More Great EA Coding
After switching to my new monitor, I had the urge to see what Battlefield 2 would look like on the snazzy new screen. I figured some lame singleplayer action could help ease the boredom brought on by the malfunctioning cable broadband. Unfortunately, when I tried to start BF2, it showed the splash screen, flickered to black briefly… and then promptly crashed. No explanation, just crash.
Of course rather than try to contact EA for help, I had to dig around on Google for answers. Fortunately EA’s problems affect many users, and I found this useful thread in AnandTech. It has to do with your original video card settings in the game. If even a little bit is off, apparently BF2 cannot load. Awesome.
In my case, due to the way CRTs and LCDs work, I had to lower the refresh rate from 75 to 70.
By Velius, 6/23/2006 @ 10:30 am
Wow, you left your original refresh settings for the CRT at 70 mhz? Doesn’t that flicker like crazy and hurt your eyes? Usually on a CRT, anything less than 85 will cause the screen to flicker and flash. With LCDs though, you will hardly notice
By Kabitzin, 6/23/2006 @ 12:02 pm
The CRT only supported 75, and up close it wasn’t so bad, but if you took 3 steps back, you’d notice significant flicker. This totally sucked, and led to the CRT “slipping in the tub” and being replaced by an LCD. The LCD is set to refresh at 70 mHz, but it doesn’t flicker.
By Ender, 6/23/2006 @ 1:36 pm
So how did you like BF2 on the bigscreen?
By Kungfucius, 6/23/2006 @ 3:20 pm
Actually, it’s best to set the LCD at lower refresh rates from what I’ve heard. For all my LCDs, I have them set at 60 Hz.
By Ender, 6/23/2006 @ 3:25 pm
I think that the “refresh rate” applied by Windows doesn’t actually have any meaning when you use an LCD monitor, since the technology is completely different. There is no set rate at which the screen updates since the individual pixels can change on their own when necessary.
By patronus, 6/26/2006 @ 2:04 pm
Wow. this talk is so geeky