Hints and tips

[Skuzzy]

Updated: August 11, 2009

Topics covered in this thread include:

General CPU Utilization
File sharing programs/utilities
Sound Problems
Interrupts (INT) and your computer
Securing Internet Explorer 6/7
About AGP Aperature Size
Anti-virus programs
Firewalls and Personal routers
Host queue and variance in Aces High
Screen Stutters and Pauses
Multiple Vista Issues
Need email support?
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GENERAL CPU UTILIZATION

Windows 2000/XP/Vista/Windows 7, by default, has several processes, which run in background, that can cause odd problems with online gaming as well as security issues.
For Windows 2000 and XP users:
Go to your Control Panel and double-click the "Administrative Tools" ICON.  Then double-click the "Services" ICON.
This will show you a list of processes Windows will run or start at boot time.  Some will show as "Running".  To alter the state of any of the listed processes, simply right-click on it, and select "Properties" from the pop-up menu.
The processes you can safely "Disable" are as follows:

Automatic Updates (this is one nasty program)
Background Intelligent Transfer Service
Fax Service (NOTE: unless you are using your computer to send/receive FAXES)
Internet Connection Sharing (NOTE: unless you use your computer so that other computers access the Internet through it)
NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing
Messenger
Print Spooler (unless you have a printer connected)
Remote Registry Service
Routing and Remote Access (unless your computer is also acting as a router for the LAN)
Smart Card
Smart Card Helper
Task Scheduler (unless you have your computer automatically run programs for you...not recommended to leave enabled)
Telephony (NOTE:  XP and Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 or later users may not be able to disable this without it disabling your Internet connection)
Telnet (unless you want to be able to telnet to your computer from a remote location......not recommended to leave enabled)
Uninterruptible Power Supply (unless you have a Windows compliant UPS system)

All others are at your discretion, but take care.  Windows will allow you to shut off services that can keep your computer from booting.  The ones you must not touch have RPC in the name.

A well tuned Windows 2000/XP system should only have about 19 to 21 background processes running, as reported in the Windows Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del, under the "Processes" tab)

Vista/Windows 7 users will have a bit more difficult time of it.  However, there are two processes/services which cause the most headaches.  SpeedFetch and ReadyBoost.  Disbaling those two services will help in a lot of different ways. 


FILE SHARING PROGRAMS/UTILITIES

If you run any file sharing program, you might as well get use to the fact that you will never have a decent connection to the servers.
Turning off those programs after they have been running for any period of time at all does not stop the users on the Internet from pounding on your connection.
This will cause lost packets, switches from UDP to TCP, and just generally lousy connections to the servers.
My testing shows, that after the program has been running longer than 3 hours, it takes over 24 hours for your Internet connection to return to normal.   When you have a dynamic IP address (as most users do), you can also inherit an IP address from a user who had been running one of these programs and also inherit the flooded connection, even if you have never run one of these programs.


SOUND PROBLEMS

NOTE:  The current version of Aces High, requires DirectX 9.0, or later.

VISTA/Windows 7 NOTE:  If your computer is running Vista/Windows 7, and you are running with the standard Vista/Windows 7 desktop, you will need to right-click on the "Start" button and then switch the "Start" menu to "Classic" view in order to have access to the "Run" dialog box.  Also note, due to Microsoft dropping support for DirectSound from Vista/Windows 7, there is no hardware acceleration slider for sound any longer.  Vista/Windows 7 users may skip this section.

1)  Press the "Start" button from the Windows desktop
2)  Select "Run" from the dialog box that pops up.
3)  In the Run dialog box, type DXDIAG and press the <ENTER> key.
This will start the Microsoft DirectX diagnostic tool.
4)  Once started, select the "Sound" tab
5)  Make sure you have your hardware acceleration set to no higher than 3/4 (one notch lower than full).
6)  Run the Sound diagnostics and make sure is works.

