I was hoping to write up a nice post full of fixes for Battlefield 2142 for Mac but I don’t really have time so, I think I will tackle the different problems as I have time.

First up, PunkBuster! If there is an application for OS X I really hate, it’s this one. This application has been the biggest problem in getting Battlefield 2142 to work properly on my iMac. Now, I really think EA is the one to blame for these problems but most people know, I think EA failed spectacularly with this game for Mac. It is what it is though. Anyway…

If you’re having problems updating PunkBuster for Battlefield 2142 on Mac, then doing the manual update with PunkBuster is probably updating the files in the wrong location. Navigate to your Applications folder (Apple + Shift + A while in Finder). Right click on Battlefield 2142.app and select “Show Package Contents”.

See the folder in there called “pb” ? When you download and run PunkBuster to manually update Battlefield, PunkBuster creates a folder in your Applications directory called “pb”. It’s in the wrong place!

Visit the Battlefield 2142 update page for PunkBuster and download pbsec.htm and your client update file (I download the first two). Copy pbsec.htm into your “pb” folder. Then copy the client update file into the “htm” folder within the “pb” folder.

And there you go! PunkBuster is updated and you should be able to play without getting kicked out of every server. If you are having other problems, feel free to comment to this post and I might be able to help out. Enjoy!