Graphic Settings Allows Cheating

[WallyJas]

Guys,

I have only come across this in the last few weeks. so I am not sure how long it may have been an issue for.

I have heard that you can turn your graphics right down so that you don't have any detail and therefore can see enemy that is hiding in scrub and shadows etc.

Is this ACTUALLY true, can you do that? And if so how do you do it ... nah just joking ... if so should it be a bannable offence? If it can be policed.

Thoughts / Comments

[GruAncH]

Yes you can turn your settings down/off, Is it a huge advantage?
let's take lighting and shadows, turn it all off and a dark room is now a well lit room.

Considering some people who have crappy systems have to do this just to play, and people who have super dooper PC's tend to kick butt due to faster processing speeds and FPS, I'd say it's not really a huge issue.

[Bahlye]

If you have a very low spec graphics card,and you have to turn the settings way down in order to play PR,the grass and or undergrowth may not show.
This is the reason we dropped maps such as Mao Valley etc in the past..as people were exploiting this by turning the settings down when they had no reason to do so except to gain an advantage over other players who "were playing fair".

[CDN-SMOKEJUMPER]

I think the people who turn the setting down must be on the rare side. Who want it all ugly?

It is true though bit I like it all pretty so no cheating for me!

[Frenzal]

From going from a real crap pc to a good one, i can say that having low settings is no advantage. The shrub/grass is shown no matter the settings. What i think you refer to is the draw distance, where after a certain distance grass and other objects disappear. Both low and high settings are effected by the draw distance, thanks to bf2's "lovely" engine. which ultimately makes camoflauge pretty silly.

[Psyrus]

Both low and high settings are effected by the draw distance, thanks to bf2's "lovely" engine. which ultimately makes camoflauge pretty silly.

Ancientman has said repeatedly that the devs are able to tweak the grass draw distance to significantly farther, but at a disproportionately large performance drop... so yeah.. if they did that, it would really screw a lot of people over... which sucks :(

I have all my lighting on low because I can't stand the way BF2 renders shadows and "dynamic light", also, when you're flying a chopper the glass is about 1/4 darker if you have dynamic light on... so it makes it even harder to distinguish friends from foes...

BF2 engine stinks :stink:, bring on BF3 or something even better!

[AncientMan]

You can very easily tweak the draw distance on everything. I do it frequently to have the massive draw distances for the menumaps and loadmaps. The thing is though, when playing with a 3000m view distance with everything in the map rendering, can you play with 2fps? Just getting into a good position to take a picture is an achievement in itself...

In my experience and opinion, there will always be exploits in games. Hell, even Mario Kart Wii (best game ever ;)), people are exploiting a bug online, allowing them to get awesome times in races (getting banned mind you, but none the less the exploiters are present). In BF2/PR, I wouldn't call turning down your settings cheating, I would call it exploiting the game engine though. Though, it's not the only thing that I would call exploiting. There are things in PR like the squad bug in dual crewed vehicles, disabling custom shader effects, glitching inside of buildings, using HAT against infantry... I could go on and on. It's all exploiting the game engine and/or bugs in the game. If you don't feel bad about exploiting the game, then there's nothing you can do (well, not true, since some exploits we admins take action on immediately.. but others you can't really do this since there isn't any hard evidence).

Regardless, there will always be these people, and there ARE these people playing every day on our servers. All you can hope for is that people do feel bad about this, turn up their graphics settings to play evenly and have a more enjoyable experience (or save some money and upgrade some computer parts). It probably won't ever happen, with people showing remorse over killing virtual soldiers by getting an unfair advantage and acting upon it to change, but there is really nothing that you can do.

Personally, I have everything on medium, with a few things on high. Some places are barely visible due to them being extremely dark, hence can't see people lurking. Yet I live with it, because I play it the way it is meant to be played, and I enjoy it for what it is, not what it isn't.

[GruAncH]

I've played with my graphics maxed and on absolute bare bones and honestly a mixture of settings works best, atmosphere is better than bland brightness, but total darkness is crap too. In terms of an advantage its not a big one.

