What follows below is a selection of useful tips and information for Battlefield 2

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Command Line
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There are a range of commands - mainly designed for servers running BF2 - which can be activated via the BF2 command line. You can use these commands by going to your main Battlefield 2 shortcut you use to launch the game, right-click on it and select Properties. Then in the Target box, after the "C:\Program Files\EA Games\Battlefield 2\BF2.exe" +menu 1 +fullscreen 1 text, insert another space, then use any of the commands below. Each command must have a single space between it and the next command.

For example, one of the most commonly requested commands is to run BF2 in 1280x1024 resolution (or another custom resolution) - particularly for LCD displays which display the best image at their native resolution. To do this, change your command line to look like this:

Note: The addition of the +szx and +szy commands which respectively set the width and height of the resolution to be used. Substitute other values for other resolutions (e.g. +szx 1900 +szy 1200). Also note that as of the 1.03 Patch, 1280x1024 is now a supported resolution and can be selected within the in-game settings, so you don't need to use the +szx/+szy commands to force it anymore.

The following are the known command line commands for BF2, and descriptions where possible:

Note: For those of you not familiar with commands such as these there is one thing you need to know: After a command enter a space and add the value. For most of these commands the value you will have to enter is 1, thus activating the command. To deactivate the commands either delete them or replace the 1 with a 0 (zero). The exceptions to these include commands such as 'playerPassword', mostly, the exceptions speak for them selves.

Note: You must use the correct case for these commands to work - for example the +playername command only works if used thusly: +playerName - note the capitalized N. These all work as of the latest version, including commands like +joinServer.

As you can see, most of these commands are really only useful for those running BF2 servers, and the descriptions are fairly vague.

Perhaps the most useful command in this list is the "+restart" command. As it disables the intro movies completely without any risk from punk buster bans.

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Disabling the Intro Movies
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The introductory movies to BF2, although fun to watch the first couple of times, fast become quite annoying, adding to the startup times for the game, as well as the memory usage (the main movie is 135MB in size). To disable them permanently, I don't recommend deleting the movie files - this may cause problems with verification of client information on certain servers and/or with Punk-buster.

Instead, simply rename the relevant files in your \Program Files\EA Games\Battlefield 2\mods\bf2\Movies\ directory to something else (e.g. rename the Intro.bik to Intro.backup). The files to rename are: Dice.bik, EA.bik, Intro.bik, Legal.bik and Welcome.bik. This will mean the intro movies are all skipped as BF2 starts to load. If you find the movies playing in the background of the Login screen and Settings screens annoying, you can also rename the menu.bik and menu_loggedin.bik to something else as well.

If you've also renamed/removed the menu.bik and menu_loggedin.bik movies, and don't want a dull grey background in the in-game menus, then download this small BF2 Menu Movies .zip file, and extract the contents to your \Movies directory. These small files (100KB each) show the BF2 logo in the background, and look much nicer.

Removing all the original movies from the game can save over 250MB of data being loaded up during the start of the game and being placed into memory - this will help smooth your game play particularly for those with less RAM. If for any reason you experience any problems with the game after renaming the movies, simply rename them back to their original names.

Note: Instead of the above, you can simply use the +restart command line command in your BF2 startup icon.

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Punkbuster
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Updating your punkbuster

When an update for punkbuster is released it will automatically download through Battlefield 2. Although this process saves you the effort of updating punkbuster your self, it will give you lag as the update downloads. The updates are not necessarily big but there are lots of them. Instead of Battlefield 2 manually trying to do it in game, quickly do it with this easy fix (may not work if its already updated). This tweak will work for America's Army and also any other game that uses punkbuster. Punkbuster also changes issues in performance in their patches so it is well worth downloading the latest driver.

This is relatively simple to do. Once you have downloaded the file I recommend you keep it and use it regularly

Step 1: Visit this site and scroll down to the pbsetup.exe link

Step 2: Either run or save the program. I recommend that you save it.

Step 3: Click add game and select "Battlefield 2"

Step 4: Click Update

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Reducing the number of punkbuster hard drive checks

Punkbuster scans your hard-drive for problems every 20 seconds. As you may have guessed, this causes a lot of lag. This process will increase the amount of time in between punkbuster checks to 500 seconds (the maximum). By the way, in case you were worried, this is 100% safe with punkbuster, and will NOT cause any problems with Punkbuster thinking you are a cheater. Punkbuster even recommends this on their website.

Step 1: Join any BF2 online server which is running punkbuster, preferably a ranked one.

Step 2: Once you are in, and respawned somewhere, press the ` key. This key is located on most keyboards above the tab key and to the left of the 1 key

Step 3: Once you have pressed this, a large white box should drop down with a load of text in it. Type "pb_sleep 500" (without the quotation marks) and hit the enter key

Step 4: Once you have done this, make sure the box is still up and type pb_writecfg to save your settings

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Info
For more information on the way that punkbuster works visit there website.
You can also go to there tutorial pages for players and Admins for more information on punkbuster commands

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Patching
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As many of you will know the patching system in battlefield 2 sucks immensely. In this section I will show you how to install battlefield 2 without getting any errors.

Note: I would recommend always using the full patches rather than the incremental patches, they are a lot less buggy. Also downloading them from a reliable source such  as BF2S ;-) will help

Just BF2.

1) Install BF2.
2) Patch to the latest version.

BF2 + BF2:SF

1)For those that have BF2:SF with version 1.12.
    a) Install BF2.
    b) Install Special Forces – SF will automatically patch to 1.1, and then install itself; thus installing patch 1.12.
    c) Patch to the latest version – Either 1.12-latest (incremental) or the latest full patch.

2)For those that have BF2:SF with version 1.2.0
    a) Install BF2.
    b) Install Special Forces – SF will automatically patch to 1.1, and then install itself; thus installing patch 1.2.
    c) Patch to the latest version – Either ‘1.2 to latest’ (incremental) or the latest full patch.

BF2 + BF2:SF + BF2:EF

1) Install BF2
2) Install BF2:SF
3) Patch to version 1.21 (I think)
4) Install BF2:EF
5) Patch to the latest version

BF2 + BF2:EF

1) Install BF2
2) Patch to 1.21 (I think)
3) Install BF2:EF
3) Patch to the latest version

More Help

A program that automatically patches
The EA Downloader should tell you all the information you need

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To extract the BF2 loading music
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1) Download this program and get this plugin
2) Navigate to:

3) Open "load_MEC_music.ogg" with Audacity and save it as an mp3 (to, for example, your desktop)
4) That's it, your done!

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End
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I do not want to take credit for creating all of the information in this guide. some of it came from TweakGuides.com and some of it was collected from other sources. However I have added much of my own material
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There are many more things that you can do with your Battlefield 2 to improve it, such as:

Change your Localization Files - Changing the text on you HUD
Reducing Lag - Tips on how to minimize lag whilst playing Battlfield 2
More BF2 Lag Reduction...
Modifying maps to your taste - Spawning extra vehicles etc.

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liquidat0r