I was told about the
settings.ini
file for BC:2 where you could increase your field of view. The default value looks like:
I am wondering if there are any reasons I shouldn't do this, or if I will get banned for setting this value higher than 55.
DrFish11.3k10 gold badges61 silver badges120 bronze badges
Tim CooperTim Cooper
1 Answer
No, you cannot get banned for changing anything in the settings.ini file. But do back it up in case you make your game unplayable.
BFBC2 can be played with different height ratio, so the FOV in the settings is the Vertical FOV, so use This FOV calculator to figure out the horizontal FOV if you want to set it to something specific horizontal.
AttackingHoboAttackingHobo
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I was told about the
settings.ini
file for BC:2 where you could increase your field of view. The default value looks like:
I am wondering if there are any reasons I shouldn't do this, or if I will get banned for setting this value higher than 55.
DrFish11.3k10 gold badges61 silver badges120 bronze badges
Tim CooperTim Cooper
1 Answer
No, you cannot get banned for changing anything in the settings.ini file. But do back it up in case you make your game unplayable.
BFBC2 can be played with different height ratio, so the FOV in the settings is the Vertical FOV, so use This FOV calculator to figure out the horizontal FOV if you want to set it to something specific horizontal.
AttackingHoboAttackingHobo
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged pcbattlefield-bad-company-2 or ask your own question.
DICE has recently finished it's newest client, (R3), and it includes optimization for dual core machines!On January 28th, 2010, the developers at DICE blessed the PC community with a playable beta-stage download; however, many of us tend to forget that this is a BETA, not a DEMO. Due to high server latency, the first days of the beta were almost unplayable, but - in case anyone reading this is still pondering whether or not to obtain a beta key - the majority of latency has been fixed, and the community is now able to test the game as developers have intended. Granted, the latency is still an issue but we must remember that this is a beta and it doesn't reflect the finished product; don't go canceling your pre-orders based on what you hear about this beta.
One of the biggest complaints about the Bad Company 2 PC Beta is the poor performance many of us are experiencing; players with high end gaming rigs are still experiencing disheartening results. This is due to the lack of optimization. Being DICE's first pc title utilizing the profound Frostbite engine, we must fix in our mind that DICE isn't working with their old Refractor engine that we were used to seeing in exclusive PC titles such as Battlefield: 1942, Battlefield: Vietnam and - more recently in an updated version - Battlefield :2, and Battlefield: 2142. The Frostbite engine was first tested with Battlefield: Bad Company for the X-box 360 and PS3, which are machines that run identical components within their respective products. This makes it easier for the developers to optimize titles so they may run at their optimal performance. However, PC rigs are in multitudinous in configurations: CPU Speed, GPU memory, RAM, Sound cards, CPU core, CPU core memory, speaker set up, keyboard and other peripheral support, so on and so forth. We can see why not everybody is having the performance they expect.
Bad Company 2 Fov Single Player
However, many of the PC's community's brightest minds have come up with solutions to help better your frame rate, and enhance your Bad Company 2 PC Beta experience! Here is a list to help you self-diagnose and improve your game play.
- 1. So far, the most popular change is to modify the DirectX Settings to DX 9.
Velocity Girl's instructions on how to do this.
The 3rd line from the bottom should read DxVersion=Auto.
Change DxVersion=Auto to DxVersion=9, and save it.DxVersion=9 will usually increase your performance, but disables the Anti Aliasing Function. If your Graphics Card only supports Direct X 9, then you probably will not see an improvement, because the 'Auto' function will have already selected Direct X 9. - 2. Bad Company 2 PC Beta is - in the current stage - very CPU intensive and another way to improve your performance is to take the strain off of your CPU as much as possible:
- Turn off any unnecessary programs (X-fire, AIM, Windows Media Player, Internet Explorer).
- When you start up the game, set the audio level to 'headphones'. This lowers the quality, although not terribly noticeably and allows the CPU to focus more on video. If concerned about audio quality, just put some headphones on! - 3. One method that works particularly well for me is to run the game in a windowed mode, in a smaller resolution. Just press alt + Enter when playing the game, or go into the 'settings' file from step #, and change 'Fullscreen=True' to 'Fullscreen=False'. This is particularly helpful if you own a larger, widescreen monitor. In my case, I own a 23' Widescreen monitor, and its native resolution is 1920 x 1080 but I cannot run the Beta at that high of a resolution. So, I run it at 1440 x 900 and windowed, so that what you see is native and is not stretched out or disproportioned.
- 4. Another thing that is widely accepted is to turn off HSAO and BLOOM.
- 5. Set your graphics all to 'Low' or '1x' (for AA and AF) and turn them up gradually one by one while playing to determine your safe frame rate zone. Alternatively, just keep them all at LOW and save the awe-inspiring visuals for when the game comes out, finalized and optimized.
- 6. When in-game, set the processes' CPU priority to 'High'.
