(Archive) How to fix BF2042 Not Starting on the very first launch without turning off Control Flow Guard, and other quick fixes.

A short list of ways to improve the game experience from a technical side of things, based on my own experience.

1. How to make the game launch the first time, every time.

1. Ensure that Controlled Folder Access under Windows Security, Virus & Threat Protection, Ransomware Protection is either turned Off, or that the game and EA AntiCheat are whitelisted from the Block History here. Also, that OneDrive is not synchronizing the Documents folder under its Choose Folders section.

2. Make sure you allowed the game's main components through the Windows Defender Firewall if prompted. If it did not prompt them, the following could necessitate adding them:

• BF2042.exe. (Install directory.)
  
• BF2042Trial.exe. (Install Directory.)
  
• EAAnticheat.GameServiceLauncher.exe. (Also in the game's install directory.)
  
• Both .exes under C:/Program Files/EA/AC/.
  
• The EA App in general.

3. Okay, now for the real breakthrough fix I had found:

• Right-click on the WI-Fi or Ethernet icon in the Taskbar, or open the Settings app in Windows.
  
• Open Network & Internet settings.
  
• Open Change Adapter Options. This should open a Control Panel dialogue for them.
  
• Right-click on your network adapters, both used and not. Click Properties.
  
• The most important step: Turn off Reliable Multicast Protocol. Click OK.

4. Unfortunately, the above third step is not the correct fix, as was found out in later testing for consistency. The real fix step has to do with Login Tokens.

Apparently, for some reason, if the EA App is not signed into with the checkbox to Keep Me Signed In checked, even when it is not running, there is a chance that it will fail to load the EA Account login token due to it being too old and stale. Yet, it will still try to use the stale credentials in-game without prompting you to sign in again through the engine.

To get around this, one must ensure that at least the EA App is perpetually signed into with a Keep Me Signed In login token. To do this, manually sign in and opt into this through either:
4a. The Standalone, Full EA App installation, separate from the game.
OR
4b. The Miniature EA App installation that is included with the game, located in Steam/steamapps/common/Battlefield 2042/_Installer/Origin/redist/internal , or wherever the minimized EA App the game client uses is located. WIll have to check and confirm later.

In both cases 4a and 4b, make sure to Keep Yourself Signed In when prompted by the checkbox. The game seems to assume that you will, as a convenience over security and inconvenience on launch thing.

Sorry, neither of those were the correct fix in later testing.

A better solution seems to have been found in the form of Adding C:/Program Files/Electronic Arts/EA Desktop/EADesktop/EACEFSubProcess.exe to Allow an App through Windows Defender Firewall.

This has, so far, enabled consistent launching and profile info fetching.

I learned this due to discovering that BF2042.exe and EA Desktop's CEFSubProcess.exe are both recognized as Battlefield 2042 in the AMD Radeon Settings Recently Played Games section. This implies that both are being executed and running in sequence.

Sorry, the above was also not it, too. Ignore the Spoilered text. Try this instead.

1. Start Menu. Open the Settings app for Windows Settings.
2. In Settings, go to Display.
3. In Display settings, set scaling to 100% if you like, but more importantly, click on Advanced Scaling Settings under Scale and Layout.
4. MOST IMPORTANT: Turn off the Fix Scaling for Apps setting, also labeled as Let Windows try to Fix Apps so They're Not Blurry. This setting, when disabled, finally, at long last, seems to have solved it for me. Consistently as of initial testing.
5. You should be done. Try it today.
—
You are done with Section 1. See if the subsection that is not subjected to strikethroughs helps with finally being able to launch the game, and no longer being infinitely stuck in the seasonal Startup Loading screen due to the game being unable to connect and fetch all Web content it expects to on startup.

2. Why does the In-Game Store not work?

This is because of two things.

1. The Steam Overlay must be enabled.
2. The most important part: The EA App's In-Game Overlay must also be enabled.

Why is needing both overlays enabled to make the in-game store work the case?

When you select the in-game purchasing option, the game will first call the EA App Overlay. The EA App Overlay will then be used to call the Steam Overlay to open the In-Game Purchase Confirmation window in the Web Browser.

Now go get the Ultimate Shortcut Bundle to save yourself time and stress in grinding this game, by replacing the stress and shame of potential time cost with the stress and shame of monetary cost. Ideally, when the Ultimate Shortcut Bundle is on a promotional sale.

3. What if I Hate Mouse Acceleration —Who Does Not Hate it?—but Do Not Want to Use Raw Input In-Game?

Well, there is a way to turn off mouse acceleration for EVERY game by default, assuming it is not also enabled in their settings, too.

