Known Issues: There are a range of bugs and glitches at the moment in BF2142, including problems with ranks not being correctly promoted, unlocks not being allocated properly, strange vehicle/walker behavior and lagging/warping around. There are no fixes to most of these issues. Follow the advice on this page and in this guide to minimize the problems, but if you still experience these problems, you will simply have to wait for a new patch from EA to resolve these issues.

In-Game Lag/Freezes: Most people experience a lot of in-game lags, pauses and several-second freezes. Remember that if your Ping/Latency is fairly low (e.g. below 100), and you're not 'warping' around constantly (packet loss) then any other types of 'Lag' you experience have nothing to do with your Internet connection. Aside from optimizing your system as per my guides in the Essential Optimization section (which is the only genuine long-term fix), check the Clearing Shader Optimizations tip below, and make sure to carefully read the Video option descriptions in the In-Game Settings section as well, and of course make absolutely sure you've defragmented your hard drive after installing the game. However it's quite clear that BF2142 requires a lot of memory to operate. Basically many of the pauses/freezes/stuttering are related to loading information from the hard drive, and for those of you with only 512MB or even 1GB of RAM this will happen very often, particularly at the start of a match and whenever new areas/items are encountered. As with BF2 which required 2GB of RAM to run more smoothly, BF2142 also benefits greatly from 2GB of RAM.

Graphical Glitches: If you are experiencing strange graphics, such as flickering textures, obviously first make sure your graphics card is supported by the game (See Official Support above). Secondly, make sure you check out my ATI or Nvidia Tweak Guides (See the Essential Optimization section) - especially the instructions on page 4 of those guides for doing a 'clean install' of the latest drivers. If you run an ATI graphics card, use the latest Catalysts (6.9 or newer), and if you run an Nvidia graphics card, use the latest official Forceware drivers (91.47 or newer). Finally make absolutely sure your graphics card is not overheating, even if it's not overclocked.

Clearing Shader Optimizations: When you change the graphical settings or install a new graphics driver, Battlefield 2142 attempts to optimize the shaders used in the game for the best performance on your particular hardware when loading up a map. This can greatly increase the initial loading time any time this optimization is done. These optimized files are stored in one or more folders under your \Documents and Settings\User\My Documents\Battlefield 2142\mods\bf2142\cache directory. If you've changed your settings several times, I recommend that after you've finalized your changes you close BF2142, go to the above directory and delete everything under the \cache\ directory. The next time you start playing the game your shaders will be optimized again (which usually takes a while). Close BF2142 one more time, defragment your hard drive, and from now on things should be much smoother when playing BF2142.

Gamma, Brightness, Contrast: Battlefield 2142 does not seem to have any in-game options to alter the brightness, contrast or gamma of the game. You will have to use a third-party program like PowerStrip which works with all graphics cards, or the gamma options in your graphics card's control panel to alter the game's brightness/gamma/contrast.

Punkbuster: Battlefield 2142 uses the PunkBuster anti-cheat software commonly used in most other online games. This software helps identify and prevent cheating in the game, and cheaters can expect to have their account banned. Make sure you have Punkbuster enabled in the game (See In-Game Settings section), as most multiplayer servers require it to allow you to join. Importantly, do not modify your Battlefield 2142 files in any way - such as using programs to alter the shader versions, or using No-CD/DVDs - as these may be seen as cheats by PB. Tweaking the game as described in this guide is fine, but be careful as to what you alter if it's not covered here. If you're having problems automatically updating your Punkbuster version when online, you can manually update it by following the instructions here. I recommend using PBSetup, as it is a fairly foolproof method of updating PunkBuster. This may help resolve problems with continually being kicked from servers with PB errors. For other problems with Punkbuster, check the Punkbuster link above and/or contact PB directly for more support.

Note: Updating your PunkBuster version manually using PBSetup (see above) can help resolve rank/unlock progression issues.

Background Programs: Disable all background applications - especially virus, trojan and spyware scanners and messaging utilities. These applications can and do use up valuable CPU resources, take up precious RAM, cause memory conflicts and crashes to desktop, but most importantly they interfere with read/writes to your hard drive effectively slowing it down and causing even more in-game stuttering, freezes and longer loading times. Full instructions on how to identify your startup programs and services and how to correctly disable unnecessary ones are in my TweakGuides Tweaking Companion. This is an important step you should not miss.