If you are still having problems:

  Make sure you have the latest sound chip/board drivers for your operating system. NOTE:  In some cases, such as the C-Media chip or any onboard sound chip, random lockups and lost sounds seem to be normal.  Sigmatel onboard audio devices have zero hardware for sound support and have been reported to cause stuttering.  Do not load any custom sounds if you have an onboard sound chip.

  If you have interrupt conflicts/sharing with any Sound Blaster board, you will have problems, such as video graphics stutter, lost sounds, general Internet connectivity issues, or any combination of the above.

  Using the "System Information" tool, you can see what interrupts are being used in your computer system.  NOTE:  It is safe to ignore the various "Steering" interrupts.

  Also if you are having problems with voice, you might try changing your record/encode method, in the game, go to "Setup", then press the "Voice" button from the clipboard and check the "Use Wave In" option to see if that will clear his problem up.


INTERRUPTS AND YOUR COMPUTER

For gaming, it is highly desirable that each device in your system be on its own interrupt.  Sometimes this means moving cards around in the PCI slots to accomplish this.
Shared interrupts will cause all types of maladies.  Stuttering video, sound cut-outs, all the way to system freezes and crashes.
It is difficult to tell you how to resolve this as it depends on the BIOS, motherboard, shared device type, operating system, and many other factors.

[Skuzzy]

SECURING INTERNET EXPLORER 6/7

While this is about securing Internet Explorer, it should be noted the following adjustments effect your Email as well as other applications, so even if you are using an alternate browser it is still a good idea to make the changes.

The following presumes you have Internet Explorer 6.0, or later installed.
DISCLAIMER: There are applications which can be broken when doing the following. Personally, I take those applications back to the store and get a refund, but you may not have a choice in the matter. If you find the following breaks your applications, it is up to you as to how you want to handle it.

Start Internet Explorer, and then open the "Tools" menu. Select "Internet Options" from the drop down menu.

Then select the "Security" tab.
Next, select the "Internet" zone and hit the "Custom Level" button. Scroll down and you will see 6 options for ActiveX controls. ActiveX is the primary delivery mechanism for spyware and malware programs, which can be loaded on your computer without your knowledge, regardless of any anti-virus program or software firewall your are using.

Carefully read each option and set them to prompt or block ActiveX controls from running or downloading to your computer. Even the ones which are marked 'safe' are not neccesarily 'safe'.

After doing this, you will either get a popup prompt when an ActiveX control is encountered on a WEB page, or if you blocked all these controls, you will see a warning bar notifying you a site is using ActiveX controls and it may not display properly.

Now that you are here, you might as well default the rest of the zones security settings as they will all be set wide open if you have never adjusted them.

Just select each of the zones (except the Internet zone) and press the "Default Level" button to reset each zone to its unique security settings.

In the "Trusted" zone, you may have to add Microsoft (or any other site you know can be trusted) so the auto updater will work (yes, Microsoft uses ActiveX on thier site). Just select that zone, press the "Sites" button, uncheck the requirement for secure connection, and enter '*.microsoft.com' and press the "OK" button.

This will allow Microsoft's WEB site to run under the "Trusted" zone. Internet Explorer will show what zone is being used for any given site you visit in the lower right portion of the status bar.

Now that you have buttoned up this bad boy, let's take a look at the "Privacy" settings. This is where you can setup your security as it pertains to "cookies". Cookies, in of themselves, are very benign, but they can be used to pass personal information from your computer to other WEB sites. There are sites on the Internet who make money by selling that personal information.

To tighten up security here, check the "override automatic cookie handling" option. Then check the option to block all third party cookies and uncheck the option to allow session cookies.

Once you have done that, you will start seeing a new ICON appear in the status bar of Internet Explorer. It looks like a red circle with a minus symbol in it over a computer. You can double-click that ICON and it will bring up more information about the cookie.

Pressing the "Summary" button shows more details about the cookie and allows you to set other options to handle that cookie in the future. Of course, my favorite is the last option which permanently blocks cookies from that domain.

