Running a BFX server?

[JackTHorn]

I'm not sure if this is the best place for this topic -- I figured it wasn't a bad place for it, at least!

So my group of friends that get together to play BF2 are interested in putting BFX on the server. I saw a server that was running it a week or two ago, so I know it can be done; I messaged the people playing in the server a few times, but they were all kids who had found it just like I had, and didn't know anything about how to install it on the server. I've googled it pretty extensively, but found nothing at all. I tried messaging ARC_Commander, but he hasn't logged in since March. So I thought I'd ask here.

We're running a dedicated server, using BBO's Server Manager 1.1 at the moment. We've got about 40 mod maps running in the AddOn folder but can remove some if need be.

I figure it's probably pretty straightforward, since the BFX install is generally so simple. I figure if nothing else I can back up the data folder and then just try running the .exe from the AddOn folder, and if it messes things up then I should be able to just pop the backup back in and we're good. But I was hoping I could get actual directions from someone who's done it before, to avoid any complications I may not know about.

Thanks in advance for any comments or help!

[YTGTangerine]

Are you trying to run a ded or non-ded server? (I'm assuming a ded) Because I've been able to run a non-ded server just fine.

[JackTHorn]

We're running a dedicated server, using BBO's Server Manager 1.1 at the moment. We've got about 40 mod maps running in the AddOn folder but can remove some if need be.

=)

[myers73]

I believe what you need to do is just copy the BFX folder, or whatever it is, from your games addon to the servers addon. that should have all of the files that you need, it it installs .lvl files else whre in the game you will need them in corrosponding places for the server.

The most important part is the sound.lvls, they all have to go. browse throught the BFX folder and delete all the sound files and folders, these will crash the map.

[JackTHorn]

Thanks for the effort at helping!

It took a little wrangling, but I got it. For the future reference of others, here's how I did it:

First I tried just moving the BFX folder into the dedicated server's AddOn folder (which is of course in LucasArts/Star Wars Battlefront II PC Server), but that didn't work. It showed the BFX maps in the maplist, but when I joined the server game and it started loading, it crashed almost immediately. Sort of what I'd thought, since I was pretty sure there were a number of files that BFX installs into the data folder.

So I copied the BFX .exe file into the AddOn folder, and ran it. After various Okays and Agreements this led to a prompt where, to my pleased surprise, the BFX executable seemed to detect that I was trying to install to the Server version and automatically guessed that I wanted to install to LucasArts/Star Wars Battlefront II PC Server/data, which is different than the location it needs to install to on the regular game version. I'm sure this would have worked just fine, except for a little problem that came up entirely my own fault (I had forgotten to remove the old copied BFX from the AddOn folder, so when it tried to install a new BFX folder it messed up and nothing got installed after all)...

...which led to me doing it the hard way just to be sure. I deleted the old BFX folder from AddOn, and ran the install again. This time, however, it didn't seem able to guess the correct install location, because before I knew it I had installed it into some new GameData folder in the PC server's Data folder. But it turned out that all I had to do was take the files in the misplaced install and move them into the correct places in the PC server's data folder -- I think I moved a folder called FPM from the misplaced gamedata/_LVL_PC to the data/_LVL_PC folder on the server, and moved all the files in the misplaced gamedata/_LVL_PC/SIDE to the data/_LVL_PC/SIDE folder on the server (I think it was just a folder called BFX and maybe some .lvl files).

Anyway, it was all actually pretty easy, and would have been easier if I'd paid attention to details. One of the great things about BFX, that it installs relatively easily.

And now the server works, and is up and running with BFX and various mod maps. Actually, right now we're waiting for everyone to get BFX installed (a couple of people are having problems getting the 1.3 patch installed on Vista machines), so we mostly have it just running our various mod maps most of the time. But if anyone's interested, shoot me a PM and I can set it to run BFX maps.

Thanks again for the input!