View Single Post - BF2: Best FPS Video Settings for Competition

Das Capitolin · Rated R

You could nearly consider me an expert on this subject. I play(ed) BF2 competitivly in prize and money leagues... and boy did I learn some performance tricks.

Note: With each patch the video configuration settings are reset to default (Medium for everything).

First: In BF2 there are two video settings that make more of an impact then all of the others combined. They are Terrain and Lighting. I recommend never going beyond med for terrain and low for lighting; no matter what video card you own. Sure my systems can play everything on the "High" settings, but then I would see shadows when I want to see the enemy. My custom recipe sheet for the BF2 video settings is this:

Terrain = med
Effects = low
Geometry = high
Texture = high
Lighting = low
Dyn Shadows = med
Dyn Light = med
AA = off
Text Filter = high

I get over 100 FPS full time in the game with these settings. While in-game, go to your console using the "~" key, and type in "renderer.drawfps 1". It will show FPS and time between frames in ms.

Here is my Video Options screen showing the competition settings:

Remember that "renderer.drawfps 1" displays the current frames per second (FPS) and the time in milliseconds between frames in the upper left corner of the screen.
References were all done on 16-player size Karkand, MEC side, get into tank without moving anything, and taking the screen shot using a 1280x1024 screen resolution.
Here is the LOWEST SETTINGS 100FPS reference screen shot:

Here is the COMPETITION SETTINGS 100FPS reference screen shot:

Here is the HIGHEST SETTINGS (with highest AA) 37FPS reference screen shot:

Now keep in mind, this is on my old overclocked ATI X800 GT, which still posts 100FPS with the competition settings. Obviously my SLI 7900GTX's will post much faster FPS speeds, but that's not the point of these settings. You will notice major differences in how objects stand out with the competitive settings. Try them and see for yourself.