**INTRODUCTION****
Below are a few solutions and tricks I have learned on playing Battlefield 2 on Crossover Games while utilizing a an Asus G60VX laptop and Fedora 15 x86_64 with Gnome-3 and Crossover Games 10.0.10 while stuck here in Afghanistan. Game was updated with 1.41 and 1.5 patches. While having an above average knowledge of computers, I am primarily a gamer, and a new-comer to Linux, so the problems/and or answers below could be explained and/or fixed through other more technical means, but at this time this is what I know works, and I am too lazy to look up the correct vocab.
Additionally it should be known that I have learned through experience that it is easier to play Battlefield 2 on Crossover Games than it is to play on Windows-7 (seriously, google Battlefield 2 CTD and Windows 7!), and often times will yield better performance on Crossover Games (in terms of load times, frame-per-second, and network latency) than Windows-7 and Windows Vista.
*PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS***
1.) Problem: Game will not start and/or freezes upon start-up.
Solution: Launch game with virtual desktop the same size as your current (mine is 1366x768) with the virtual desktop being activated not under BF2.exe in Wine Config, but general settings. Uncheck hardware support for both types of shaders under general settings, but ensure that BF2.exe has vertex shader support enabled.
Additionally modifying your video.con files found in your "My Documents --> Battlefield 2 folder" by replacing the line which contains "800 600 32 60" to be your desired resolution; mine I changed to "1366 768 32 60", though "1366x768@60Hz" also seems to work.
2.) Problem: Numerous graphical glitches (black hash-mark like glitches on terrain, and black boxes) are observed in game.
Solution: I have found that you must do 2x things to correct this; (1) Turn terrain detail to lowest setting (the rest of the settings can be turned all the way up besides anti-analysising); (2) Utilizing the Nvidia control panel (AMD is untested at this time), force at least 2xAA. I utilize thr maximum 16xAA. The combination of those 2x things should fix the graphical glitches.
3.) Problem: Game does not exit cleanly (game exits with error messages).
Solution: I have noticed that this is somewhat connected to the graphical glitches, if you are forcing +2xAA to fix graphical gltiches, you tend to get the nasty looking and numerous error messages. Luckily the work around is too easy; when you want to exit from the game logout of your players account first to the player account page and then exit, at which point NO error messages regarding renderers will pop-up.
4.) Problem: While attempting to install the game from CD-ROM, the installation program does not recognize when you swap discs.
Solution: First make sure you unmount the drive properly and then swap the disc. If the install still does not recognize the disc, go to the bottle and lauch the WINE config, go to drives and hit refresh and/or rename what the disc that may be present from BF2 CD 01 (or something like that) to BF2 CD 02 or BF2 CD 03. I think that this is a Crossover Games issue as debugging couple of installs yield me a message about /OPT/CROSSOVER something line 56 something or another being depreciated.
5.) Problem: Online play keeps resulting in PunkBuster (PB) kicking me out.
Solution: Either (A) Don't utilize Punk-Buster and play on non-PB servers or (B) a possible solution I have heard of is using a Windows-98 compatibility setting on PB.exe (or the game possibly?), I have not tried it nor do I have any additional information on that possible solution.
6.) Problem: Game indicates that a disc must be inserted for play, and/or an error mesage regarding cd-keys is observed.
Solution: Install the patches 1.41 and 1.5 to remove, through officially sanctioned means, the DRM. The CD-Key error message is a known issue with BF2 on any operating system, and is not a Crossover/WINE issue.
7.) Problem: The game does not start, and/or gives me an error message, even though the above fixes were applied.
Solution: Uninstall the game, delete the bottle, and delete the Battlefield 2 files in your "My Documents" folder. Reinstall using the Cross-Tie and/or CP4 from the Battlefield 2 compatibility page. DO NOT attempt utilize DirectX June 2010 redistributable (as I learned) as it will not fix any graphical gltiches, and result instead with the game not starting.
***TRICK(S)**
1.) Save time and bandwith when using the CP4 / Cross-Tie to install the game, copy and back-up the downloaded patches (1.41 and 1.5) to a safe place, as they are huge (2.0 GB?) and will likely be needed if you plan on "Tweaking" anything....
2.) Don't utilize the EA Games patch downloading software to obtain the game patches, the patches downloaded are a "One-time-Use" varient which will give you headaches if you use them again, more so if you are a Windows user!
3.) Don't use the built in VOIP service, instead utilize the program "Mumble", which will not bring with it the known issues the BF2's intergrated VOIP services have.
****WISHES(Unsolved Problems)****
1.) Problem: "Project Reality: BF2" (http://www.realitymod.com/) does not work on Crossover-Games or WINE, because it requires that the player use "PR.exe" instead of "BF2.exe", and "PR.exe" requires Microsofts .NET framework v3.5 to be installed.
"Possible Solution"(s)(?):
I.) I think the solution to this issue lays with the alternitive to Microsoft's .NET framework, which is known as "MONO" (http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page).
II.) The Project Reality Mod community is huge (kind of like their mod!), and very active in refining Battlefield 2's numerous identified issues, perhaps cross-talk between the developers and the WINE community could allow for quicker development of a fix. III.) Crossover/WINE community develop the means to run Microsofts .NET framework v3.5? (I think it would/will be easier to work the mod development team fixing the problem at the modification level than it would be speeding up what I know must be grueling work for the Crossover/WINE personnel reverse engineering Mircosofts products..)
****RANTS*****
For the sake of keeping this post moderatley on topic I have truncated the rants portion where I ramble on about how Crossover/WINE programming guru's should effectively addopt and fix Battlefield 2 and leave you with a link if you really want to read it....
