I think this is great news as it expands the PC (Mac or Windows) platform, which is up against consoles.  Hopefully if the codebase is equal, Mac/PC users can play online together, which is what it should be.  More online players is a good thing IMHO.

—————————————————

Steam and Valve’s library of games including Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal, and the Half-Life series will be available in April.

“As we transition from entertainment as a product to entertainment as a service, customers and developers need open, high-quality Internet clients,” said Gabe Newell, President of Valve. “The Mac is a great platform for entertainment services.”

“Our Steam partners, who are delivering over a thousand games to 25 million Steam clients, are very excited about adding support for the Mac,” said Jason Holtman, Director of Business Development at Valve. “Steamworks for the Mac supports all of the Steamworks APIs, and we have added a new feature, called Steam Play, which allows customers who purchase the product for the Mac or Windows to play on the other platform free of charge. For example, Steam Play, in combination with the Steam Cloud, allows a gamer playing on their work PC to go home and pick up playing the same game at the same point on their home Mac. We expect most developers and publishers to take advantage of Steam Play.”

“We looked at a variety of methods to get our games onto the Mac and in the end decided to go with native versions rather than emulation,” said John Cook, Director of Steam Development. “The inclusion of WebKit into Steam, and of OpenGL into Source gives us a lot of flexibility in how we move these technologies forward. We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360. Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates. Furthermore, Mac and Windows players will be part of the same multiplayer universe, sharing servers, lobbies, and so forth. We fully support a heterogeneous mix of servers and clients. The first Mac Steam client will be the new generation currently in beta testing on Windows.”

Portal 2 will be Valve’s first simultaneous release for Mac and Windows. “Checking in code produces a PC build and Mac build at the same time, automatically, so the two platforms are perfectly in lock-step,” said Josh Weier, Portal 2 Project Lead. “We’re always playing a native version on the Mac right alongside the PC. This makes it very easy for us and for anyone using Source to do game development for the Mac.”

[Source]

So I decided to try and empty server so I could get a better feel for the GUI, maps, vehicles.  But whenever I got into one, people started joining.  So on the 3rd one I tried I just stayed in.  Luckily I was a squad leader and had some quality people join (LucidMerc) and who were nice enough to answer my questions.

You know how stuff works if you have played a BF game, but there are a lot of different things to learn, weapon load-out etc.  I still don’t have a full grasp on how to use the “Special Abilities”, but here are my first impressions.

HOLY fOOking SH_T!

Hahah  yeah really.  Game looks GREAT.  Played on 1600×1024 on HIGH and It was so great im still buzzing from it.  There are dust and particle effects (map I played on was some boat yard), and the sound is amazing. REALLY puts you there (my sound is on HIGH).  LOVE how the tank view is FULL SCREEN, tv effect is not too much, it does get messed up when you get hit, which is cool.

Once thing I noticed is the TANK and ON FOOT game option settings use the SAME mouse sensitivity.  I like it when you can have different sensitivity for each.  I have the player turned down so its not too Quake’ish, but it makes turning the tank turret slow and I kid you not, I have to PICK UP MY MOUSE to move it more! LOL. ugh.

I tried to knife someone and ran up on him and got a swipe but it was not dead on and he turned around and shot me.

Snipers can call in air strikes, engineers have RPGS which CAN eventually tank out tanks. Being able to destroy building is GREAT.

A scenario ANY BF player has encountered: Your driving your XX ton bad ass tank and you hit a rock, stop sign, and your tank stops! kills the suspension of disbelief ….

Well I took my tank around the long way and saw some debris half as high as the tank and I just kept flooring it and the tank ran over and smashed everything, yeah i took a little damage but it behaved LIKE A TANK WOULD! AHHHH.  very nice.

Smashing shi_ up is a blast.  And this game is going to be VERY ADDICTIVE.

One game I was able to earn half my points towards the next rank from baseline.

Which i could have taken some screen shots.  man saw some “movie moments” and you will too when you play.. Just get ready.

PS> TEXAS TEAMPLAYERS DOES have a server.  It was full, but great to see them up and running as I know we will be running into our online amigos there.

A friendly Brit named, Rulesy  wrote a nice little web app to help calculate your FOV for your monitor res.

FOV (Field of View) determines how much of your surrounding area you can see without turning.

Usually in FPS games where this is configurable, you adjust the horizontal field of view so you can see more to the left and right. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 uses vertical FOV instead, so it’s a little harder to work out what you need to set it to. Here’s the formula, bearing in mind it works in radians, not degrees:

Not really something you can do in your head, huh? So, simply enter your in-game screen resolution (or aspect ratio) and preferred horizontal FOV above and click the calculate button.

