I fire up the FH2 launcher, then click on PLAY. The screen goes black for around 30-40 seconds before the SELECT ACCOUNT screen appears. After that, the game runs fine. It always went black before, but only for a few seconds, not 30-40. During the time it's black, there's a couple of faint flickers, as if the  monitor backlight is going on and off, but the screen is basically black the entire time.

This has started happening on all 3 PCs I run the game on, and there doesn't seem to be a logical reason why it suddenly started - other than it SEEMS to have started after a Windows 10 update a number of months ago. Coincidence?

It's not critical - just annoying. I'm on FH2 3.7.606 (according to the launcher), and haven't done any FH2 updates prior to this starting. Any ideas?

UPDATE (5/1/2022)
It appears to be related to ForgottenHope2.exe in the main Battlefield2 folder. When I double-click on it I get the same result - a black screen for 30-40 seconds, then the account selection screen.

Thanks!
RobBob

Trying to load some additional maps, and at one point their instructions say I need version 2.57. Where do you look to see what version you have? The only thing I can find is clicking on "About" in the FH2 launcher, which says version 3.4.666 (which isn't even close), with the installer being 1.24.0.0.

Well, after a year+ hiatus I revisited this and eventually figured it out. Tho it's an old topic, I'm posting the solution here in case someone needs this info in the future.

The difference with this kit was that I had ADDED the rifle to BW_Antitank_Limited.inc, as opposed to replacing the rifle in the other kits (since there was no rifle in that AT kit to replace). Given the Piat seems to be the rifle-equivalent weapon in it's various kits, it's tweak file isn't set up for it be shown as a secondary/alternate weapon. So when I added the new rifle, it's graphic "overrode" the Piat's.

Bottom line, what controls how items are displayed in each kit's selection box is the
ObjectTemplate.weaponHud.weaponIcon Ingame\Weapons\Icons\Hud\xxx.dds (or \xxx.tga)
line in the weapon's tweak file. When an item is the primary weapon (displayed on the left), it looks something like:
ObjectTemplate.weaponHud.weaponIcon Ingame\Weapons\Icons\Hud\PIAT.dds
where PIAT.dds would be the graphic used in the kit selection box.

To make the Piat be the secondary/alternate weapon I changed this line to:
ObjectTemplate.weaponHud.weaponIcon Ingame\Weapons\Icons\Hud\placeholder.tga
That keeps it from being displayed as the primary weapon in the selection box, while the placeholder.tga reserves that spot for the new rifle I'm adding.
Then I added a new line:
ObjectTemplate.weaponHud.specialAbilityIcon Ingame\Weapons\Icons\Hud\Ability\PIAT.dds
which then causes the Piat to be displayed as the secondary weapon.

I also had to copy the PIAT.dds file from
menu_client.zip\HUD\Texture\Ingame\Weapons\Icons\Hud
to the
menu_client.zip\HUD\Texture\Ingame\Weapons\Icons\Hud\Ability folder so the game wouldn't crash trying to find the newly-added PIAT.dds path.

So now it all works, other than the Piat is shown tiny (as apparently all secondary weapons are in the kit selection box). The caveat is that if there are other kits using the Piat as the primary weapon, it'll show up as the secondary with a "blank" spot for the primary - since the above changes now define the Piat as a secondary weapon (i.e. for display purposes). For me that doesn't matter.

A bit long-winded, but hope it helps someone down the road...
RobBob

OK, I seemed to have figured it out. In the weapon's animationsystem1p.inc file, there is a line near the top called:
animationSystem.cameraSpring.amplitude which had values of 0.03/0.02/0.03.

It appears the 1st number controls how much the weapon swings to the side (and how far the iron sights drift out of alignment) when it's moved laterally.
The 2nd number controls how much the weapon swings up or down (and sights drift) when it's moved vertically.
Haven't figured out what the 3rd number does.

I dropped the values to:
animationSystem.cameraSpring.amplitude 0.001/0.001/0.02
and now the iron sights stay almost perfectly aligned when you swing the rifle around. If you know to look you can see them drift just a tiny fraction. I imagine even smaller values will virtually lock it in place, but this is sufficient for me.
I did drop the 3rd number a bit to see if there was any effect, but didn't see any difference. Might have been too small a change to notice anything.

Curiously, the Colt 1911's amplitude numbers are quite a bit higher at 0.1/0.035/0.2, yet its irons sights remain rock steady as you swing it around. Perhaps because it's a smaller/lighter weapon?

So, that's apparently what cameraSpring.amplitude does....

CORRECTION: Didn't word it correctly. I'd like to incorporate the ability to use permanent enemy weapons placements (machine gun nests, etc), and tanks. Is there a tweak/way to accomplish this?

Thanks!
Robbob42

Thanks Jan,
The pattern of events seemed to fit the hypothesis, but guess I'll have to look elsewhere. It's seems to be something that happens in-game, but I can't think of any other game event that would fit what's happening. And why only this map/level. There's gotta be something unique about it. Frustrating.... it's one of our more favorite maps.

I've successfully(?) imported a G3 into the game as part of the US Antitank class. I've run thru a half dozen US levels with no apparent problems. However, Pointe du Hoc crashes to desktop anywhere from 5-15 seconds after spawning in. I'm running in windowed mode and there are no msgs. It's just gone. Doesn't seem to matter what I do or don't do. I've even taken my hands off of everything - just let my player spawn in and just stand there. Seconds later - CRASH.

This is in coop play.

It didn't do this before the G3, but I can't imagine what I would have done to cause this - especially since all the other levels play fine. I've run thru weapons, kits, init.con, tmp.con - who knows what else - until I'm numb. Initially there was one itemIndex conflict that crashed the load 20% into it. But that was resolved early on. There are a couple of grappling-hook-specific pickup kits that aren't in the other levels, but I can't find anything odd about them.

What would cause it to crash AFTER the level starts? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

OK, probably the long way around (sorry, didn't see the Gimp suggestion until too late), but I got a working G3 dds icon:
1. Found a transparent PNG image of a G3A3.
2. Used FastStone Viewer to resize/crop it to 150x46. I suspect IrfanView, etc, would do the same as long as it preserves transparency.
3. Uploaded that to https://pixlr.com/editor (pixlr's online editor). Pixlr preserves transparency. Slid weapon image to the right edge if its transparent "frame", then added "G3 iron sight" label (in white) to lower-left. Saved.
4. Uploaded that to https://online-converting.com/image/convert2dds. This one has options to set 8,8,8,8 argb32 (or "A8R8G8B8 (32 bits)" as they call it), and no mipmaps. Clicked "Convert file".
5. Copied resulting dds to menu_client.zip\HUD\Texture\Ingame\Weapons\Icons\Hud\Selection.

Presto! A working icon with no crashes! I was not able to figure out the exact font used for other FH2 weapon labels, but 11pt regular Bahnshrift SemiBold came pretty close.