Virus Scan: Do a full scan of all your files using the following excellent (and free) tools: AVG Virus Cleaner for viruses, A-Squared for trojans, and Ad-Aware SE for spyware/adware. Viruses, trojans and spyware can cause unexplained behavior, general file corruption and system slowdown, and can also steal your CD Key. It's best to make sure your system isn't infected before moving on to any other other optimization measures. However make sure to disable any background scanning programs once you're done (See above).

Overclocking: The BF2142 engine can be sensitive to overclocking. If you've overclocked any components on your system and are having problems such as crashes, reboots and graphical anomalies like strange colors or flickering/missing textures, the very first thing to do is set everything back to default speeds and try running the game. If you don't experience the same problems at default speed, or they're reduced in severity, then your overclock is the primary culprit. Note that even non-overclocked systems can overheat, so either permanently reduce your overclock and/or increase cooling to regain stability. Don't assume that because other games (even BF2) run with stability at a particular speed that BF2142 will do the same.

There are obviously many more problems people are experiencing with the game, but many of these are due to a lack of system optimization. The game is not as buggy as most people would think and it can be quite stressful on some systems, so if you do not optimize your system, cool it properly, reduce/remove your overclocks, and even reduce your settings you will experience more crashes, freezes etc. Read the guides I link to under Essential Optimization above for more details, as well as the game's Readme.txt file - there is no single quick fix to problems like these.

That's just a basic rundown of troubleshooting tips. Read the remainder of this guide for more specific settings and tweaks which can help improve your performance and resolve any problems.

Patches, Maps & Mods

Official Patch

On the day of its official release, EA Games released the first patch for Battlefield 2142, bringing it up to Version 1.01 (17MB). This patch is specifically designed to fix crashes in Titan mode, so I strongly recommend that all BF2142 players install it. It doesn't address a range of known issues still outstanding in BF2142 (See page 3 for details), however if history is anything to go by, given the numerous patches Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield 2 received, BF2142 will receive at least a couple of patches as well, so check back here often for more details.

In-Game Advertising

EA Games has adopted a controversial new In-Game Advertising Program for a range of games, including Battlefield 2142. While playing BF2142, you will notice a range of billboards and other locations which hold dynamic in-game advertisements from real contemporary companies. These are coordinated by Massive Advertising, and the technical details of how they work is here. Basically the software in the game monitors your behavior while playing BF2142, recording (among other things) which ads are in your field of view, for how long, the distance between you and the ad, and the angle of view.

My major issue with this sort of advertising is that firstly it ruins immersion in BF2142, since some maps in the game have up to 26 or more billboards/placeholders for advertising, and by its very nature advertising is designed to be seen, not to blend into the background. Not to mention that the billboards look very out-of-place in the futuristic post-apocalyptic BF2142 landscape. However the biggest problem with this sort of advertising is that it provides absolutely no benefit whatsoever to consumers; BF2142 is retailing for full price, and there are no guarantees at all (and certainly no evidence so far) of any better support for this game than there was for BF2.

Some people at the TotalBF2142 forums are investigating methods of disabling these ads, but until a simple (and legal) method is found I cannot report anything just yet. Remember, modifications to BF2142's files can also be picked up as cheating by PunkBuster, so be careful in this regard. Note further that at the time of this writing, EA has not switched on the ad system yet, so all billboards/placeholders simply have generic 'RA' or other non-existant brand logos on them in muted colors. Some examples of the ad billboard placements and how prominent they are can be seen here.

No-CD Patch

The full version of Battlefield 2142 uses a customized version of the SafeDisc copy protection system which involves a CD/DVD Key which is verified when installing as well as when playing online, along with CD/DVD disk check. This generally does not cause any major issues on most systems, however obviously the CD/DVD disk check is annoying. Unfortunately it seems unlikely EA Games will remove the disk check component from their games as they have rarely done so in the past.

