I really like the idea of having 128 People on a server, but after playing today for a good hour on this test server, I find myself still disappointed by BF2's ability to handle such a heavy load on a server.
It all started becoming less of a red letter day for me, when I was watching the server browser. Typically with a German based server, I can expect the server (for me) to display an average server ping of between 180 - 200. However with this server, the average ping was at least 30 ms higher, between 210 - 240 ms, which was an immediate realization that said the server is being heavily stressed, so much so that it is actually effecting the servers ability to relay information.
Upon entering the server, I was initially happy to see that all 128 players were on the map, that vehicles were moving around, and that squads, and VOIP had been for the most part fixed to a working state. However, even with an average ping of 160 (which I would not find surprising on a over seas server) there were moments of intense latency lag, which I know was not caused by my over the top ping on this European server.
I would estimate, that approximately every five, to ten minutes of gameplay saw at least 1, or 2 server slow downs, universally for all players, not just me. To reaffirm the notion that the server was slowing down as a result of the higher player count, I only had to observe for a few minutes. Problems would not really arise until players were confined to a single area. Id say that despite the 4km size of the maps being played, that most, if not all of the server was in an area of 1km or less. It was at moments like these, when firefights started erupting, and large groups of each team would converge on a single flag, or valley, or area, that the server would experience slow down, no doubt caused by the increased number of players.
Although servers try to keep information as basic as possible to allow for today's modern online internet games, when the server has to send out those same packets of information to twice the number of people, it cannot keep up. Certainly a faster dedicated box would be able to handle the strain better, but I don't think that a powerful dedicated box could still keep up with the traffic demands on the game.
All in all I love the idea, and would like to see how it pans out in the future. But as of the moment, im not truly impressed by its performance.