There’s currently no way to change this setting in-game, so you’ll need to update your settings.ini file manually. The default location is “My Documents\BFBC2″. Open it with notepad and find the line that says something like “fov=55″, change the number and save the file. If you can’t find this line, you’ll need to add it yourself. Just make sure it’s somewhere under “[Graphics]“.

Note: You’ll need to restart BC2 before it starts working.

Link to Calculator. (opens in a new window)

Thanks Rich aka Rulesy

Click on the image below to open a new window with the Animated GIF that shows some different FOV settings: Provided by BF Rep “zerk16″ (THANKS!)

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

NOTE: I am running a screen res of 1600×1024, I wanted a FOV of 120 degrees and it calculated FOV=96

Breakdown of Install and my observations:

Vista 32bit install, did the option for NO DISC required to play game, install and PB installed, when it was done, there was NO shortcut though.  Had to gogo the Appications folder and make a shortcut and went to ADVANCED properties of the shortcut and set it to RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR.

Current Nvidia Drivers are the 191 series.  I choose NOT to update at this point considering what happened to one of our lcan memebrs having his video card fan get sut off and thus causing the card to melt.

Launched game, went to options to see what the default settings were: 1024×768 at Medium.

Went to play online and logged in using my EA ACCOUNT info (not gamespy!–WAHOO) and was able to get the name I wanted.  Clan Tag support is also available (nice).

After playing the single player a bit I decided to adjust the FOV as the default is too narrow.  I quit the game and went to MY DOCUMENTS, to the game folder and opened the “Settings.ini” (my file had the file extension on it).  I noticed there was NOT a FOV entry in it at all.  So maybe the game defaults to 55, and you can override it by adding a line entry.  So I did.  I started with “FOV=80″, saved the file, closed it, and played a bit.  Was a little better, but since the right arm holding the weapon takes up so much visual real-estate I went to “FOV=100″ (I quit the game, opened the file again, changed it to 100, saved the file and closed the file, and then relaunched the game).  Played it a bit and I was on a jungle level and still didnt feel like I was seeing what is equal to normal human range of vision (peripheral), so I went to 120!  Yeah, that might be a little wide for some, but it felt much closer to human vision and the {tunnel effect} was gone.  REALLY allows you to take in the game’s environment, which is gorgeous.  Had some moments that reminded me of the Cyrsis game (as far as great looking).

I did end up changing the res to 1280×1024 and detail to HIGH.

My system config is:

Vista 32bit
3Ghz Core 2 Duo
2 gigs of 1066Hz ram
EVGA 680I motherboard
EVGA 8800 Ultra (768MB ram, and I did NOT overclock it).

Im looking for the command lines for Screen Captures as there is no KEY assignment ingame, and im looking for a reliable in game method to get frame rates.

I will be testing multiplayer soon and will report back my observations and any tips that my be useful.

Best,

We can CONFIRM as one of our members has been affected by the new drivers shutting off his fan in his video card and causing overheating.

[Source] Steve @ HardOCP

It seems that NVIDIA has pulled its 196.75 drivers because of overheating issues. Apparently there has been a rash of complaints about dead, dying and overheating video cards. The problem seems to be the fan controller in the 196.75 drivers, no word from NVIDIA on the matter yet.

The problem seems to be related to the fan controller, causing the fans to slow down, and even stop. This happening while the card is in use is a very bad thing indeed, and can cause poor performance (as the GPU tries to cool itself down by reducing power) and possibly even overheat your GPU to the point where the card stops working.

Dev notes: [Source]

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is based on Frostbite 1.5, but with multiple enhancements and a lot of specific effort spent on building it up and for the PC as this is the first time Frostbite is used on PC.

DX10 has one unfortunate draw back though; it is only supported on Windows Vista and Windows 7, not the now 9 year old Windows XP. And as we have a big PC fan base, where not everyone may have transitioned over to Vista or Windows 7 yet, we have also added a rendering path that uses the old DirectX 9.

The DX9 path is quite efficient but lacks some of the features that we have on DX10 like anti-aliasing and HBAO.

For everyone with the new generation of graphics card, like the AMD Radeon 5xxx series or the upcoming Nvidia Geforce 4xx, we’ve also added support for DirectX 11. The primary uses of DX11 in Bad Company 2 is to soften all the dynamic shadows as well as to improve performance in general with a few smaller DX11 optimizations that we are using.

The detection and usage of DX9/DX10/DX11 is done automatically, the game selects the highest possible version available with your graphics card and OS. If you want to force a given path you can do that in the Settings.ini file by setting ‘DxVersion’ to any of these options: 9, 10, 11 or auto (default).