Mods

While some would say that Battlefield 2142 is in itself simply a very large modification for Battlefield 2, in reality just as BF2 had several excellent mods, I have no doubt Battlefield 2142 will also have the same - especially since it's based on the same engine as BF2. Some promising mods are already being developed as you can see here, and you can also check on existing mods here for example. I will try to list the more significant ones in this section as they come out.

Remember though that the Punkbuster anti-cheat system used by BF2142 may not look kindly on modified game files and major alterations to the game's directory structures. Therefore I recommend that you be careful as to what you install for BF2142, and if in doubt check with other players on a community forum first before installing a mod, and worse comes to worse if the mod is causing problems simply uninstall it.

In-Game Settings

In this section I provide full descriptions for Battlefield 2142's in-game settings, and where possible I provide general recommendations. I note the general performance impact of each setting, although bear in mind that it is impossible for me to give exact performance impacts - it all depends on your specific hardware combination and your other game and system-wide settings.

Player Accounts

Before you can access the in-game settings or play BF2142 you will need to create or login to an existing account first. An account is not the same as a soldier, read on to see the difference.

EA Account Login: The first screen you will see when you start BF2142 is the account login screen. Here you will have to enter a valid Account Name and its Password, then click the Login button to continue. If you wish these details to be kept in BF2142 and hence not have to enter them again each time you reach this screen, click the 'Remember Me' box so a bright 'X' appears. If you want to create a new EA Account, you will have to click the 'Create New Account' button and follow the instructions on the next screen to do so. If you have an existing account and can't remember its details completely, click the 'Retrieve Details' button and you will either have to enter the email address attached to the account, or the account name, and its details will be sent to the email address originally specified when the account was set up.

BF2 Players Note: If you have an existing Battlefield 2 account, you can get it transferred over to BF2142 by using the BF2142 Veteran's Program. This will help you maintain your account name and also provide you with an instant promotion and a new unlock.

Your online account is very important - do not provide its details to anyone else. Your online account and/or your CD/DVD key (the serial number you enter when installing BF2142) can be banned for cheating which prevents you from using your current copy of BF2142 to play online on certain servers.

Your Soldiers

Once you've logged in with an account, you can set up soldiers which are essentially different profiles. Each soldier can have his own name and settings, but they are all tied to the particular account you used to log in with above. When you click the 'Create New Soldier' button, you will be prompted to enter a name. This is the username which will appear when you play BF2142 online, so choose carefully, and note that the game will check to make sure the nick isn't taken by anyone else before allowing you to use it. If you want your soldier(s) to have a particular Clan tag, enter the tag in the 'Clan Tag' box at the top of the screen.

Each soldier you create will have his own in-game settings and control bindings, so you will have to customize all the settings for each soldier separately. Most of the advanced tweaks later in this guide however will apply to all soldiers since they change the way the game behaves. To learn more about this, and where these separate profiles are kept, see the Advanced Tweaking section. If at any time you choose to delete a soldier, highlight it and select 'Delete Soldier', but keep in mind that this also removes any history they had, such as weapons unlocks or awards. You can't transfer these to another soldier.

Once you're logged in and have setting up your soldier, to activate and use the soldier you will need to highlight a soldier and click the Select button, or double-click on the soldier's name. The next step is to then customize the in-game settings for the selected soldier.

Note: There is a simple method of bypassing all the steps above and automatically logging in to BF2142 each time you launch the game - check the last page of this guide for full details.

In-Game Settings

Once you've logged in with your selected BF2142 account and soldier, you will come to a main menu with an Overview of your soldier's progress towards the next rank and any recent Awards they've received. See the Troubleshooting Tips section if these aren't displaying correctly. You can select from a range of in-game settings by using the small box at the top left of the screen - I cover all the in-game settings and options in detail below:

BFHQ

This area contains a range of information useful to BF2142 players, particularly as they progress through the ranks.

Your Stats: This page has two tabs, Progress and Details. On the Progress page you can see a chart of your soldier's progress against various parameters. On the Details page, you can see an interesting range of details of your soldier's habits and performance. The scroll box at the top of this page allows you to see details about more specific aspects of your gameplay.

