Psykogundam wrote:theres the overall BF2 directory, and within it is the mods folder. The mods folder houses variations of BF2. for instance the vanilla BF2 is also a mod within that folder named "BF2". any mods installed go to that folder, such as POE, FH2, AIX and so on.
in short no. but i thought it would benifit you if you knew how it worked.
This man has it mostly right. This is a more detailed explanation of how it works.
There are three parts to Battlefield 2
1.
The engine
This is what makes the game run. This takes game models, such as houses, fences, players, trees, etc. and puts it all together. It handles shadows, game physics, it knows the difference between a vehicle and infantry. It is like the manufacturer, who takes parts given to them and makes it a car.
2.
Mods
Mods contain the actual parts that make up the game. This is where the models are for the houses, fences, players, trees, etc. This has all of the properties for the models/objects (For an M16: Rate of fire, type of bullet, power of bullet, bullet flight path, speed of bullet, etc.), it has all of the game logic (Such as game modes, like conquest, capture the flag, deathmatch, etc.). BF2 is a mod. When you install Battlefield 2, it installs the engine and the mod "bf2." Vanilla BF2 = the bf2 mod. PR is also a mod, more on this.
3.
Configuration stuff.
Simple stuff like auto-reload, graphics settings, audio settings, keyboard controls, crossheir color, etc.
If you were to look at Battlefield 2's file structure, you would see something along the lines of this:
C:\Program Files\EA Games\Battlefield 2\ ...
Of course, the folder names are going to be different. I know the true "configuration" files are in /Documents and Settings/User/Battlefiled 2/Profiles/..., and the BF2 engine won't be called literally "bf2engine.dll," but I think I got the point across.
If someone who plays a lot of mods opens the mods folder (C:\Program Files\EA Games\Battlefield 2\mods\....) They might see this:
These are all of the different mods that the person has (In order: Battlefield 2, Point of Existance, Allied Intent Extended, Sandbox mod by the Sir Community, Project Reality). They got bf2 when they installed BF2, then they downloaded mods, such as PR or Allied Intent Extended, and installed them. All the installer did was add this folder, it didn't touch the bf2 folder at all.
Now, PR is a little bit different than these other mods. PR's installer, while it doesn't touch the bf2 mod folder, it does change some configuration settings. Auto-reload and crossheir color will be a bit different as people has said differently. This is PR changing settings so that PR is played the way that it is supposed to be played.
None of these settings are permanent, you can easily change them back when you want to play bf2 (vanilla).
I hope that was easy for you to understand.