[Solved] Can't run BF2 or PR in Windows 7 64-bit (refresh rate problem)

[Raptor007]

I've been trying to switch to Windows 7 64-bit from Windows XP 32-bit, and it seems the only thing I can't get to work in 7 is Battlefield 2. When I try to run it, the cursor goes busy for a bit (arrow with circle), then the screen goes black, and then the game just quits. This is not a PR problem specifically, because I get the exact same problem if I try to run vanilla BF2 -- however, it does prevent me from playing PR under Windows 7.

Here's what I've tried:

1. I exported all the BF2 and PR registry entries I could find from my XP install, then booted to Windows 7 and added them to my registry. (Since I keep BF2 on a separate partition from either of my boot partitions, this usually works.)
2. I tried running as administrator, and running in compatibility mode for XP SP2 and SP3.
3. I tried clearing out all BF2 cache files.
4. I tried removing the resolution line in Video.con, in case it was a resolution or refresh rate incompatibility.
5. I tried removing my entire Battlefield 2 documents folder (where it stores profiles).
6. I tried reinstalling BF2 in-place, over the top of my other install.
7. I tried completely removing BF2, and reinstalling with these directions:
   Battlefield 2 with patch 1.5 crashes to desktop on Windows 7 x64 RTM - Fix...

None of these attempts changed anything about the behavior. It always crashes before I can see anything but a black screen.

My setup:

• Gigabyte GA-K8N-SLI motherboard
• AMD Opteron 180 (2.4GHz dual-core) 939-pin
• 2GB Patriot DDR400 2-3-2-5
• Asus GeForce 8800GT 512MB - Nvidia driver 195.62
• Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic - Creative driver 2.18.0013
• Hard Drive Configuration:
  • C: WinXP 20GB (Windows XP 32-bit SP3)
  • D: Win7 30GB (Windows 7 64-bit)
  • Y: Stuff 200GB
  • Z: Programs 750GB
• Battlefield 2 v1.5 + SF + PR 0.87.4

Forgive me if this is a duplicate request, but all I could find with the search are people whose BF2 crashes mid-game. Mine doesn't even get that far.

[[R-DEV]Twisted Helix]

Either install BF2 and PR from an Admin account, or right click BF2 exe and go to properties and one of the tabs will have a tick box saying something like .... "run as administrator". Tick, apply, close.

I am not sure if you need to do it to the pr.exe ... but you may as well just in case.

I installed everything on an administrator account on Win7 x64 and have no problems with either, so all else failing try that.

[clueless_noob]

64-bit Windows stores settings of 32-bit programs to different part of registry than 64-bit programs. BF2 settings in in 64-bit Windows can be found at:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\EA GAMES

and/or

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Electronic Arts

Additionally, if you run programs without admimistrator rights, some settings get redirected to even further due to UAC registry and file system virtualization. Check this registry key also:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\VirtualStore\MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Electronic Arts

On file system side, UAC virtualizes read and write calls to system directories, including Program Files, and redirectes them to user's AppData folder. Again, BF2 related files can be found at:

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\EA GAMES

Check all these locations, remove all BF2 related settings there and reinstall PR.

Some notes for reinstall:

• Run all setup programs without compatibilty settings activated
• Use installers provided with programs, do not just copy files and registry settings around.
• You need to have BF2 patched to 1.41 before installing 1.5
• Make sure you install both Core and Levels for PR 0.87.
• Install PunkBuster as a system service. Setup file can be found at Evenbalance web page
• Update PunkBuster. Again, updater can be found at another Evenbalance web page

If you want to run PR wihtout administrator rights, you need to have PunkBuster running as system service and you need to have read&write permissions to BF2's mods folder. If these requirements are met, then you can play PR without using administrator rights every time, even with UAC on and set to it's highest level.

And last, but definitely not least: you have 64-bit operating system - give it more RAM! Thorow in everything your motherboard can possibly handle and it will only make things smoother. Ability to address more than 4 gigabytes of RAM was the very motivation for creating 64-bit processors and operating systems. This benefits 32-bit programs too, as if they announce to OS that they can handle the whole 4 GB address range of 32-bit processor, which is told by LARGEADDRESSAWARE flag activated inside the executable file headers, Windows will give them all that memory. Without 64-bit OS and LARGEADDRESSAWARE flag, progam will not be given more than 2 GB of memory.