Unlocks: There are four tabs on this screen: Recon, Assault, Engineer and Support - corresponding to the four main classes you can play in the game. Under each tab are all the pieces of equipment the class can eventually use, and clicking on each item shows you more details about its capabilities. As you progress in rank, you will gain 'Unlocks' (just like in BF2) which can be used to add this equipment to your inventory when online. If you have any available unlocks, the number of these will be indicated at the bottom right of the screen. You can then unlock items highlighted in yellow (those in grey are ones you've already unlocked), and when in-game, to add them to your actual list of equipped items you can use, select the Customize tab in the class selection screen prior to spawning. Available items you've unlocked for that class can be added to your active kit at that point by dragging and dropping them from the right into an open slot on the left; they aren't automatically added to your kit (unless they're Player Ability unlocks). For more details of the 'unlock trees', see this page. Choose your unlocks wisely, as they can greatly impact on your gameplay experience.

Awards: This section lists all the various Pins, Ribbons, Badges and Medals you have received and may receive in the future - click on any one of them to see details of the requirements for obtaining it. To view more details of Awards and their requirements you can also check this page.

Leaderboard: Here you can see all the current players for Battlefield 2142 ranked by their overall score, or other parameters you can select in the drop box at the top left of the screen. You can also look up particular players using the Search Player facility. Double-click on a particular player to see more details about them. Your own character is shown at the bottom of the screen, so you don't need to search for it.

If you're familiar with America's Army or Battlefield 2 then you'll know all about the Tracker websites which track game statistics for registered users of these games. There's a site dedicated to tracking the stats for BF2142 called BF2142 Tracker, and just like its AA and BF2 counterpart this site allows you to view even more detailed player statistics, see other players' stats, etc. You will have to register with the site before they start tracking your stats, so if you want to use BF2142Tracker I recommend registering ASAP.

Multiplay

This area allows you to play BF2142 multiplayer with other people.

Online: This option brings you to the Internet Server Browser screen, where you can see all the available BF2142 servers and their status. There are three tabs you should note: Quick, Advanced and History. The Quick tab simply lists servers which the game determines are closest to you and which give the best Latency (Ping); this is not a full list of servers available to you to play BF2142. I strongly recommend using the Advanced tab instead to list servers, as it both provides a more complete list of servers, and it also gives actual numbers for your Latency, rather than just using green (good ping), orange (medium ping) or red (bad ping) bars.

Under the Advanced tab in Multiplay>Online, click the 'Refresh List' button to show the latest list of available servers. This may take some time, but you can see its progress in the top right corner of the screen where the current Server Count is shown. Once all the servers have been listed, click the small triangle next to the Latency column header to sort the servers by their Ping from lowest to highest. Ping or Latency measures in milliseconds the total time taken for information to be sent from your computer to the game server and back again. The lower this number, the less noticeable will be any 'lag' (delay) between your actions and their impact on the game world due to your Internet connection. Try to play on servers which have 100 or less Ping time (i.e. 1/10th of a second or less delay) for an optimal experience, and make sure you've selected the correct option in Connection Settings under the Options>Game section (See further below).

Filtering Servers: If you're looking for a server with a particular name, or a specific number of players or more, or a certain Ping or less for example, or you can enter these values in the white boxes at the top of each column and press Enter, and the server list will be updated based on the filter values you've entered. For example if you enter a value of 50 in the Ping filter box and press Enter, the list will be updated to only show those servers to which you're pinging 50 or less. Enter a value of 40 in the Players filter box for example, and all servers with 40 or more players will be shown. You can combine filter values as well, so entering the two values in the examples above would provide you with a list of servers with 40 or more players but which still have a ping of 50 or less.

You can also obviously use the specific filters at the bottom of the server browser screen to filter out servers which are empty, which are unranked, which have Friendly Fire On/Off and so forth - select as many of these options are you prefer by placing a 'X' next to them and then refresh the browser list.

History: If you want to see which servers you've played on before, click the History tab and these will be listed, including the time when you last played on them. This is handy for quickly finding a great server you may have played on recently but can't remember the name of.

Note that after you've selected the server you wish to join, loading time may be quite long if the game has to optimize your shaders. There is no way of avoiding this, and it shouldn't occur often unless you change your video settings or install new graphics drivers, but see the Troubleshooting Tips section for more details of the Shader Cache and why it needs to be optimized. Also note that at the end of the map load prior to a game starting, BF2142 has to verify the game files to ensure they are all unmodified and cheat free, and this too may take an additional few seconds. There is no way around this.