1. Open the Settings App in Windows. Can be found in the Start Menu.
2. Search for Control Panel in its search box.
3. Click on View By in the Control Panel Window, and click either Large Icons or Small Icons. Either will do, so long as it is one of the Icons sorting options. This makes finding things here easier.
4. Click on Mouse.
5. Click on the Pointer Options tab.
6. Uncheck Enhance Pointer Precision, and Apply. Click OK.

You have now globally disabled mouse acceleration by default in the Windows OS, which is the thing that Raw Input in games and other software try to bypass, among other aspects of Windows's mouse handling within the OS. In-Game Mouse Acceleration will still be felt if it is turned on, but at least the OS is not compounding on it, and it is just limited to the software now.

Now Raw Input can be turned off without causing too much issue. Ideally.

4. AMD Global Graphics settings, or how to stop them from needlessly interfering with your games.

1. If you have an AMD Radeon GPU, Open AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition.
2. From its Home screen, Click on Gaming.
3. UNder Gaming, Click on Graphics.
4. NEVER EVER EVER have Anti-Lag+ on, obviously. The regular Anti-Lag is fine, but not the Anti-Lag+ extension of it. Its handling of the rendering pipeline is considered .DLL injection in the blind, and in a way that most anti-cheats do not consider permissible. It should have been disabled by default as of now, but this is being included to account for certain driver versions.
5. Also, Vertical Refresh must be set to an Unless application specifies setting. Off is the default here. Never set it to Always On or Off.

6. Okay, moving on. Under the Advanced drop-down section here. Anti-Aliasing here must be set to Use Application Settings. Also have the Tessellation Settings set to only Use Application Settings as well.

7. Lastly, and this is another important one, Always Turn Off Surface Format Optimization. Its name is a misnomer. What is does is forcibly convert any FP16 shader (Think R16G16B16A16F material shaders, if you remember those from the Source 1 engine) into a format that is easier to render, but has less information in it; that being R11G11B10 shaders. As FP16 shaders are very commonplace and almost a given in usage these days, all this does is screw with most newer games' shader pipelines in ways that they do not expect, and as such, destabilizes them a little. So toggle this slider Off at all times, for each and every time.

8. Now click on Reset Shader Cache, Perform Reset. That may cover it for most games, but...
9. To make Battlefield 2042's Shader Cache rebuild, Open the File Explorer. Go to Documents/Battlefield 2042/cache. Ctrl+A, Delete. Relaunch the game and play through a few maps to rebuild it.

You are done with this section.

5. Why do the Keybinds just have to be shared? Why Can't I Clear them Completely?

When selecting a new key to bind to an existing bind, the Escape key must be held for at least three seconds minimum. Only then will the selected keybind be fully cleared.

Communication and the Chat Feed.

How to enable it:
1. In-Game Options, Display, HUD General.
2. Scroll down to the Chat subsection.
3. Set the Chat Visibility to Show or When Active. Hitting the H key by default will also toggle this in-match, so clear the bind if you like, or be careful.
4. Set Enable All Chat to On. Apply.

How to fix audio cutting out if the Steam Overlay was active on map load.

1. Exit the Steam Overlay.
2. Hit Escape to toggle the pause menu, and hit it again to get back in.

Conclusion.

That should cover most up-front things for how to make Battlefield 2042 and more a kind of seamless experience, or as much of one as this game can be considering what it is and how it has been handled developmentally. If you have any further questions or concerns, feel free to leave replies about it below.

Whether I can replicate what problems you may be experiencing is uncertain, and not guaranteed, however. I may not or will not have the time for that. Keep that in mind.

Until another time.
—TS2.

[TS2]

Finally found a better solution for Step 1. The guide has been updated to add it and clean up the prior attempts to solve it, while still preserving the prior guide history.

[TS2]

This guide has been reinstated and made Public again after a recent discovery. Hopefully it is replicable.

[TS2]

The guide has been edited a third time to clarify that turning off Reliable Multicast Protocol is also not the correct solution. Section 1 has also been updated to have a better solution, which is making sure that Battlefield 2042 has a perpetual EA Account Login token to keep you signed in when it checks for account credentials.

[TS2]

The guide was edited again. Bridge Drivers are required for bridging between Ethernet (Wired) and Wi-Fi network connections, and so must be kept enabled for seamlessness.

Now Turning off reliable Multicast Protocol is preferred and the desired fix once again.

[TS2]

This guide has since been edited to clarify that turning off Reliable Multicast Protocol for your Network Adapters is NOT the only fix.

Disabling the Bridge Driver on your Network Adapters if network bridging is not actively set up and being used is also a fix for the game failing to phone home correctly, and is now the preferred solution. Turning off Reliable Multicast Protocol in the Network Adapters is a secondary solution now.