EA to make statement about BF2 server problems

During the first night with the new server files, our Battlefield 2 servers' memory usage managed to climb from 160MB ram to 800MB ram due to memory leaks - per instance. That hurts.

The good news is that EA has been able to reproduce the error - they hadn't seen it previously. However, outside the EA headquarters not a single EA partner has seen a server that runs without memory problems since the patch. It also turns out that Linux servers leak as much memory as the Windows servers do.

EA has now said that it'll make a statement before 12.00 PST/21.00 GMT+1 about what they are going to do about the problems. There are several options:

1) Complete rollback to the previous version 1.0, however all users running version 1.01 are a big issue. EA doesn't know whether the patch can be rolled back. Maybe the game has to be re-installed...

2) Small fix to solve the memory leak problem

However, this is all complicated by the fact that the DICE guys are on their (well-deserved) summer holiday and have to be called back to work. Thus there's a risk of further delays.

The EA partner group are currently also discussing other topics:

1) Password protection for clan servers - something that you can't do anymore in version 1.01. The partner group wants a solution for this and is hoping for an inclusion in the (hopefully) upcoming fix.

2) The minimum number of players needed to start a game on a ranked server has been locked by EA due to problems with rank cheaters. The partner group wants the number lowered.

3) The ticket/ration ratio is now creating lag. This needs to be fixed.

As soon as we EA's statement, we'll of course pass it along to you guys.

To keep things running as smoothly as possible, we are currently restarting our servers automatically every fourth hour. This is taking place automatically, so there won't be any warnings.

While we are working on the servers, we are also updating PunkBuster to the latest version. This should take place later today. If you can't connect/play this means that your PunkBuster is outdated and you have to update it. You can do so by downloading this file, placing it here: \EA GAMES\Battlefield 2\pb and double-clicking on it.

UPDATE: EA has now begun testing a fix. Read the details here.