Tip 10:
Extra stuff, mostly OS related.
Install a spyware remover *- These are availble all over the internet. A good spyware remover is very important. Download the software, then run it regularly, every week or so. If you get infested with spyware or adware badly, download ewido at
www.ewido.com in my experience this is the best adware remover if it gets really bad. Spyware can seriously slow down your computer and can make games run very slowly. Also get Mozilla Firefox, look below, as this is very good for preventing spyware.
Update your BIOS. Your motherboard controls everything, and a BIOS update can help greatly in some situations. Find your BIOS driver from the mobo website and download the latest version. Don't get interrupted when flashing the chip though! or it can ruin your mobo! you have been warned lol!
Update all your drivers. I suggest for your video drivers you use the ones in tip 8, but make sure you regularly update the soundcard drivers etc.
Buy a bottle of compressed air at a computer store and clean out your PC once every 6 months or so! Some boards and chips will slow down if they get too hot. The dust makes more insulation, so get rid of it. Try and install efficient fans too. If they start to rattle, replace them! As they are not doing their job properly!
Consider Disabling Fancy XP menus and stuff. Consider changing to classic view in the start bar, as there will be less to load into the memory.
If your account is taking ages to connect, I found out that deleting it and retrieving it greatly decreases waiting times, you will need to apply your personal/video settings again though.
Make sure you have the latest anti virus installed. This is a bit of a stupid point though, everyone knows you need a good anti-virus. I reccomend to get a good one like norton, although avg is very good seeing as its free.
Disable the Performance Checker. Windows checks your PC performance regularly. You can see it in the task manager. This does however slow down in-game performance on most desktop pcs. Here's how you do it:
Step 1: Visit
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000...exctrlst-o.asp and download. It says its for Win 2000 but it works on XP.
Step 2: Once installed Go to C:Program\FilesResource Kit and run Exctrlst.exe. Select each line in the “Extensible performance counters” window and clear the “performance counters enabled” button below. This must be done for each counter. When it’s finished, just exit the utility.
Consider a registry cleaner or optimizer. These are usually downloadable free or on a free trial but they can get rid of all the bad entries in the registry that can cause the computer to slow up. A clean and well functioning registry is the key to any stable and fast computer. Registry Mechanic is particulary good, but nowadays they basically all do the same so it doesn't matter
If you don't have it already, get Mozilla Firefox as it is much better than internet explorer. It is already starting to overtake IE due to its increased speed and easier functions. It's totally free and well worth the download. The security in this browser is top notch, greatly reducing the chances of viruses, worms, spyware and adware being passed from the net. Try it, at least.
there is another BF 2 antilag tip which I think is good.
As most of you know operating systems like windows xp or 2000 run 99999999999 background tasks in the background. For example the spooler system for the printer or speed disk agent from norton systemworks rofl etc. etc., you cant even see some of these programs in an externally installed startup manager (or in windows xp if you type the command "msconfig" in the Start - exec line). The list of running background tasks is really ridiculous.
Even if you deactivate all stuff which you think is not necessary via an external startup manager and remove everything from autostart folder etc. etc., there still remain unbelievable amounts of crap (its really unbelievable ) which still run.
There are 2 ways to get this stuff out:
1.) You can disable services manually via the operating system, but as many of them are interdependent chances are very very high that you completely ruin your operating system by disabling necessary services. The most funny thing is that you can even disable the service that runs the services menu, ROFL, thats really convenient for wrecking your computer. So simply dont do this, if you really want to try this, make a complete copy of your operating system partition first (!), you will surely need it (so you dont have to reinstall everything manually again, which usually takes a complete day, which is an absolute waste of time).
Its much better to use option 2., which is
2.) install the program "End it all" which lists every task which runs in the background and close and kill everything you think you dont need (thats a lot of stuff, at my place I can close or kill 18 useless programs or so).
If you marked everything to be closed or killed in the end it all program (except a few things the operating systems need, which are usually marked bold by End it all or important things like the firewall!) you can select close all and kill all from the menu the next time and end it all kills and closes all the stuff you selected automatically. The simplest thing is to go to kill all right from the start, then it closes all you marked and kills the rest of the stuff you marked.
Again, DONT KILL THE FIREWALL. Without a firewall, an average computer gets infected with viruses / trojans within a timespan of 30 - 60 seconds (thanks to all the scriptkiddies with their port scanners which instantly recognize unprotected computers that are in the internet and infect them with their "remote management" programs so that they can have fun with you ).
The good thing about End it all is that if you restart (or only logout and login, did not try this) your machine, every background crap you never wanted to know about is there again, so everything will work like it did before...so if you want to print something after playing BF2 then and you need the printer spooler service just restart the machine (or logout / login again, did not try this).
I think thats a very good tip and you should add it to your main tip list (this would be 11 tips then), but try it for yourself first. Feedback welcome.
Hm, another small tip...to make sure the battlefield 2 basic files remain unchanged (after all, BF 2 sometimes crashes even if everything is perfectly right, which may harm the BF2 files) you could use special backup software to make a backup of the BF2 folder. Well, I suppose it might also work if you simply copy and paste it, but dont be sure about this because the NTFS filesystem most people have installed has special security features that usually prevent this and if you copy it back it might not work anymore...but thats just an additional idea of me.
Writen By Ben and medicineman