ok, for many of you this is common sense, but for others (like me) it was not. I assumed that because I have a good, mid-range computer -which ran BF2 fine to begin with- that it should be able to cope just fine running the game while AV and firewall progs run in the background. For awhile it did just that, but lately the game started to really lag out, until some maps (like Iron Gator, for example) dropped to an unplayable level (8-10 fps inside the carrier, for example). Anyway, after complaining about this, I got the following advice, which put anywhere between 10-30 fps back on every map, making then quite playable again:

Seeker wrote:

start -> run -> type "msconfig"

go to the last tab -> "startup"

tick "disable all" (even your virus programs that you worship, yet dont do anything excelpt hog SYSTEM RESOURCES). The hit apply, exit and dont restart.

right click your hard drive in my computer -> "Properties"

untick the box at the bottom of the properties "Allow indexing service bla bla bla"

restart and tell us if your benchmarks get a noticeable gain.

Seeker wrote:

heres something a little more advanced -

go to the tab to the left of that - 'services'

tick the box 'hide all microsoft services'

untick what you dont need running (i always untick it all, who needs antivirus these days, gahahha)

feels like a fresh format
so, the game is fully playable again - i obviously have something that is completely hogging the system resources running in my config, and the question is now to narrow down what is causing the problem and replace it with something that does the same job without making games laaaaaag like crazy.

Or, alternatively, just restart the system with the steps above when you want to play a game that lags otherewise, and boot normally for general usage.

Just thought I'd share this in case it helps any of you.

Flame away for my noobocity.