For +200 player server you will need Intel i7 +5GHz processor to run it, and that fast processor has not even made yet. Only with overclocking you could make it but overclocked server isnt so good idea.
BF2 server is really cpu hungry code, dont even dream to run 128 server without modern +3GHz Intel Xeon processor with 12M cache.
and as reference, 64 player server runs fine with old P4 server.
so why it needs so much cpu? there is not any kind of optimization after 64 players.
there is double amount of bullets flying, player positions, chat and voip etc etc.
server has to handle every players actions at same time.
let say everyone has 50ms ping and they all are shooting one round, server need to process every single bullet in few millisecond and if they shoot two rounds, do that all again..
if server cant handle to do it for EVERYONE at the same time, someone can feel it as lag.
its not so simple for code which has not meant to do it. and fact that bf2 is very ugly code isnt helping any.
If it would worked without problems, why wouldnt EA/DICE do it then?
I think they wont make it to BF3 either as they know it will need so much from server and still isnt "stable".