Take note, altering the "Privacy" settings in the manner I am suggesting will break legitimate sites containing bulletin boards, such as ours. All you need to do is to add the domain name to the "Trusted" sites zone in the "Security" settings and it will act normal.

All this sounds like a pain in the tush, doesn't it? What you gain from doing it is a more secure system. One that is not prone to pick up tracking cookies and one that is not prone to getting infected with spyware or malware software.

In the end, it is up to you. No one can force you to make the above changes, and if you do, you will be responsible for how it effects your computer's operation.


About the AGP Aperature Size

AGP Aperture Size
Common Options : 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256

Details

This BIOS feature allows you to select the size of the AGP aperture. The aperture is a portion of the PCI memory address range dedicated as graphics memory address space. Host cycles that hit the aperture range are forwarded to the AGP without need for translation. The aperture size also determines the maximum amount of system RAM that can be allocated to the graphics card for texture storage.

The AGP Aperture size can be set using the formula : maximum usable AGP memory size x 2 plus 12MB. That means that the actual usable AGP memory size is less than half of the AGP aperture size. That's because the system needs a write combined memory area equal to the amount of actual AGP memory (uncached) plus an additional 12MB for virtual addressing.

Note that all this is merely address space, not physical memory used. The physical memory is allocated and released as needed only when Direct3D makes a create non-local surface call. Win95 (with VGARTD.VXD) and later versions use a waterfall effect. Surfaces are created first in local memory. When that memory is full, surface creation spills over into AGP memory and then system memory. So, memory usage is automatically optimized for each application. AGP and system memory are not used unless absolutely necessary.

Now, many people recommend the AGP aperture size should be half of the amount of RAM your system has. However, that's wrong for the same reason why swapfile size shouldn't be 1/4 of the amount of RAM you have in your system. Like the swapfile's size, the required AGP aperture size will become smaller as the graphics card's memory increases in size. This is because most of the textures will be stored on the graphics card itself. So, graphics cards with 32MB of RAM or more will require a smaller AGP aperture than graphics cards with less RAM.

If your graphics card has very little graphics memory, then you should set the AGP aperture size as large as you can, up to half the system RAM. For cards with more graphics memory, you needn't set the aperture size to half the system RAM. Note that the size of the aperture does not correspond to performance so increasing it to gargantuan proportions will not improve performance.

Still, it's recommended that you keep the AGP aperture around 64MB to 128MB in size. Now, why is such a large aperture size recommended despite the fact that most graphics cards now come with large amounts of RAM? Shouldn't we just set it to the absolute minimum to save system RAM?

Well, in the first place, many graphics cards require an AGP aperture of at least 16MB in size to work properly. This is probably because the virtual addressing space is already 12MB in size! In addition, many software have AGP aperture size requirements which are mostly unspecified. Some games even use so much textures that AGP memory is needed even with graphics cards with lots of graphics memory.

And if you remember the formula above, the actual amount of AGP memory needed is more than double that of the required texture storage space. So, if 15MB of extra texture storage space is needed, then 42MB of system RAM is actually used. Therefore, it makes sense to set a large AGP aperture size in order to cater for every software requirement.

Note that reducing the AGP aperture size won't save you any RAM. Again, what setting the AGP aperture size does is limit the amount of RAM the AGP bus can appropriate when it needs to. It is not used unless absolutely necessary. So, setting a 64MB AGP aperture doesn't mean 64MB of your RAM will be used up as AGP memory. It will only limit the maximum amount that can be used by the AGP bus to 64MB (with a usable AGP memory size of only 26MB).

Now, while increasing the AGP aperture size beyond 128MB wouldn't really hurt performance, it would still be best to keep the aperture size to about 64MB-128MB so that the GART table won't become too large. As the amount of onboard RAM increases and texture compression becomes commonplace, there's less of a need for the AGP aperture size to increase beyond 64MB. So, it's recommended that you set the AGP Aperture Size to 64MB or at most, 128MB.

