XP Game crashes when I try to join a server

[XxxGrANdmA]

So i recently got my computer upgraded at local geek squad at best buy because mine couldn't run pr smoothy and i had to have everything on low just to play.so i got more ram , more hard drive space and some other stuff. So I didn't notice a performance I took it back to and they increased the hard drive space to 355gb. they also offered to sell me a ati radeon hd 4350 for 35 dollars so i took the deal and they installed it and it was all fine until i went home to play pr. I tried opening it and it just crashed imiediatly. i thought it might have been a problem w/ pr but i tried opening bf2 with the same problems. So eventualy i figured that problem out (unpluged the moniter and for some reason it worked) but when i went to join a server, after i had clicked it went black and went right back to my desktop. i have been looking all over the internet trying to find a solution but i can't seem to get one that works. the only thing i havent tried is reinstalling bf2 but before i try that i want to see if anyone else can help me (also someone threw out my box w/ the cd key plus some installation cd's) So i was on today on a local training server when i went to the vehicle training. the first thing i noticed were that the bumpers on the humvees were like a brighter yellow than the rest of it. idk if this is normal or not but i defintly never noticed it before. The same thing went for the tow humvee and the transport version. So then i went into the tanks machine gun and there was no machine gun in first person but in third person it was visible. you could still fire it and bullets would come out and shells would fly from the empty space. Maybe something the guys did to the computer corrupted the files on my bf2 cause one of the guys was testing out if the computer would run bf2 good and he said everything looked fine so maybe when he was doing something with it he accidently deleted a file? I'm not sure but any help is appreciated. And i'm very sorry for the long post but i feel that including the part about them upgrading my computer is important because before they did, i could actualy run bf2/pr online and on my computer fine, only problem was the horrible lag i got from having only 1gb of ram and 1 gb of hard drive space

[Mr.Hyde]

The only responsible advice I can give is that you march back to those geeks and tell them to restore your computer to its previous glory!

Yelling at them will help

[XxxGrANdmA]

lol yeah i should but that'd be the third time i'd be bringing my computer in so i'm alittle frusturated. If they can't fix it I'll just buy another copy of bf2 and reinstall it. But they should pay for the game cause why should i have to pay money for something they ruined

[thepalerider]

You can get a downloaded copy for free from EA.
New video card? Run battlefield cleaner to flush out your video cache files. That should fix it. Make sure you have the latest drivers for your card.
Still no joy?

Trash your BF2 cache files
Path:
C:\Users\'your user name here'\Documents\Battlefield 2\mods\bf2\cache
Throw EVERYTHING inside the folder named cache away.
don't worry the files will be replaced with new ones when the game restarts.

Still CTD?
OK
Some other things you can try before you uninstall/reinstall.
Backup your BF2 folder that's inside your documents folder. Once you have a backup delete the original from your documents folder.
Try starting PR from your PR shortcut
a new default folder is created
link to your online account.
If all goes well (CTD gone) all you have to do to get your custom settings back is copy your 'control' file from your backup to the new profile folder.
path:
C:\Users\your user name here\Documents\Battlefield 2\Profiles\0002
note: you may not have a 0002 folder so use 0001

Hope it helps

[XxxGrANdmA]

Alright i ran bf2 cleaner and I am about to try it out.

[XxxGrANdmA]

no luck and i check my bf2 cache folder and theres nothing in it so is that a problem?

[XxxGrANdmA]

deleted and backed up my bf2 folder but when i ran pr it didnt start and just said there was a problem and it needs to close

[Mr.Hyde]

Hmmm...You didn't happen to register your copy of BF2, did you? If you did then you can get your CD-Key from your registration code once you log in. Considering how old this game is and how many times I've purchased it just because my wife used the booklet for kindling, I've registered and saved my CD-key on an external HDD.

As far as your problem is concerned, how did you play the game once you unplugged your monitor? I mean, I can some times play when the sound is muted, but you must be a Jedi warrior to be able to play blind! Never mind that....

Change the name of your BF2 folder in My Documents. Or just move the BF2 folder onto your desktop. That will force BF2 to create another folder once you start the game hopefully stopping the CTD.

The graphical anomalies are probably caused by graphic settings being to high. Lower every setting except for view distance and your resolution, then raise one at a time until you spot the anomalies again.

If none of these suggestions helped I'm sorry. Have a look around the forums and hopefully someone else has already solved one of your issues for you.


gl



EDIT: ninja'd

[XxxGrANdmA]

i didn't actualy play the game i started it then unplugged it and it started up. i think the reason for this is because the guy at the geek squad had a moniter with a much higher resolution than mine so for some reason or another it wouldn't open on my computer but when i unplugged it it 'fooled' the game or something so it was forced to start. And I don't think i registered the game either.

[XxxGrANdmA]

just tried the game again and still no luck so i'm thinking either the new video card has something to do with it or the guy working on the computer was just screwing around with it and moved something somewhere or something and didn't bother fixing it. Thanks for the help though. I appreciate it greatly and hope you guys will help me with problems in the future(if i can ever get this dang game working!) I'm gonna go to them maybe tommarow and if they can't fix it themselves, they'll be buying me a new game.