Field of View

BC2 uses approximately the same vertical field-of-view on all platforms and modes. But as we support arbitrary monitor aspect ratios, you can get different horizontal FOV on different monitor setups – the wider monitor you have the wider horizontal FOV you get, i.e. you actually see more on the sides of the screen.

As widescreen monitors nowadays are even more common (and actually: the new standard) we felt it was very important to support them properly. Which we do in BC2 thanks to handling arbitrary aspect ratios. A positive side effect of this is that Eyefinity also works as it should, i.e. just like a single very wide monitor.

We’ve seen overwhelming positive feedback for the out-of-the-box support of Eyefinity, but a few select people have voiced some concern that the wide FOV when playing with Eyefinity would be considered cheating. But now when people have been playing the Beta we haven’t heard any feedback that Eyefinity have actually been a big practical competitive advantage, it is meant to give you only extra peripheral vision.

The PC as a platform is inherently not a 100% fair playing field as people have always had varying performance, network connection, hardware setups, input devices and new technology – which is also one of the strengths of the platform and something we, and many PC players, would like us to embrace & utilize.

If the community later collectively agrees that Eyefinity is an actual big advantage in multi-player we can look into potentially having it as a server option, but don’t think that will be needed.

Another much requested topic is to have a customizable FOV. This is not implemented in the PC Beta, but we are adding a customizable FOV for a future retail patch. The feedback from the Beta about servers, performance & stability have been of a higher priority and needed to be solved first.

The Settings.ini file can be found in My Documents\BFBC2 directory.

HBAO

HBAO stands for Horizon-based Ambient Occlusion and is a rendering technique developed by Nvidia originally and that we have integrated into Frostbite for use on all DX10 and DX11 graphics cards.

It is a technique that creates soft & realistic contact shadows between objects and can really enhance the visuals but in a quite subtle way. It can be a demanding effect for the graphics card and as such is primarily meant for more higher-end cards. It only is a cost on the GPU, not the CPU.

Gameplay Moments 1

Gameplay Moments 2

Panama Canal Gameplay

Tip:

If you are getting the crash back to desktop problem, something you can try.

Just go into your BFBC2/DOCUMENTS and edit SPEAKERS from 0 to 2.
This fixed it for me, i just hope it last and the problem doesn’t start again, but so far so good.

Hello All,

This day has finally arrived.  Never mind BF3 never came to fruition, nor BF 1943 for the PC.  Well we have a new game to play (finally), new engine and most of what we loved about the franchise is in there.  Our clan just picked up copies last night and will be giving you our perspective as adult squad based players with an uber amount of hours playing the BF games.

In the meantime, wanted to share with you some intel I have been gathering.

There is a FOV patch coming out, but you CAN change this yourself.  The game defaults at 55, and I believe there is an upper cap of 200.  You can change the .ini file (note there is not a file extension .ini on the file though).  The lower number give you the tunnel vision effect, which I NEVER understood why games do that.  Match a persons normal FOV range in a game.  Why is that not obvious? (rant).

Here is what you need to know: [Source]

Vista and 7 users HAVE TO RUN the game as ADMIN. Right click shortcut to select that option.

Start up the game and try entering the Mp game..or at least get to the screen where it asks you for your code and cancel.

Try entering the single player game for a minute and then exit the whole game and recheck your “My Documents” for the bfbc2 folder . It is NOT in your game folder.

(please note the full games settings file does not say settings.ini >>just settings.)

This is what the “Settings” file content looks like:

[WindowSettings]
Width=1920
Height=1200
Fullscreen=true
RefreshRate=59.950001
VSync=false
[Sound]
Quality=high
VoipEnable=true
SpeakerCount=0
[Graphics]
Effects=high
Soldiers=high
Vehicles=high
Overgrowth=high
Undergrowth=high
StaticObjects=high
Terrain=high
Shadows=medium
Bloom=false
HSAO=false
MSAA=3
Water=high
MainQuality=custom
Texture=high
DxVersion=auto
Aniso=4
Detail=high
RenderAheadLimit=2
Fov=80

^ note the FOV setting (made BOLD here for quick viewing).

——————————- END ——————————–

NVIDIA Drivers updated: 196.75

ATI/AMD Drivers updated (2/17): 10.2

More info and feedback soon……………

Google is wanting to demonstrate what America’s broadband *should* be and have a cool new program you can suggest your area to receive.  I would love the chance to test it and share with you all my observations.

Check out the info below:

We’re planning to build and test ultra high-speed broadband networks in a small number of trial locations across the United States. We’ll deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today with 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. We plan to offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.