[Skuzzy]

ANTI-VIRUS PROGRAMS

You must shut down any Anti-Virus software you have running in background. If you do not, you could suffer problems, such as, being switched from UDP to TCP, dropped connections, massive lags, and other anomalies.
Even when you think you have the Anti-Virus software shutdown, it can start up again if you update the Anti-Virus database. So always check this.

What Anti-Virus programs do is grab every packet of data coming into your computer from the Internet and they analyze the data in each packet. This, in of itself, could cause problems as it introduces significant delay to the packet getting to the game.
More importantly, a game data packet could accidently look like a virus to the software, in which case, you would lose your connection to the game servers.


FIREWALLS and PERSONAL ROUTERS

This is a can of worms. Aces High depends on ports 2000-6000. They all need to be opened through your firewall. Aces High will not use all these ports simultaneously, but some subset of the above port range will be used.

Also note, when we release an update to the game, you will have to re-allow the aceshigh.exe program back through your personal firewall. Nothing we can do about this as it is a function of the firewall software you are using.

Personal routers: These types of routers (LinkSys, NetGear...) are very slow devices which really cannot handle a lot of traffic from several systems at the same time. Typically, you should restrict your local LAN to 5 systems or less.
Here are some tips:

1) Make sure you have MAC broadcasting enabled in your router. This keeps your ISP from having to rediscover your Ethernet MAC address. If you do not have this enabled, and your ISP's router has to go through discovery you will get switched from UDP to TCP/IP by Aces High due to lost packets.

2) If you are on a network with a dynamic IP and the ISP expires the lease forcing your router to get a new IP address, you will again be switched to TCP/IP from UDP by Aces High due to lost packets and you will probably lose your connection to the servers.

3) If your router or cable/dsl modem is connected to your computer through a USB port, you can expect to lose UDP a lot, as well as unreliable connections to the servers overall. You should have this device connected to an Ethernet port or unreliability will result.

If you have NAT enabled on your router, UDP may not work at all, as there are problems with some versions of firmware in routers that keep them from handling UDP in the translation tables, and this becomes worse with more computers on your LAN.


HOST QUEUE and VARIENCE in Aces High

The graphs in Aces High which shows this data can be read as follows.
Host Queue: Host Queue will typically vary between 5 and 10ms continously. This is perfectly normal. Large occasional spikes will occur, usually due to new objects coming into your area. This is normal as well.
What is not normal, are constant swings in the queue times, or long times at high times.

Varience: Varience should almost always be flat. Wide swings in this line occur if you computer's hardware clock is not running correctly. This anomaly occurs in some builds of Windows 2000 and cannot be fixed. Running other network programs can cause this to vary as well (and instant messenger program).

On occasion, when you first connect, there could be a sharp drop in the varience. This may occur whenever there are a high number of clients on the server. In this case, the varience line will slowly return to normal.

Another factor which impacts "Variance" is how busy your computer may be running other processes in the background.  If you notice a regular sawtooth pattern in the Variance line, there is a high probability your computer is running a background process which is keeping the CPU away from running the game.

Many things can cause this.  It is not something consistent from computer to computer and it all depends on what software you have loaded on your computer.  One of the more popular programs around is "iTunes" and we happen to know it can cause a lot of stuttering in the game as well as lost VOX, lost UDP and many other things.  It is not alone though.

Check your background processes in the Windows Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del, under the "Processes" tab).  Look at the lower left corner to find the count and the overal CPU usage.  The overall CPU usage should be at 0%, bouncing up to 1, maybe 2% on occasion, when nothing is running on the desktop.  If it higher than that, then you have something eating away at your computer's performance.

[Skuzzy]

SCREEN STUTTERS/PAUSES

There is probably nothing more exasperating than to have a bogey lined up in your sites, about to pull the trigger, then the screen freezes/pauses!

