I still think something is up with BF2. If I set it to Hardware sound (I have a soundcard on the motherboard) I get weird noises like a crane operating continuously.
Also, I've played around with the settings quite a bit and the best I can get is medium. I have a decent system:
ASUS A79NX-E Deluxe
1G PC3200 RAM
AMD 3200+
XFX 128M GeForce 6600GT
520W Power Supply.
not exactly wimpy, but if I set anything higher than medium the game "lags" in single player (still haven't tried multiplayer." Can't believe this is normal.