Local: If you wish to play BF2142 with other players connected to a Local Area Network (LAN) with you, select the Local option and if the LAN is configured correctly it will show up here. Of course you can create a LAN server yourself under the Create tab, configure the settings as appropriate and click Start Server, and other players on the Network should then be able to join the game on your machine.

Local mode doesn't allow you to play alone against bots like normal Singleplayer mode (which is what you should use - see below), however this actually makes it ideal for allowing you to wander the maps and practice a range of things without being attacked. Go to the Create tab under Local, set Maximum Players to 1, select the map(s) you wish to practice on then click Create Server. You will then join the map and be free to do whatever you wish.

Finally, if you're unfamiliar with the new Titan game mode, click the Titan Tips option to play the Titan tutorial movie. Make sure to watch this at least once as it's important to understand how Titan mode works.

Singleplay

The primary purpose of singleplayer mode in BF2142 is to practice for online mode. This is why the maps are limited to 16 player versions, and as yet I haven't found how to enable the larger maps with more bots in singleplayer mode. To start a game, you can select the particular maps you wish to practice on, add them to the playlist, choose how many times each map will run with the 'Rounds per Map' slider, and then select the Bot (computer-controlled player) Difficulty. The Start Playlist button will then launch the first map, and you can play through your chosen maps, practicing a range of things from tactics to correct vehicle usage. Note that raising the Bot Difficult slider can reduce performance on machines with slower CPUs, so don't set it too high.

Options

This section contains a range of important gameplay, audio and video-related settings which you should go through carefully. All the settings are covered below:

Game

General Settings

Opt Out of Voting: From time to time other players will initiate votes for various reasons, such as a mutiny against the current Commander or a map change. If you want to exclude yourself from having to constantly vote in these, select No here. Obviously this means you will have no input into decisions such as map changes, changes in Commander, etc. but it also means less distractions during the game.

Reverse Mousewheel Selection: If set to Yes, rolling the scroll wheel on your mouse upwards will mean that your selection action (e.g. selecting weapons) will scroll down an item, not up. Set to taste, has no performance impact.

Auto Reload Weapons: If set to Yes, whenever your weapon runs empty you will automatically reload another clip/grenade/missile. This is generally recommended, as otherwise you will manually have to press your Reload button and this can take an extra split second which may be critical. Note some weapons on vehicles have a fixed reload time, and automatically reload after that period regardless of this setting.

Ignore All Buddy Requests: If set to Yes, any time another player requests that he add you to his buddy list you will automatically ignore such requests and see no prompt to take action. If set to No, you will see all buddy requests and can choose what to do - set to suit your taste.

Connection Settings: Battlefield 2142 requires a broadband connection and cannot be played on a dialup modem. As such the options for connection speeds here are limited to 'Cable 256 kbps or Better', or 'T1 (LAN)'. Given that a T1 connection can undertake around 1.5mbps or higher, if you have a connection which can meet or exceed this data rate, select the T1 option. However for most people I recommend the Cable option, especially if you find you're experiencing consistent lag, 'warping' or constant disconnections. Importantly if you have an asychronous connection such as ADSL (i.e. different upload/download speeds), make sure to keep in mind your maximum upload speed when selecting an option here, not your download speed.

HUD Settings

Transparency: These four sliders - HUD (Heads Up Display), Minimap, Icons and Crosshair - allow you to select just how transparent these on-screen elements are. You can see the impact of your changes in the small sample screen provided above these settings, so set the transparencies to suit your taste as they have no significant performance impact.

Crosshair Color: The Red, Green and Blue sliders here can be used to set the color of your in-game weapons crosshair. Be sure to select a color which stands out against the variety of backgrounds used in the game.

Help Pop Ups: Whenever you do something for the first time in the game, the game attempts to help you with small popups and voiceovers which explain what to do. If these annoy you, set this option to No.

Static Map: When set to Yes, the small Minimap overview of your immediate area will remain static as you move around, regardless of which way you're facing. When set to No, the map rotates around your character's icon. Set to suit your taste.