Pauses like that are normally attributable to resource starvation in the computer. That can be CPU, memory, video card, and/or sound card related.

The freeze or stutter itself is caused by the computer having to make room for a new resource, or load something from the hard drive.  A short pause/stutter is normally just a texture or sound being loaded. Once loaded, the texture/sound data will stay resident in memory, unless the computer runs out of resources.

In most systems, it is probably system memory related. Cutting down the "Maximum Texture Size" in the game's "Video Settings" is the quickest way to determine if it is resource related.

On NVidia video cards, the 9x.xx drivers can also cause massive stuttering as well, particularly if you have a multi-core CPU.  These were the first drivers where NVidia tried forcing multi-threading and they were a mess.

On-board sound chips use more CPU cycles than a good PCI card would. So if your CPU is at the edge of having too much to do, these chips will push it right on over the edge. Adjusting the hardware sound acceleration down a notch from 'Full' will help reduce the CPU load.  Note, in Vista/Windows 7 it is no longer possible to adjust the hardware acceleration as Microsoft as gotten rid of DirectSound and plays all sounds through the normal Windows sound API.  Best guideline is to never use custom sounds with Vista/Windows 7 in conjunction with onboard sound devices.

If you have loaded custom sounds, you could experience all manner of resource issues, regardless of the operating system, as most of the custom sound packs use very large sound files at high sample rates.  Onboard sound chips just cannot process that many of those types of sound files without running into resource issues.  And those files take up enormous amounts of memory in your computer as well, which could exacerbate any resource related issue.

Lastly, the number of and type of background processes is a contributing factor to poor performance. Open the Windows Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del), select the "Processes" tab. In the lower left corner is the total number. It should be around 19 to 21 for a reasonably clean Windows XP/2000 system.  A fairly clean Vista/Windows 7 system will have around 35 processes.

Right next to the total count is the CPU usage percentage. For Windows XP/2000/Vista/Windows 7, it should be bouncing like a heartbeat between 0 and 1 (maybe 2 on occasion) percent.  If there is any deviation to this, then something is amiss. You can also start the game, minimize it (ALT-TAB), then check the game's CPU usage. It should be at 99 to 100%. In a dual-core computer system, due to the way Microsoft displays CPU usage, the game should be at 50% CPU utilization without any deviation.

If the processes look good and the CPU usage is fine, then you are probably pushing the video card too hard. Simply uncheck the "Detailed Terrain" option in the Options->Graphic Details->Advanced panel. Reduce the "Maximum Texture Size" in the game, disable any anti-aliasing you have forced on, as well as any anisotropic filtering you have forced. Then go from there.

The "Detailed Terrain" option requires a video card to be able to process a high number of calculations per frame.  If the video card's GPU (graphic processing unit) is too slow, it will cause amssive stutters in the game.  A general guideline is, if the video chip is an onboard video chip, such as an Intel, of NVidia 61xx series, then do not bother trying to run the game with this option enabled.  Obboard video chips are not designed to be powerful units.  They are designed to be cheap.

[Skuzzy]

VISTA/WINDOWS 7 RELATED ISSUES

NOTE:  As of Aces High Version 2.14 Patch 6, Item 1 is no longer an issue.

1)  The game has multiple problems with my multi-core AMD or Intel mobile CPU.

If you have a multi-core AMD or Intel mobile CPU, then you will have to run the game in Windows 98/ME compatibility mode.  This is due to to a compatibility bug in the AMD dual-core CPU.  Aces High is not the only application impacted by this problem.  To work around the problem, simply right-click on the Aces High start up ICON, then select "Properties" from the menu, then select the "Compatibility" tab and check the option to run this application in compatibility mode.  Select the "Windows 98/Windows ME" option from the drop down list.

One of the more popular manifestations of this problem is the 'spinning clipboard' issue.

2)  The auto-updater does not work.

When using the Vista/Windows 7 operating system, and with the game installed in the "Program Files" folder, the game's auto-updater will hang on you when an update is available for the game.  This is a feature of Vista/Windows 7.