[Raptor007]

Originally Posted by [R-DEV]Twisted Helix

Either install BF2 and PR from an Admin account, or right click BF2 exe and go to properties and one of the tabs will have a tick box saying something like .... "run as administrator". Tick, apply, close.

I am not sure if you need to do it to the pr.exe ... but you may as well just in case.

I installed everything on an administrator account on Win7 x64 and have no problems with either, so all else failing try that.

My account is an administrator account, and I've disabled UAC, and I tried running BF2.exe as administrator.

Originally Posted by clueless_noob

64-bit Windows stores settings of 32-bit programs to different part of registry than 64-bit programs. BF2 settings in in 64-bit Windows can be found at:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\EA GAMES

and/or

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Electronic Arts

Yep, that was part of what I did in step #7 above. I followed the complete removal directions that are Part 1 of the link I posted.

Originally Posted by clueless_noob

Additionally, if you run programs without admimistrator rights, some settings get redirected to even further due to UAC registry and file system virtualization. Check this registry key also:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\VirtualStore\MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Electronic Arts

On file system side, UAC virtualizes read and write calls to system directories, including Program Files, and redirectes them to user's AppData folder. Again, BF2 related files can be found at:

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\EA GAMES

Check all these locations, remove all BF2 related settings there and reinstall PR.

Now that I did NOT know about! I am running as administrator without UAC, so I don't think it would have utilized either of those locations, but I'll check anyway.

Originally Posted by clueless_noob

Some notes for reinstall:

• Run all setup programs without compatibilty settings activated

Yep. The only thing I did differently was run them as administrator.

Originally Posted by clueless_noob

• Use installers provided with programs, do not just copy files and registry settings around.

I only tried that the first time, because it always works under XP that way. After it didn't work, I removed my registry additions and started from scratch with the real installers.

Originally Posted by clueless_noob

• You need to have BF2 patched to 1.41 before installing 1.5
• Make sure you install both Core and Levels for PR 0.87.

Check and check. (I got burned by the separate Core and Levels installers when I first tried PR 0.85, so now I know now how to do it right.)

Originally Posted by clueless_noob

• Install PunkBuster as a system service. Setup file can be found at Evenbalance web page

I didn't know about that! I'll give that a try.

Originally Posted by clueless_noob

• Update PunkBuster. Again, updater can be found at another Evenbalance web page

Yep, I did that too.

Originally Posted by clueless_noob

If you want to run PR wihtout administrator rights, you need to have PunkBuster running as system service and you need to have read&write permissions to BF2's mods folder. If these requirements are met, then you can play PR without using administrator rights every time, even with UAC on and set to it's highest level.

I'm running with administrator rights and UAC disabled, so it shouldn't be necessary. I'll go ahead and try installing the PunkBuster service though.

Originally Posted by clueless_noob

And last, but definitely not least: you have 64-bit operating system - give it more RAM! Thorow in everything your motherboard can possibly handle and it will only make things smoother. Ability to address more than 4 gigabytes of RAM was the very motivation for creating 64-bit processors and operating systems. This benefits 32-bit programs too, as if they announce to OS that they can handle the whole 4 GB address range of 32-bit processor, which is told by LARGEADDRESSAWARE flag activated inside the executable file headers, Windows will give them all that memory. Without 64-bit OS and LARGEADDRESSAWARE flag, progam will not be given more than 2 GB of memory.

Unfortunately, it's not possible with my motherboard. I've tried. Low-latency DDR400 can only be used as a set of two, not four. If I use 4 slots, the system downclocks everything to DDR200 and gets very unstable. And you can only get 1GB per stick with DDR1.

When I build a new PC, I'm going for DDR3 and will give it at least 6GB of RAM. But for now, everything is still running great, so I don't feel the need to upgrade yet.

[Raptor007]

I just reinstalled the PunkBuster service manually as you said. I also checked those VirtualStore things, but there's no VirtualStore in my registry, and the VirtualStore in my profile is empty.

It's still not working at all; I just get a black screen for a second, then it quits. I tried using the default shortcut (which doesn't have +restart) and it doesn't even get to the intro videos.

Oh well, I guess I'm going back to XP for now. Falcon 4.0 Allied Force gets better framerates in XP anyway, so I suppose it's for the best. Let me know if you have any more ideas though.

