Battlefield 2: The Video Card Controversy

As a PC Gamer you expect to upgrade, you expect that at some point your hardware will not run the latest games acceptably. Battlefield 2 does not even give you that option. It attempts to make all non DirectX 9 compatible video cards obsolete. Which means all GeForce 4 and older video cards will not run Battlefield 2. You cannot even start up the menu. Neither Electronic Arts nor the game's developer DICE have any plans to fix this. Even though the GeForce 4 line of video cards has enough horsepower to render the game it is not compatible with Pixel Shader 1.4. Emulation to Pixel Shader 1.3 would easily make the game playable on these cards but redundant texture checks make this difficult to implement.

The response from Electronic Arts on the Issue was:

"We've been talking to Benjamin Smith on the development team about this. There are no plans to implement GeForce 4 support in a patch. The engine was not built to run acceptably (performance or appearance-wise) on the GeForce 4 series of cards."

Then why does it run on slower cards such as the ATi Radeon 8500? The performance of this card is no better then the GeForce 4 line except for the inclusion of Pixel Shader 1.4 support.

Pixel Shader (Defined) - a program used to determine the final surface properties of an object or image that run on a graphics card, executed once for every pixel in a specified 3D mesh. They operate in the context of interactively rendering a 3D scene, usually using either the Direct3D or OpenGL API.

DirectX 8.1 or DirectX 9?
All GeForce 4 cards are DirectX 8.0 compatible and support up to Pixel Shader 1.3. Dice claims only DirectX 9 support but clearly shows support for a DirectX 8.1 video card, the ATi Radeon 8500. The major difference between DirectX 8.1 and 8.0 is Pixel Shader 1.4 support. When ATi introduced Pixel Shader 1.4 back in 2003, nVidia argued against it and failed to add it to the GeForce 4 line. Yet, here they did nothing to argue for support of video cards still capable of running the game? Even more insulting is the nVidia seal of approval on the box: "The Way It's Meant To Be Played" - I'm sure this is reassuring to all the nVidia GeForce 4 card owners who cannot play Battlefield 2.

Pixel Shader 1.3 vs. 1.4
The main difference is that Pixel Shader 1.4 lets graphics chips render up to six textures in a single pass instead of four. This is a performance difference. When Pixel Shader 1.4 is used, the ATi Radeon 8500 would take only one pass to render, as opposed to 2-3 on the GeForce 3/4 graphics chips. The performance argument is lost because in real world situations the GeForce 4 line easily beat out the Radeon 8500. Proving that (performance wise) the GeForce 4 line would be more then capable to run this game.

Other Games
Doom 3 supports at least a 64MB GeForce 3 and Half-Life 2 supports at least a 64MB GeForce 2. These are graphically superior to Battlefield 2 yet support older hardware. These are forward thinking developers who understand PC Gamers and the upgrade cycle. Valve's Half-Life 2 survey clearly shows over 20% of PC Gamers would not be able to run Battlefield 2. Where are the similar statistics from Electronic Arts or DICE?

PC Gamers expect older cards to run slower and at lower detail levels with newer titles. They clearly understand newer video cards will make games look and run better. But this is not the point. When games support older but capable hardware it gives the PC Gamer an incentive to upgrade because they can see the difference with their own eyes. That decision however should be up to the game buyer to make; it should not be forced upon them by the developer. No matter how innocent the developers intentions turn out to be, this comes off as a way to try and sell more video cards for nVidia.

Hacking
If you can't count on the game developers, you can count on the community. Some faithful programmers have created a work in progress shader modification that gets the older cards to work. Download it and give it a try but remember this is far from finished and currently looks poor because all the shaders have not been converted yet. But it does give owners of "obsolete" video cards some hope.

Yahoo, Apple and Google are Abusing your Trust

The idea of bundling software has been around for quite some time. For years AOL links and icons were bundled with just about everything. Here though it was merely icons and links attached to more frivolous applications. The recent trend with Malware force installing itself is much worse. This happening hidden from view, during a regular application's install has angered just about everyone who discovered it. But now companies are targeting the basic applications that make your computer work. They are abusing the trust built up with the fact that you are not likely to pay attention when installing basic applications from reputable companies.

Trust (Defined) -Firm reliance on the integrity, ability, or character of a person or thing.

If someone like myself can accidentally install something bundled with an application that I have been using for years, then you can definitely bet on the average user doing it. What is worse is that they may actually think they need it. This can create a social engineering problem. "Old habits Die Hard" they always say. Here companies like Yahoo, Apple and Google create them by bundling their applications with Macromedia Flash, Apple QuickTime, WinZip, Realplayer and Adobe Reader. Sure some of these applications have an opt-out option not to install the unwanted parasite but that is not the point. I simply don't want to worry about this.

The average user is not only plagued by the Spyware epidemic but is now becoming a pawn for all the "legal" companies. They are getting hit from both ends and the sad part is they don't even know it. You expect this sort of thing from the Malware writers. People might even say you expect this from Microsoft. But Yahoo, Apple and especially Google? What happened to the White Knights?

Maintaining Trust:
If you want to maintain the trust that you may have worked so long to build up then you need to follow some simple rules:

1. Bundled Software should NEVER be default installed. Instead it should be an option to select.
2. Bundled Software should easily be uninstallable separately from the host application.

Only the Beginning:
From Toolbars to iTunes customer's Harddrives look to become the dumping ground for many more unwanted applications. I mean why stop with Toolbars or a Desktop search application, especially when you can hide behind an opt-out notice? How long before programs of significant size and CPU cycles start winding up on your harddrive? The kicker being they were all installed "legally", only this time it is YOUR fault for not paying attention.

QuickTime infects PCs with iTunes

Apple apparently is attempting to remove any shred of good faith it had with its customers. For sometime now Apple has chosen to force end users who wish to install their QuickTime Media Player to also install the iTunes software. As if the only MP3 player in existence is the iPod and every PC owner has one, shame on you Apple.

Visiting the default QuickTime Download Site greets you with only two options:

1. QuickTime 6.5 with iTunes for Win 2000/XP
2. QuickTime 6.5 for Win 98/ME

No big deal right? You figure during installation you will have a choice to NOT install iTunes, wrong. Fine you can't do that, how about using Add/Remove and removing iTunes by itself? Wrong again, Add/Remove only lists one application for removal, QuickTime. The problem doesn't really start to sink in until you try uninstalling QuickTime as a last resort…

…after you're done with your expletives and putting your fist through your keyboard you will see QuickTime has been removed but iTunes still exists. At this point you realized Apple has officially wasted your time and I will not waste any more of yours.

Solution:
You need to download and install the iTunes Software and then uninstall it. iTunes and the crap iTunes Service it installs with it, will be effectively purged from your system. The problem is you still don't have QuickTime installed!

Not a problem, simply get the Standalone QuickTime Player. (Conveniently not obvious on the default download page)

Alternatives:
Yes you can use an alternative, in this case the QuickTime Alternative. But, in my opinion, there is not substitute for the real thing. For the most part QuickTime works and does what it is supposed to do with a clean, easy to use interface.

Closing Tip:
Killing Qttask.exe: QuickTime by default installs the Qttask.exe startup application that is effectively useless. Removing it from starting up with Windows by using Msconfig will only last until the next time you use the QuickTime Player. It will then magically reinstall itself. You can stop this from happening permanently by renaming qttask.exe in the C:\Program Files\QuickTime\ folder to qttask.old

The only logical motive for Apple to force install iTunes is with the hope people will use the service to purchase music. By not providing a simple means to remove the software however, Apple has moved their reputation from reputable to dirty, shame on you Apple.