We have instituted a method to work around this problem, and it requires the game not be installed in the "Program Files" folder.  The current version of the game (Version 2.14 Patch 0 and any future releases) will no longer install the in the "Program Files" folder by default.  This solves a number of issues as Microsoft does not snoop on files outside the "Program Files" folder.  It eliminates the "virtual store" which allows all our files and folders to be placed where we intended for them to be.  This makes it easier for you to find films, nose art, screenshots, all the game settings, and so on.

If you are still running the game out of the "Program Files" folder, we strongly encourage you to move the game from that folder.

NOTE:  If you take our advice in the above, then the following is no longer a problem.

3)  Where are my files and folders for the game?

Vista/Windows 7, by default, places all files and folders created after the installation of any program in the "Program Files" directory into a virtual store directory.

It's a new feature of Vista/Windows 7 called 'User Access Control' (UAC).  Vista/Windows 7 hides the folder from you, but you can find it, for example, in C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\HTC\Aces High II, where username is replaced with your Vista login ID.  The folder AppData is hidden so you have to manually type it in the path box.

If you find the above to be undesirable, then you might want to simply install the game into another folder, not in the "Program Files" directory.  In Vista/Windows 7, UAC only works on files installed in the "Program Files" directory.  We have also discovered UAC will hamper game performance and might corrupt the game data files.  We strongly advise choosing another installation path for the game, such as "C:\Games\Aces High".
What follows is the manual method to get around the problem if you did allow the game to be installed in its default location.

If you want all your files back where they used to be, then you would have needed to run the game installer using a right-click and selecting "Run as Administrator" option.

After that, you would have to right-click on the Aces High start up ICON and select "Run as Administrator" every time you wanted to run the game, unless you set the game to "Run as Administrator" all the time.  To do this, you right-click on the Aces High start up ICON, and select "Properties".  Under the "Compatibility" tab, select the "Run this program as an administrator" option,  This will make all the game folders and files to be stored in their normal path locations.

However, any files you had before will not longer be used.  So you may want to copy the folders and contents of the UAC path above to the original root folder location of Aces High II before you set the option to run the game as an administrator.  This will preserve all your settings.

Another upside to checking the option to run the game as an administrator under Vista/Windows 7 is it will allow the game's auto-updater to work correctly.  Vista/Windows 7 blocks the creation of any executable file in the game's root installation folder unless it is run as an admin.  This prevents the auto-updater from working correctly.

Please keep in mind, we have no control over these new features.  We cannot change options in your operating system configuration.  All we can do is try to provide ways to work within the framework Microsoft decides to give everyone.

[Skuzzy]

NEED TECHNICAL SUPPORT VIA EMAIL?

First, the email address is: support@hitechcreations.com

Next, when asking for help with problems, it can save you some time if you include the output from the DXDIAG utility with your email.  You can attach the file (preferred) or imbed it in the email.

VISTA NOTE:  If your computer is running Vista, and you are running with the standard Vista desktop, you will need to right-click on the "Start" button and then switch the "Start" menu to "Clasic" view in order to have access to the "Run" dialog box.

Here are the steps to do this:

1. Go to "Start" from the Windows desktop
2. Select "Run" from the pop up menu
3. In the Run dialog box, type DXDIAG and press <ENTER>
4. After a few seconds the DXDIAG utility will be ready (the progress indicator in the lower left corner will disappear).
5. Run the video and sound diagnostics (Select the Display and Sound tabs to do this).
6. Press the "Save All Information" button
7. This will save the DXDIAG data to a file of your choice
8. Once you have done this, simply email the file to me and I can look for any issues your system might have.

Be sure to include your game ID and/or login ID with the email and a good explanation of the problem as you see it.
We cannot see your computer screen and rely on you to give us as much information as possible about it so we can try to help.

For information/help with your Internet connection   click here

Stay tuned