[ixoniadavid]

Well its not a Windows 7 64-bit issue either as Im running Windows 7 Profesional x64...

Did you completely erase your Battlefield 2 folder?, Patched to 1.41, THEN to 1.5?

Also, install the DirectX runtime components from the Microsoft website, sometimes that helps out alot, but usually games would say if its missing a .dll file (which is usually a DX file)

[[R-DEV]Twisted Helix]

I think its a memory issue, as I have been seeing this a few times with people running BF2 1.5, with only 2GB of memory on a system (ie Win7 64bit) that allows them to address more than the 2GB that XP normally only allows.

So game tries to address a memory that doesn't exist .... and 'poof' ... Game Over.

[dominator200]

Originally Posted by Raptor007

I've been trying to switch to Windows 7 64-bit from Windows XP 32-bit, and it seems the only thing I can't get to work in 7 is Battlefield 2. When I try to run it, the cursor goes busy for a bit (arrow with circle), then the screen goes black, and then the game just quits. This is not a PR problem specifically, because I get the exact same problem if I try to run vanilla BF2 -- however, it does prevent me from playing PR under Windows 7.

Here's what I've tried:

1. I exported all the BF2 and PR registry entries I could find from my XP install, then booted to Windows 7 and added them to my registry. (Since I keep BF2 on a separate partition from either of my boot partitions, this usually works.)
2. I tried running as administrator, and running in compatibility mode for XP SP2 and SP3.
3. I tried clearing out all BF2 cache files.
4. I tried removing the resolution line in Video.con, in case it was a resolution or refresh rate incompatibility.
5. I tried removing my entire Battlefield 2 documents folder (where it stores profiles).
6. I tried reinstalling BF2 in-place, over the top of my other install.
7. I tried completely removing BF2, and reinstalling with these directions:
   Battlefield 2 with patch 1.5 crashes to desktop on Windows 7 x64 RTM - Fix...

None of these attempts changed anything about the behavior. It always crashes before I can see anything but a black screen.

My setup:

• Gigabyte GA-K8N-SLI motherboard
• AMD Opteron 180 (2.4GHz dual-core) 939-pin
• 2GB Patriot DDR400 2-3-2-5
• Asus GeForce 8800GT 512MB - Nvidia driver 195.62
• Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic - Creative driver 2.18.0013
• Hard Drive Configuration:
  • C: WinXP 20GB (Windows XP 32-bit SP3)
  • D: Win7 30GB (Windows 7 64-bit)
  • Y: Stuff 200GB
  • Z: Programs 750GB
• Battlefield 2 v1.5 + SF + PR 0.87.4

Forgive me if this is a duplicate request, but all I could find with the search are people whose BF2 crashes mid-game. Mine doesn't even get that far.

Have you changed the line in the video.con I had exactly the same problem and changed this line to my desktop resolution and refresh rate and tht sorted it

[fullonforce]

I had the exact same problem last week, and someone on here said Patch to 1.41 then patch 1.5, fixed it for me

[Raptor007]

Originally Posted by [R-DEV]Twisted Helix

I think its a memory issue, as I have been seeing this a few times with people running BF2 1.5, with only 2GB of memory on a system (ie Win7 64bit) that allows them to address more than the 2GB that XP normally only allows.

So game tries to address a memory that doesn't exist .... and 'poof' ... Game Over.

I see what you're saying, but I've got a 4GB swap file. It should still be able to address 4GB of memory, even if it isn't all physical.

And it turns out, that's not the problem; see below...

Originally Posted by dominator200

Have you changed the line in the video.con I had exactly the same problem and changed this line to my desktop resolution and refresh rate and tht sorted it

AHA! Holy crap, it worked! I sort of tried this before (items #4 and #5 on my list above) but not thoroughly enough. It turns out Windows 7 will not allow my CRT to run at 60Hz, so even the default options like 800x600@60Hz would not work; I had to use 1600x1200@75Hz in both the Default profile and my active profile.

Ugh, I know this is going to bite me in the ass later. I always take an LCD to LAN parties, which is fixed at 60Hz, so I'll have to remember change those values again. Can I override the refresh rate in the shortcut somehow?

And really... come on Microsoft, can't I pick my own refresh rate anymore? (I also can't set it to anything other than 75Hz in the advanced display properties.)

Well, now that this is fixed, I'll go back to booting 7 by default and see if it works out for me.


Thanks everybody!