[Slavak]

...when you're flying a chopper the glass is about 1/4 darker if you have dynamic light on... so it makes it even harder to distinguish friends from foes...

Ah thanks, didnt know that. Now I might finally be able to see things outside :P

[pogoman]

i think the new map sangin has a new kind of grass which is classified as overgrowth or something, thus it renders at all ranges like bushes do etc.

[+SiN+ solo60]

i run to get max fps..

game graphics mean nothing to me.. gameplay is where its at in a game..

i run..

1024x768

all low except geometry on high (draws vehicles at max range) and view distance at 100%

the rest low or off.

[bigbossmatt]

i have it on these low settings just to play. id rather die more times a night and play on high settings if I could.

[Psyrus]

Well here are some comparison screenshots to show you what the differences are between the extremes of the settings:

Stupidly low [lowest and 50% draw distance]:
http://i235.photobucket.com /albums/ee94/psyrus_uraya/PR-lowview-spec.jpg

Low spec:
http://i235.photobucket.com /albums/ee94/psyrus_uraya/PR-low-spec.jpg

My specs [high but mid range]:
http://i235.photobucket.com /albums/ee94/psyrus_uraya/PR-my-spec.jpg

Highest possible [Including 8xAA]:
http://i235.photobucket.com /albums/ee94/psyrus_uraya/PR-ultra-spec.jpg

To see the difference, I suggest opening 4 tabs, and using FF tab switching to tell the differences. There's some distinct advantages to low grass distance... you'll see behind the middle helicopter the grass does not render for the low spec guy. You'll also notice my 8800GT start to struggle as the detail intensifies, especially the AA.

[sappersk]

Yucky !!!

[1GeKKo3]

I have a crap computer that hardly works without lag on lowest settings.

IMO it is a huge advantage. I have played on other peoples computers and can't see nearly as well as on my poor excuse for a computer.

I will be buying a new computer soon and I will have the highest settings I can, hopefully all high, because I would prefer to have it look nice and die and just get use to it and then kick ass cause I can have a higher frame rate.

All I need then is a wired internet connection and everything will be sweet :P

[pogoman]

****, i see what you mean about dynamic lighting and choppers psyrus, they get waaaay darker :S. might have to turn mine off too.

[Kindros]

Nothing new here, has been done since day 1 of BF2 and just about any other fps game ever made.
If the game engine allows you to do this to your settings, then it can hardly be called exploiting, or even cheating.
The closest I have personally seen to cheating in PR is from a PBSS of someone with edited *I won't tell you* a while back.

it may not be a kosher thing to do, but nothing or no one is stopping you from doing the same, it's just that some people like to play with different settings. What's more of an advantage, draw distance, or Team Speak?

[GruAncH]

Nothing new here, has been done since day 1 of BF2 and just about any other fps game ever made.
If the game engine allows you to do this to your settings, then it can hardly be called exploiting, or even cheating.
The closest I have personally seen to cheating in PR is from a PBSS of someone with edited *I won't tell you* a while back.

it may not be a kosher thing to do, but nothing or no one is stopping you from doing the same, it's just that some people like to play with different settings. What's more of an advantage, draw distance, or Team Speak?

Did the ehem PBSS lead to a perma ban or was this a grey area?

[Kindros]

Did the ehem PBSS lead to a perma ban or was this a grey area?

I am not at liberty to say.

[Captain_Wolf]

You can very easily tweak the draw distance on everything. I do it frequently to have the massive draw distances for the menumaps and loadmaps. The thing is though, when playing with a 3000m view distance with everything in the map rendering, can you play with 2fps? Just getting into a good position to take a picture is an achievement in itself...

Can you actually do that in punkbuster games though? Would it not kick you for altered files?

[Kindros]

Can you actually do that in punkbuster games though? Would it not kick you for altered files?

yep, is a console command. PB from memory only measures file sizes and memory calls to verify authenticity.

[GruAncH]

Yeah thats what I recall, I didn't realise draw distance was a console command I thought you had to edit the file and thats where PB picked it up..

[Captain_Wolf]

Wait, so I could increase the draw distance so I could see further into the "fog of doom" on maps like Kashan and Jabal?

