Bf2

That is not sufficinet to play this game. This game is very heavy in textures and such. My 6800 Ultra is still pumping through it easily. Also, the game comes with new driver, the 77.30, although they are optimized for the 6-series cards, they are required for any video card to play the game. I would try to install them and if they aren't good, revert to the older drivers. I can tell you which ones are good for your card.

I would recommend a x800 xl. It is a fairly cheap card and it is VERY good. It is almost equivelent to the 6800 ultra if well optimized and overclocked etc. Very good card. Also a 6600 gt should probably run this too, maybe not on high but on medium with some decent FPS.

Is the only alternative to playing this game investing in a new graphics card? Or is it possible to upgrade my drivers or something?

I've never been a fan of Battlefield games. I don't like the idea of 5 guys running around a 10 sq. mile map. The gameplay is like golf - three seconds of action, and then 10 minutes of walking to the next area. Once you actually find an enemy after half an hour of wandering around, two things can happen.

A. You get killed instantly, since the enemy has an indestructible tank (that survive 10 panzershrek shots to the chassis) and you only have a jeep. You reappear back where you started, at spawn, 2 miles away. Instead of quitting the server, cursing at how unrealistic and boring this game is, and finding a better game to play, you decide to keep playing. You like the lack of action, even though it's supposed to be an action game. You get back into a vehicle, and spend the next 5 minutes driving to the front lines. The cycle repeats.

B. You kill the enemy, and take the spawn point. Now you're making progress. You spend 10 minutes driving to the next area. However, as soon as you leave the spawn point, the enemy parachutes in from a plane, and retakes it. You spend 10 more minutes driving back to the spawn point to recapture it. Your jeep hits a puddle and explodes, killing you. You reappear back at spawn and the cycle repeats. Woo, now you're really getting the hang of the game.

And what the hell is up with BF2's engine? The graphics look disappointing and last-gen, yet again. Ditto for Battlefield 1942, which hardly looked better than the original Medal of Honor. Battlefield Vietnam added some foliage, and suddenly the system requirements skyrocketed.

And now BF2 graphics can barely compete with Half-life 2 (which has been out for ~8 months), and yet it requires a bleeding edge, current-gen card just to run. It must have been programmed by monkeys who have never heard of scalability. Half-life 2 runs on a Geforce 2.

But hey, at least multiplayer first-person shooter fans who can't win at Counter-Strike still have something to play.

I do agree regarding this graphics card situation, my card is by no means crap! It cost an arm and a leg about a year or two ago and it's a 128mb card. However it seems as though i'm expected to pay another few hundred to invest in a new card simply so I can run this game? I think not.

Battlefield 2 only supports the following video cards: Radeon X700 (PCIe) Radeon X600 (PCIe) GeForce 6600 (PCIe) GeForce PCX 5900 (PCIe) GeForce 5800 Series (AGP) ATI Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition ATI Radeon X800 PRO ATI Radeon 9800 Series ATI Radeon 9600 Series ATI Radeon 9550 (RV350LX) ATI Radeon 9500 / 9700 Series ATI Radeon 8500 Series ATI Radeon X300 Series NVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra NVidia GeForce 6800 GT NVidia GeForce 6800 NVidia GeForce FX 5950 Series NVidia GeForce FX 5900 Series NVidia GeForce FX 5700 Series

hardware has moved on so quickly in the past year its hard to keep up, this game will be the start of a trend i dont think any of the latest games will be able to run on my current system

Next time im likely to upgrade will be sometime next year though ready for the next UT game and set of UE3.0 games (which will take alot of power to play)

To be honest though its because of this that the PC game market is dying, who wants to spend hundreds pounds every year or two when you go out an buy the latest console with a couple of games for less than £200

What's the best graphics card to get?

I'm going to need to invest in one, swat 4 doesn't work properly and neither does this, I'd imagine all the new games won't work on my card then

If you want the very best i would suggest getting a Geforce 6800 Ultra, the 6600GT is also very good and is much better priced either card would handle all the latest games easily although for some reason the 6600GT isn't on BF2's supported list which is strange seeing how popular it is. . . if your looking for something a little cheaper a Geforce FX5900 also would do the job

Damn, so quickly my 9800PRO has become so inadiquate. I fear I will soon have to upgrade

Good god, the demo install required a reboot. What day is this? What year is this? Am I running Windows 98?

What a poor, poor piece of software.

Haha! First of all, this game supports up to 64 players on good computer so I think you should do your research before bitching. Secondly the Gulf Of Oman map has a lot of combat in it even with 32. Thirdly, your card is VERY far from good in todays standard. And fourthly even if you get a good video card it is going to be severly bottlenecked by your most likely underpar CPU. And fifthly your 9800 pro is going to play this game very well, I have no doubt about that. THe TI4200 is another story.

Also the 5900 is very much out perfomed by the 9800 series, IMO.

The PC game market is very far from dying.