Camera Shake: When set to Yes, your character's view will shake under certain circumstances such as when hit. Note that enabling camera shake can increase the chances of getting motion sickness, so if you suffer from this, or if you simply find it annoying, set this option to No.

Controls

This section contains the key/mouse/joystick mappings for all infantry and vehicle movements. Make absolutely certain you carefully go through the three tabs of the Controls section carefully. The 'Common Controls' section contains your main controls which apply in most circumstances, unless you're in a vehicle. Pay particular attention to the 'Mouse Settings' options under each control tab - adjusting these to the correct values is vital in particular for successfully making your character and vehicles responsive enough.

Mouse Settings: The 'Invert Mouse' option if ticked means that pushing your mouse forward will move the character's viewpoint downwards, pulling it back will move the view upwards. If unticked it is the opposite - set to suit your preferences. The Sensitivity setting controls how sensitive your in-game movements are to your mouse movements. The 'Yaw Factor' setting controls the degree to which vehicles roll left or right, while the 'Pitch Factor' controls the degree to which they tilt forward or back - the higher the factor, the more sensitive vehicles will be to such movements.

Note that if you have any problems using a particular control device such as a joystick or gamepad, make sure you have installed the device's drivers correctly, and also keep in mind that BF2142 doesn't support every gaming controller available. See the Advanced Tweaking section for more details of where you can manually edit the control configuration file to potentially overcome some of these problems.

In-Game Settings (Pt.2)

Video

Battlefield 2142's performance relies greatly on your video settings so pay particular attention to the descriptions below if you want a good balance of performance and image quality, and of course if you run a graphics card which is old, slow or unsupported, keep this in mind if your performance is still poor at any setting. For specific performance comparisons using various graphics cards, read this article, for comparisons using various CPUs read this article - note that they refer to the Beta version of the game and not the final version, though of course performance should be similar.

Display Mode: This setting controls the display resolution of Battlefield 2142. It shows the number of horizontal pixels by vertical pixels and the particular Refresh Rate (shown after the @ sign) the screen will run at. See the Resolution and Refresh Rate sections of my Gamer's Graphics & Display Settings Guide for more details in plain english. Unfortunately the game doesn't appear to support 1280x1024 or above or a range of widescreen resolutions by default, so if you can't find the resolution you want here, first choose the one closest to it (at the highest refresh rate), then see the Advanced Tweaking section for details on how to set a custom resolution for BF2142. Note further that if you can't launch into BF2142 after changing this setting, make sure to disable any refresh rate forcers - see the Troubleshooting Tips section.

Note: While you can set any custom resolution for BF2142 using the method detailed later in this guide, you cannot force 'true' widescreen support (i.e. with the correct aspect ratio, filling the entire screen properly). This is because true widescreen resolutions will increase your Field of View (FOV), which increases peripheral vision and is considered an unfair advantage by PunkBuster anti-cheat software. This is covered further at Widescreengamingforum.com and there is no 'fix' for this.

Presets: These are preset video configurations included in BF2142. If you don't want to individually adjust all the settings below, you can select a preset which you believe corresponds to your system's capabilities. However note that obviously preset values are not going to be optimal, and that's exactly why there are a range of video options available. I strongly suggest adjusting the options below rather than relying on a preset if you want the best performance/image quality compromise.

Terrain: This setting controls how rich the details on the terrain are. The available options here are Low, Medium and High - see the screenshot comparison above for differences. In general the Terrain setting controls the details on the ground, rocks and foliage around the map. The most obvious difference in the screenshot comparison is the quality of the soil, which is much richer and detailed at the High level, slightly less so at Medium, and dramatically lower quality at Low. Note also the detailing in the hills to the left as this setting is lowered. However raising the Terrain level can decrease performance, especially at the High level. The image quality difference between Low and Medium is pronounced, while that of Medium to High is not so noticeable - therefore Medium is recommended for most people.