Our goal is to experiment with new ways to help make Internet access better and faster for everyone. Here are some specific things that we have in mind:

• Next generation apps: We want to see what developers and users can do with ultra high-speeds, whether it’s creating new bandwidth-intensive “killer apps” and services, or other uses we can’t yet imagine.
• New deployment techniques: We’ll test new ways to build fiber networks, and to help inform and support deployments elsewhere, we’ll share key lessons learned with the world.
• Openness and choice: We’ll operate an “open access” network, giving users the choice of multiple service providers. And consistent with our past advocacy, we’ll manage our network in an open, non-discriminatory and transparent way.

[Source]

This info was reposted from Dev. Blog by: Mikael Kalms lead Dev for the PC version [Source]

[Updated 2010-01-27 15:27 GMT+1: Added clarifications about
- online authentication and multiplayer,
- copy protection and Steam,
- copy protection and EA Online
now, if you excuse me... there's a Closed Beta which needs some attention!]

Hi all!
I’m the lead programmer on the PC version. You have asked for more technical information on the PC version, and the blog about our audio system was very appreciated, so here’s another one… this time about a more sombre subject: Copy Protection.

Introduction
BFBC2 PC uses SecuROM as its copy protection mechanism. SecuROM comes in many shapes and forms. I will describe the specific version that is being used in BFBC2 PC.

SecuROM in general
The version which we use is a wrapper around the main game executable. It does everything it can by running as a “normal” program; it does not install any sort of kernel software.

What this means is:
* No software is permanently installed on your machine.
* SecuROM is ONLY running when the game is running
* When you uninstall the game, you will also uninstall the SecuROM software.

SecuROM and the Closed Beta
The main game executable (BFBC2Game.exe) of the Closed Beta will be wrapped with SecuROM. There is only one reason for this: to make it difficult to hack the Closed Beta client to run the final game.
SecuROM is configured to be passive. All it does, is make it more difficult to modify the game client.

When the Closed Beta is uninstalled, all traces of the game and SecuROM will be removed from your machine.

SecuROM and the final game
The final game will also use SecuROM. The main game executable (BFBC2Game.exe) will be wrapped with SecuROM. Some support files in the game’s installation directory also belong to SecuROM.

When you install or start the game, you will be required to authenticate the copy of the game. That is how you prove that the installation of the game you are running is legit.
You can do that in two ways: by putting the original DVD in the drive, or by going online once. If you bought the game on disc, you get to choose; if you have purchased it digitally, your only option is going online.

Authentication by DVD
You can authenticate by putting the DVD in the drive.

If you choose this method, you must have the DVD available every time you want to play. With this method, SecuROM will not go online at all. You can then play the single-player campaign 100% offline.

Authentication by going online
You can also choose to authenticate by going online once.

If so, this happens the first time that you start the actual game. You will be asked for permission. If you allow it, SecuROM  will talk to a master server, which counts on how many computers your serial key is currently in use.
When the installation has been authenticated online once, SecuROM will no longer go online. You can then play the single-player campaign 100% offline, without needing the DVD. Also, you can play multiplayer online without needing the DVD.

You can have the game authenticated on up to 10 machines at the same time.
One authentication is valid for 10,000 days. Thus, if you authenticated once on launch day – March 2nd, 2010 – that authentication will be valid until July 18th, 2037.

Online authentication … what about de-authentication?
You can de-authenticate the game. De-authentication means to return one authentication to the “pool” of available activations (which started with 10 available).

You do it one of two ways:

1. In the Games Explorer in Vista: right-click on the game’s Icon and select  “Deauthorize this machine”
2. Uninstall the game; uninstallation will automatically invoke the de-authentication process.

After de-authentication, you are told how many authentications are now in the “pool”.

SecuROM needs to go online to de-authenticate.

Online authentication, and modifying hardware
If you have authenticated the game, but then changed a lot of hardware in your machine, then SecuROM may deem that your current authentication will no longer do.

If that happens, do this:

1. Uninstall the game. That will return the old authentication to the “pool”.
2. Install the game again. The next time you start the game, you will get a new authentication.

You need to change a lot of hardware for this to happen. Just changing the processor or graphics card is not enough to make the authentication obsolete.

If you run out of activations – perhaps because your PC breaks unexpectedly, several times – then contact EA’s technical support to get an extra authentication added to your “pool”.

Online Authentication and Steam
The Steam edition will also have SecuROM. We are working closely with Steam to make the integration well-functioning.

Authentication versus EA Online entitlements
When you purchase the game, you can authenticate it on up to 10 or 11 machines (1 DVD + 10 online). This allows you to play the singleplayer campaign on several machines at the same time.
When you purchase the game, you can also entitle one EA Online account. When you want to play BFBC2 PC multiplayer online, you need to log in using an account that has been entitled specifically for BFBC2 PC. Only one machine can be logged in at a time using the same EA Online account. Thus, one purchased copy of the game allows one person to play online.