Battlefield 2: Artifacts and Random Restart Problems

[Diomedes1]

Hi,

Just got BF2 today and i've been getting really, realllly bad artifacts whilst playing the game. I run an ATI 9600XT with latest drivers. I know that the game is apparently 'optimized' for Nvidia but surely that doesnt mean ATI owners just have to put up with gameplay that sucks. Anyone know the reasons behind this artifact problem?

Secondly, After playing for varying amounts of time, my pc will restart randomly, and will display no error message or anything of the sort. This happens only whilst playing BF. I have a hunch that this may me my GFX bitching at the game because i had the same problem with another game, but updating drivers sorted that out. I dunno if anyone knows of ATI drivers that work best for BF2

Finally, is it just be or are the recomended and even minimum settings for the game incredibly high? I mean, HL2 Grapics are much better, yet need no way near as much power.

It seems to me that alot of people have been having problems with this game, and i have looked at other related posts before starting a new thread. Why doesnt EA just delay the game a bit instead of releasing a version that sucks ***.

Essential system specs if needed

2.6 p4
1 gig ram
9600XT


Thanks

 

[RiskAssessment]

Hey mate, I've had BF2 for about a month now with no hiccups - however, in the last few days my machine had started suffering exactly the same symptoms. I get big black artifacts in the middle of the screen, and several times my machine has just arbitrarily turned itself off - with nothing reported to the system log. I have my theories that it might be the drivers, cos I updated my cats recently - although the problems did not occur immediately.
For comparison's sake, my rig is:

Athlon 64 3500+
1 GB RAM
9800 Pro

And yes, the amount of memory the game requires is almost farcical.