Effects: This setting controls various special effects in the game. The lower this setting, the less rich and detailed special effects are. The difference between Medium and High is not noticeable, but when set to Low the most significant impact is that decals such as bullet holes will no longer appear on walls and objects, and explosions and energy effects have much less size and volume/glow. However even at Low the explosions, smoke and puffs of dust from bullet impacts will still appear. The Effects setting has it's most significant impact on performance during heavy combat scenes when lots of effects and explosions are visible, or when using energy weapons for example, so if you are slowing down significantly in these situations reduce this setting to to improve FPS and responsiveness. Note that you cannot disable certain effects like that of EMP hits or the blurry camera effects - these are a part of the gameplay regardless of your settings, and to disable them (even if possible) would be considered a cheat.

Geometry: The Geometry setting controls the Level of Detail (LOD) setting for various objects and landscape in the game. The options are Low, Medium and High and for most intents and purposes there is virtually no difference between the three levels. At higher levels certain objects will appear more detailed, such as slightly rounder boulders and more curved landscape (i.e. more polygons visible). More importantly, at the higher levels vehicles will come into view sooner when far away, as more of their details are shown earlier. Obviously performance is better at the lowest level, but the extent of it depends on your system. For the reason that it may help you detect vehicles sooner, you may want to set this to Medium or High.

Texture: Textures are shown on the surfaces of every 3D object in the game. The higher this setting, the better these surfaces appear, with more detail and realism. However at higher settings more Video RAM is required to hold all of them for rapid access by the game. Thus on systems with only 128MB of Video RAM and/or slow hard drives I recommend using Medium or even Low to ensure smoother gameplay. The High setting will improve image quality slightly over the Medium setting, but will contribute greatly to frequent loading pauses and generally reduce performance in the game. The image quality difference is shown in the screenshot comparison above. As the setting is lowered you can notice the progressive blockiness and loss of detail in the shiny wall on the left, and also the loss of detail in the metal floor on the right. The ground also becomes much chunkier and more blurry from High to Medium to Low. Set this option to the level at which you experience minimal stuttering in-game.

Lighting: This setting controls the lightmaps used for static objects in the game, such as buildings. The screenshot comparison above shows the difference - pay particular attention to the shadow of the building. The difference between High and Medium is negligible, while Medium to Low results in the complete removal of the fixed shadows for the building. This is far less realistic, but can also give a significant gameplay advantage in spotting enemies trying to hide near buildings. I recommend Medium Lighting as a balance of realism and performance, but you may prefer Low for the gameplay advantage, though I believe this is bordering on being a (legal) exploit of sorts.

Dynamic Shadows: This setting controls the shadows cast by moving objects. These 'dynamic' shadows can be switched Off, or set to Low, Medium or High. Each higher level of dynamic shadows means slightly more detailed shadows are cast, particularly for the shadows cast by players and vehicles. However this setting can have a noticeable impact on performance, particularly when there are multiple sources of light. Setting this to High or even Medium can result in increased lag/jerkiness during gameplay, and in particular during heavy combat scenes. I strongly recommend Medium or Low for most people, although setting this to Off removes all shadows and thus noticeably reduces realism in return for maximum performance.

Dynamic Light: This setting relates to lighting from muzzle flashes, fire, explosions, missiles etc. The available options are Off, Low, Medium and High. Quite obviously turning these lights Off reduces realism significantly, but improves performance noticeably. Dynamic lights interact with objects to cast shadows (See Dynamic Shadows setting above), and as such the impact of this setting also depends on your settings for Dynamic Shadows. I recommend Medium or lower for this setting, as a setting of High can again contribute to pauses, lag and jerkiness in the game.

Antialiasing: The options here are Off, 2x, and 4x. When enabled, Antialiasing (AA) smooths the appearance of jagged lines. The higher the level of Antialiasing (i.e. 2x, 4x, etc.), the greater the negative performance impact in return for better image quality. For more details and examples see my Gamer's Graphics & Display Settings Guide. If you're going to enable Antialiasing for BF2142, I recommend setting Antialiasing to 'Application Preference' in your graphics card's control panel, then selecting the level of AA in the in-game settings. For most people I recommend setting this option to Off for optimal performance as it can have a major negative impact if enabled.

