well on my existing rig (P4 2.4 HT/1GB/Nvidia 5700 Ultra) on medium video quality @ 800x600 with x2 AA but the best all round was at low quailty and x4 AA (still looked damn fine). CPU in both cases never made it past 70% leading me to believe I should spend some time and effort on beefing up my video card as that is obviously the bottleneck here.  Problem is I don't want to spend any money on a new AGP card and I'm not ready to upgrade to PCI-E across the rest of my machine.... Oh well, looks like I might have to include my video card in my OC adventure as well :-)

Posted by 42 [PC Gaming] ( June 15, 2005 08:56 AM ) Permalink | Comments[1]

SUN - now a MMORPG it seems, complete with Schwarz as ruler!?

Interesting find on the net today.  Korean developer WEBZEN is scheduled to release what seems to be a highly anticipated MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) called Sun in the US Q3/2005.  What makes this funny to me, and I'm sure to be of interest to others as Sun and the outside world is the references to "Emperor Schwarz" Extract from the storyline for "SUN" from http://www.webzen.co.kr/eng/games/sun/sun.html "Under the reign of the Immortal Emperor Schwarz, the Geist Empire has ruled the Blandis continent for five hundred years...."

Posted by 42 [PC Gaming] ( May 31, 2005 10:14 AM ) Permalink | Comments[1]