PB Shader Issues

[Version13]

Been playing PR since the .7 release. Great mod. My first post so I'll get to the problem.

PB kicks for this reason.

MD5Tool mismatch:
mods\bf2\shaders_client.zip (len =2048 )

I have never had PB issues with BF2 or this mod until today. I only have one PR.exe and it's the one that is placed on the desktop after installation of the mod. Fresh install was done last friday. I removed PR after the .75 patch because the new supression effect killed my framerate until I reinstalled and dropped settings. This PB kick only happens on a few servers but I play on the same servers all the time due to ping rate so I have lost 50% of the places I frequent. I hope it's server side. I have an old PC but I read in other posts that people are willing to play this mod with a framerate of under 30. A compliment to BSS if I ever seen one. [ I average 30 - 60 + ] Settings and system specs below. Gonna upgrade my PC around Farcry 2, until then I manage with what I got. Thanks for any replies in advance.

XP SP2 ][ 2.0 Ghz Processor ][ 1 Gig Ram ][ Nvidia 6600 256 Mb

Settings

Terrain - Low / Effects - low / Geom. - Med / Tex. - Med / Light - Low / Shadows - Off / Dynamic Light - Off / AA - Off / Tex. Filter - Med / Dis. - 100% /

[-=TB=-Schrotti]

Start whit the pr.exe or shortcut from DT

[-=TB=-Schrotti]

Start whit the pr.exe or shortcut from DT

[Jagular]

or read this
http://www.realitymod.com/forum/f10-...r-shaders.html

[Rawkk]

What is reading that thread gonna accomplish - theres no fix in it

[Version13]

Reformatted yesterday due to a nice peer to peer virus. Was oh so much fun. The lack of admin response leads me to believe you don't give a damn about the people with slightly older PCs. Are you employed by EA ?

Terrain - Low / Effects - low / Geom. - Med / Tex. - Med / Light - Low / Shadows - Off / Light - Off / AA - Off / Tex. Filter - Med / Dis. - 100% /

I changed Dynamic Light to low with no real loss in framerate. Seems I can log onto servers running the shader check now. Thanks again for the few replies, even though they didn't help too much. Later

Edit: I should have been a little more specific. Only change I made was Dynamic Light, not general Lighting. Before the change I got no supression effect with the darking screen edges, just blur. With Dynamic Light on I get the full supression effect the way PR creators wanted everyone to see. Good luck to anyone having PB issues, They really do ruin an evening. Later

[Big Black D]

I'm also having this PB kick using the PR.exe.

[squall6677]

see this post: http://www.realitymod.com/forum/f27-...esnt-work.html

seems it might be the same issue. we might have a shader fix available shortly, then again it might not work. (we are testing to double check)

in the mean time turn your view distance down to 60% that will help with frame rates a great deal. then go buy a later graphics card. seems the 6600 is no longer quick enough. is it agp or pci-e? and what sound card do you have? if you dont have a sound card i suggest buying one as it will free up 10% systems resources when playing any game.

good luck.

[Kubador]

I also had this problem yesterday even that I'm using PR.exe
And I also can't get rid of the FH2 supress blur tho I like it better.
I hope this will be fixed somehow...

[clueless_noob]

Hello and sorry for all the misspells etc.

After the servers started to use PB to check wether or not the game was started with PR.EXE, its no longer possible to play at all.

Why? Let me explain:

Take my rig as an example. I'm using Vista with UAC on and PunkBuster running as service. As you might know, UAC does lot more than just popping up message boxes requesting user's approval. It, e.g. virtualizes some file system paths and registry keys, including Program Files, and redirect all write and read requests to "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\VirtualStore", if the application in question is so called legacy application. Thus, no Vista compatible Application Manifest is present. Both the bf2.exe and pr.exe are such legacy apps.

Now, when pr.exe copies shader zip's around, those copy operations get virtualized and file ends up to a folder under user's VirtualStore. Earlier this was ok because virtualized folders are searched first when legacy app requests a file and so bf2.exe's read request are directed to VirtualStore too. But what about PunkBuster? Its not a legacy app and runs under local system account, thus its read operations don't get virtualized - it reads files to check directly from their original location! Now, when those custom shaders are physically under users profile tree and NOT in "mods\pr" directory, punkbuster thinks that user has not executed pr.exe and kicks that sorry player off the server.

How this can be corrected? Basically you have two choices and neither of them are nice and clean.

1) Stop using punkbuster to check for shader files

or

2) Re-compile pr.exe to include appropriate application manifest ("execute as invoker"). This causes UAC to turn off path virtualization for pr.exe, but leads to an another problem: by default normal user has no write premissions for directories under Program Files and so pr.exe cannot copy or delete shader files. So in order to this second option to work, users must edit their bf2-folder permission and give themselves at least modify permissions.


Have Fun!