Texture Filtering: This setting controls how crisp and clear textures look as they fade into the distance. The available options are Low, Medium and High, and the higher the setting the less blurry distant textures such as the terrain will appear, in return for a decline in performance. The texture filtering settings at Medium and High should correspond with 2x Anisotropic Filtering (AF) and 4xAF respectively, with Low being Trilinear. For more details and a screenshot example, again refer to my Gamer's Graphics & Display Settings Guide. For most people the Medium setting should be optimal for performance purposes while still maintaining good image quality.

View Distance Scale: This slider determines the amount of visible detail your character can see in the distance. The screenshot comparison above shows the differences at 50% (the minimum), 75% and 100% (the maximum) View Distance settings. Note the tall tower in the distance and even some of the objects in the middle distance become invisible at 75% view distance. The difference between 75% and 50% is indistinguishable in the screenshot. While reducing the view distance improves performance due to less scenery being rendered, it is strongly recommended that you do not reduce your view distance below 100% to start with. A reduced view distance can place you at a major disadvantage in the game against other players who use 100% view distance, making it harder for you to spot distant players and vehicles. Keep this setting at its maximum and reduce other settings first to improve your performance if you can, then come back and lower this if all else fails.

Enhanced Lighting: This option can be turned on (Yes) or off (No) and is supposed to control Bloom lighting in the game. Upon testing the setting in the full version of the game, there appears to be a subtle increase in the bloom effect in the sky and on energy weapons - that is, they are slightly brighter with the option enabled. Experiment for yourself to see the difference it makes, but if you want to be sure of maximum FPS set this to off for no real image quality impact.

As soon as you change any of these graphics options, the game automatically saves your changes, and some changes will need a restart to apply. Note that as the warning dialog tells you, your shaders may need to be optimized each time you change settings - particularly when you choose settings which you haven't used in the past. See the Clearing Shader Optimizations tip under the Troubleshooting Tips section of this guide for more details of shader optimizations.

Audio

Audio Renderer: This setting determines the type of audio device which is used to playback the sounds in the game. The options are Software, Hardware and Creative X-Fi. The Software renderer is the most basic, and provides adequate, at times scratchy sound quality, but gives the best performance for most machines. The Hardware option should be chosen if you have dedicated sound card, and provides good quality audio with a slight performance drop. The Creative X-Fi setting provides the best audio quality and can and should only be used by people who own Creative X-Fi hardware. Note that the X-Fi must be set to 'Gaming Mode' if available to take advantage of this setting.

In general, I recommend Hardware audio renderer if you have any form of sound card in your system and the option is available. Note however that some sound hardware doesn't support this option in BF2142 (See the Readme.txt file in your \Program Files\Electronic Arts\Battlefield 2142\Support directory for a full list of supported audio hardware). If your card supports it I recommend enabling it - the positioning of sounds is a very important advantage in Battlefield 2142, and having Software audio with low quality sound (See Sound Quality below) will make the sounds very unrealistic, and thus make it very difficult for you to determine enemy positions correctly.

Sound Quality: The options here are Low, Medium, High and Ultra High. Note that Ultra High is only available for those using a Creative X-Fi card and the X-Fi Audio Renderer. At Low, sound quality is quite poor, sounding almost like Mono instead of Stereo. Low is not recommended for the reasons given above, and because the performance difference between Low and Medium is not significant. As such Medium is recommended for most people, though High provides the best audio quality for a slight decrease in performance. Note that some people report performance issues and crashes using the Ultra High mode on an X-Fi, so reduce this to High if you're using an X-Fi sound card for a potential fix to this problem.

Enable EAX: If the Audio Renderer is set to Hardware, and you have sound hardware which supports Creative's Environmental Audio (EAX), you can select Yes here to enhance the audio quality. Enabling EAX results in slight a reduction in performance, however the sound effects in BF2142 become much richer and more realistic, and provides much better positioning. Once again if you have hardware which supports EAX, I recommend you tick this box as it provides you with an advantage in locating enemies for a minimal performance hit.

English VO Only: If ticked, this option forces all players (enemy and friendly) to speak English and not their native language for voice overs (VO's). Selecting Yes may improve performance slightly as less sounds are loaded into memory.

Game Volume: The Effects, Music and Help Voice Over sliders in this section control the volume levels of these particular audio effects. Set to suit your taste - note that reducing the sliders to 0% does not disable any of these effects, so there is no performance improvement from doing so.