Star Wars Battlefront Tweak Guide

[Page 8] Neat Stuff & Conclusion



This section concludes this Star Wars Battlefront Tweak Guide with some handy tips.


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Votekicking and Switching Teams in Star Wars Battlefront


I don't usually cover game tactics or basic gameplay functions in my guides, but since these are not prominently mentioned in the manual and have caused some confusion, I'll briefly cover them here.


Votekicking: To begin a vote to kick someone off an online server press ESC to bring up the in-game options screen, then select Player List. From there you can highlight the name of the player, and select the 'Vote to Boot' option at the bottom of the screen to start a vote or confirm a vote.


Switching Teams: To switch teams, click on the red 3D wheel icon at the top center of the spawn menu - that is, there are two spinning wheel icons, a large green one for your team and a smaller red one for the opposing team. Simply click the opposing teams icon and you will be switched to that team.


Speed Up Starting Time


Star Wars Battlefront has several introductory scenes showing the various manufacturer logos associated with developing the game. These can be quite annoying to click through each time you start the game, however as of the 1.1 patch (See Patches Maps & Mods section) you can now use the /nointro command line option to skip these logos, speeding up loading time. See the Advanced Tweaking section for more details of how to use this switch. You can also speed up loading times by disabling the menu background movies by using the /nomovies command and disable the menu background music by using the /nostartupmusic command (See Advanced Tweaking section above).


Taking Screenshots & Measuring Framerate


To take a screenshot in Star Wars Battlefront you can press the key assigned to this function in the Controls section (See In-Game Settings above). Typically this is the P key. Each screenshot will be stored in your \Program Files\LucasArts\Star Wars Battlefront\GameData\ScreenShots\ directory as a .tga file. You can view such files using Adobe Photoshop or IrfanView. However, if you want to take the screenshot in a different format, you can use one of the following utilities:


  • Fraps: This free utility can take as many screenshots as you like during gameplay, and stores them in high-quality .bmp format in the directory of your choice.
  • Hypersnap DX: This utility will meet any and all of your screenshot needs for any game, but requires paid registration to enable full functionality.


    • I personally recommend and use Fraps as it does the job well. In particular, if you also want to measure your frames per second in SWB, given there is no console, you can also use the versatile and ever-reliable Fraps for this function. It is very accurate and does not degrade performance in any way while being used. Finally, it also has a demo recording function should you wish to capture any of the in-game action while playing Star Wars Battlefront.


    Conclusion


    Well that brings this brief but hopefully handy guide to a close. I realize this guide does not meet the usual standards of a TweakGuides.com tweak guide in terms of loads of advanced tweaks and console commands, but that is really out of my control. Star Wars Battlefront simply doesn't have much tweakability given its console heritage, and unless Lucasarts release a patch which enables this functionality, or some enterprising young coder finds a way to access the advanced features through an unofficial patch, there's not much more I can provide for you to tweak. As it is, I genuinely hope at least the guide provided you with the basic descriptions you need to make sure your game is as optimized as possible, and has also given you the references necessary to troubleshoot any problems you may have.


    I would love to hear from you if you have any comments or suggestions (or additional tweaks) on the guide, so please Email Me and let me know what you think. Please keep in mind that I can't provide personal tech support or tweaking advice.


    Links and Credits


    The following are a list of places I used to research this guide, and would also provide good reading material for fans of this game:


    Star Wars Battlefront Official Site

    Lucasarts Official Support Site

    LucasForums Star Wars Battlefront Forums

    FileShack SWB Section


    Check back on this guide regularly as I will keep it up to date with all the known tweaks and performance tips, especially as new patches are released and as thoughtful readers contribute to the guide.



    Until next time, take care!