And I could play on the GSA servers like this?

Tell me how, pretty pretty please. :P

[Bahlye]

You can very easily tweak the draw distance on everything. I do it frequently to have the massive draw distances for the menumaps and loadmaps. The thing is though, when playing with a 3000m view distance with everything in the map rendering, can you play with 2fps? Just getting into a good position to take a picture is an achievement in itself...

I play it the way it is meant to be played, and I enjoy it for what it is, not what it isn't.



Ancient has pretty much said it already....

If you are altering files and playing ,while 99.5% of the community aren't... why play on a community based server/s.

"Play the game the way the game was intended to be played.." :confused:

[Captain_Wolf]

Lol I was kinda joking hence the :P

I just didn't realise that something like that which would give you such a huge advantage was possible without getting punkbusted.

Still it would be interesting to see what some of the maps look like with full view distance, I hate the fog.

[Kindros]

Lol I was kinda joking hence the :P

I just didn't realise that something like that which would give you such a huge advantage was possible without getting punkbusted.

Still it would be interesting to see what some of the maps look like with full view distance, I hate the fog.

I think it would only be an advantage on a supercomputer. max BF2 draw is about the limit for even a lot of new computers. When you start ****ing with the draw distance, you put extra processing onto your graphics and computer, hence actually crippling your game, as more things have to be pre loaded before you actually get to them. Sure you may see an ant walk in front of a building, but you will also be seeing after the person has left because of the ****e fps you will be getting.

[AncientMan]

I was talking about local servers with those commands. PB wouldn't like it, and the commands wouldn't even work.

[Captain_Wolf]

Ah that is exactly what I thought thanks Ancient.

Meh looks like I'll have to stick with ARMA for my 10000m view distances lol.

[daveee]

The day they combine arma and PR I'll be a happy man.

[1rankman]

why doesnt some one try making reality mod for arma

[pogoman]

i think the respone before was that wats the point of making a reality mod for a reality game. the one reason PR's so good is its soo different to vbf2. while arma could probably be improved upon in some aspects it wouldn't be enough for a mod with a good following.

[Captain_Wolf]

Yeah I don't think there is too much you could do to make ARMA more realistic unless they started adding things like needing to sleep when you get tired or only being able to play the game once and when you die you are dead permanently. Somehow I think these options may be a bit too realistic.

The only one problem ARMA has is that noone plays it online. You are lucky to get a game with 3 or 4 guys who actually work together. Imagine an ARMA game where you had 64 players. That would be utter madness. AFAIK the engine can support 100+ players if the server is good enough. Imagine playing on a realtime battlefield with 100 players. :wacko:

I think I might make one last push for a BigD ARMA night...

[S.O.P]

I have to run 1024x768 with almost everything at low. The gaming computer is older and what one would consider low-specc'd these days.

I try to run lights/shadows so the map makers valiant effort in getting the lightmaps up to speed. But I find that 25fps on average, lower outside just isn't fun when you are trying to aim at things.

Edit: Psy, just checked my open tabs, what settings are you running? Yours looks good.

[Psyrus]

Edit: Psy, just checked my open tabs, what settings are you running? Yours looks good.

Cool~ My specs are:

Q6600 @ 3.0ghz ($240)
4GB ram (2x $45)
8800GT 512MB OC'd to 650/1650/925 ($210) or 9600GT ($165)
- Motherboard is outdated, but a GA-P35-DS3L costs just <$110
[Total = $450 to $650, depending on what you have/need]

Game settings:
Resolution: 1680x1050
Overall quality: High
Shadows: Low/Off
Dynamic Light: Low/Off
Lighting Low: Low/Off
Draw Distance: 100%
Anti Aliasing: 4xMS

Frames always hover around 80-100FPS except on fools road and some areas of Qinling, where they are around 35-60.

[S.O.P]

I have a 7900GS, 2.0GHz AMD and 1Gb RAM.

Old PR I could run med shadows, lights and filtering. This PR I struggle with everything. I know what I need to do to build a puter (just built myself a new HTPC which is why I'm gaming again) but atm, with house renos I don't see even grabbing 500 anywhere.