CAUTION: This may cause your CPU to run unstably, proceed at your own risk. Make sure you are not running below the recommended CPU speed and make sure your CPU is not already overloaded. - 7. Although I am not sure if this next method will work for all/many of you, one individual recommended turning Anisotropic Filtering, (AF) up to 8x. I have tried this and although this has worked wonders for many, if there are any improvements, it might be too small to notice. Nonetheless, it is still a possible improvement.
- 8. Set your video card to 'performance', as opposed to 'quality'.
For example, if you are running an Nvidia card, go to the Nvidia Control Panel and move the slider over to 'performance'.
First of all, what is 'field of view'?
In short, the field of view (or FOV) is the angle measured in degrees in which you can see in front of you. In most games, it's measured horizontally, but sometimes it's measured vertically (Bad Company 2, Bioshock 2).
A standard horizontal FOV for a PC game is around 90 degrees on a widescreen monitor.
For games like Bad Company 2, which use a vertical FOV, 75 is roughly the sweet spot.
Here's a GIF of Bad Company 2:
Notice how above 75-ish, things start to look like a fish-eye lens. 75-ish vertical is around 90-100 horizontal.
Here's a handy utility to convert: http://www.rjdown.co.uk/projects/bfbc2/fovcalculator.php
I'm honestly curious about how FOV is envisioned from a developer's perspective. Is it difficulty in programming? Something that developers simply don't think about? A deliberate decision to make someone feel a particular way?
I know that Irrational said that the low FOV in Bioshock was deliberate, because it gave off a sense of claustrophobia which they though added to the game. However, I think that idea was somewhat misguided.
On a console game, I perfectly understand why a low FOV would make sense. It decreases the rendering area, which can improve performance, and it also makes things more fair because everyone sees the same thing. But more importantly is the natural way that most people sit.
Imagine you're looking out of a window of your home. If you're 6-7 feet away from the window, you can see less side to side out of that window. If you're 2-3 feet away from the window, you can see a lot more side-to-side.
This is comparable to how sitting in front of a TV is different from sitting in front of a PC monitor. I drew up an incredibly shitty drawing using my horrible artistic skills to try to demonstrate:
Developers - this is why field of view is something you can never 'un-see' once you recognize it. It's simply unnatural to have a low FOV when you're sitting just a couple of feet away from your monitor. The opposite of looking like a fish-eye lens, it instead looks like you have tunnel vision.
You don't need to go to the extreme of everything seeming like it's through a fish-eye lens either! A 90-100 degree horizontal FOV looks perfectly natural on a widescreen monitor, without fish-eye effects.
Gearbox and Irrational, please take this into consideration for Borderlands 2 and Bioshock Infinite. It really does make a difference, and isn't a meaningless or trivial complaint. I get that consoles are usually the focus for development, since that's where most sales are at, but it's little details like this that go a long way in making a huge difference in a PC version of your game.
In short, the field of view (or FOV) is the angle measured in degrees in which you can see in front of you. In most games, it's measured horizontally, but sometimes it's measured vertically (Bad Company 2, Bioshock 2).
A standard horizontal FOV for a PC game is around 90 degrees on a widescreen monitor.
For games like Bad Company 2, which use a vertical FOV, 75 is roughly the sweet spot.
Here's a GIF of Bad Company 2:
Notice how above 75-ish, things start to look like a fish-eye lens. 75-ish vertical is around 90-100 horizontal.
Here's a handy utility to convert: http://www.rjdown.co.uk/projects/bfbc2/fovcalculator.php
I'm honestly curious about how FOV is envisioned from a developer's perspective. Is it difficulty in programming? Something that developers simply don't think about? A deliberate decision to make someone feel a particular way?
I know that Irrational said that the low FOV in Bioshock was deliberate, because it gave off a sense of claustrophobia which they though added to the game. However, I think that idea was somewhat misguided.
On a console game, I perfectly understand why a low FOV would make sense. It decreases the rendering area, which can improve performance, and it also makes things more fair because everyone sees the same thing. But more importantly is the natural way that most people sit.
Imagine you're looking out of a window of your home. If you're 6-7 feet away from the window, you can see less side to side out of that window. If you're 2-3 feet away from the window, you can see a lot more side-to-side.
This is comparable to how sitting in front of a TV is different from sitting in front of a PC monitor. I drew up an incredibly shitty drawing using my horrible artistic skills to try to demonstrate:
Developers - this is why field of view is something you can never 'un-see' once you recognize it. It's simply unnatural to have a low FOV when you're sitting just a couple of feet away from your monitor. The opposite of looking like a fish-eye lens, it instead looks like you have tunnel vision.
You don't need to go to the extreme of everything seeming like it's through a fish-eye lens either! A 90-100 degree horizontal FOV looks perfectly natural on a widescreen monitor, without fish-eye effects.
Gearbox and Irrational, please take this into consideration for Borderlands 2 and Bioshock Infinite. It really does make a difference, and isn't a meaningless or trivial complaint. I get that consoles are usually the focus for development, since that's where most sales are at, but it's little details like this that go a long way in making a huge difference in a PC version of your game.