But if and when I do, I'll like to play with something like what you are playing with.

[Shotgun]

u need another Gb of ram and u will be crusin

[Psyrus]

u need another Gb of ram and u will be crusin

Yep the jump to 2GB is definitely helpful! A 7900GS should have some overclocking headroom, which should allow you to squeeze some extra performance out of it.

Perhaps overclocking your 2ghz athlon will provide a decent un-bottlenecking.

[S.O.P]

Done, new ram (OCZ Plat Rev 2) won't overclock high (as it's very hard to find the old threads relating to it - all my multitude of settings related to my OCZ VX), it was only ever stable at 2.2 anyway, I had a bad batch 3200+. Also, I don't want to buy DDR1 as it's old news.

7900GS is clocked as high as it will go.

I know the computers and the internets, I'm locked in by choice and am just complaining out loud. Think of me when you are getting ultra-smooth framerates.

[Psyrus]

You're not in WA by any chance, are you? I have 4GB of DDR1 ram that I'm not using [Well.. it's in my server but I could spare 1gb], as well as a X2 3800+ that I don't use anymore which was good up to 2.4ghz @ 1.45V

I don't like postage though so if you're over east you're out of luck, sadly~

[S.O.P]

Thanks for the offer, it's very kind of you.

I'll update my profile to reflect that I live on the East Coast, a long way away from you.

[KllrKirk]

Well here are some comparison screenshots to show you what the differences are between the extremes of the settings:

Stupidly low [lowest and 50% draw distance]:
http://i235.photobucket.com /albums/ee94/psyrus_uraya/PR-lowview-spec.jpg

Low spec:
http://i235.photobucket.com /albums/ee94/psyrus_uraya/PR-low-spec.jpg

My specs [high but mid range]:
http://i235.photobucket.com /albums/ee94/psyrus_uraya/PR-my-spec.jpg

Highest possible [Including 8xAA]:
http://i235.photobucket.com /albums/ee94/psyrus_uraya/PR-ultra-spec.jpg

To see the difference, I suggest opening 4 tabs, and using FF tab switching to tell the differences. There's some distinct advantages to low grass distance... you'll see behind the middle helicopter the grass does not render for the low spec guy. You'll also notice my 8800GT start to struggle as the detail intensifies, especially the AA.



Well if anyone knows how to manipulate the game it would be Psyrus...

So Psyrus, is that little red writting in the top left corner, your hacks running code????

[Jim]

Well if anyone knows how to manipulate the game it would be Psyrus...

So Psyrus, is that little red writting in the top left corner, your hacks running code????

LOL

`
renderer.drawfps

[GI.Gazza]

Grin.. Love your work Killer..

[GruAncH]

Hahahaa nice try he's surely to smart for that ;)

[S.O.P]

I've been tweaking some settings and I'm getting better results now, with a higher resolution.

All I get now is the usual 1GB RAM judder reasonably frequently but I suppose I can live with that. It's like running with FRAPS on, but perhaps not quite so bad.


I've managed to get Windows down to my lowest usage yet. If anyone can improve on what I've done (check by pressing ctrl-alt-delete), please let me know how you did it. Note: Taskmgr doesn't run all the time and Daemon is for the BF2 mini image. Also, technically, I could do away with spoolsv.exe as that handles the Windows printing process that doesn't really need to be on all the time.

http://img252.imageshack.us /img252/2521/taskmgrpb3.png
http://img252.imageshack.us /img252/2103/taskmgr1gd1.png

[Fallen.]

turn off print spool. "spoolsv" its just your printer cue.

:hi:

[S.O.P]

I knows...

Also, technically, I could do away with spoolsv.exe as that handles the Windows printing process that doesn't really need to be on all the time.

I just made a .bat file that kills my Internode Usage Monitor (mum.exe) and spoolsv.exe so I can run it before I start the gaming (but I'm testing spoolsv.exe on a manual start at the moment):

@echo off
C:\WINDOWS\system32\ taskkill /im spoolsv.exe /f
C:\WINDOWS\system32\ taskkill /im mum.exe /f