AH2 Running on my PII 450mhz

[Grimm]

I just thought Id point out that everyone doesnt need a $3,000 monster to run this game.

I just installed a Video Card I took out of another machine into my old 450mhz machine to see how it did.

Specs
PII 450mhz
128mb RAM
Win 98
Soundblaster PCI64 sound card
Nvidia GForce DDR 32mb Video Card

Once Loaded, I patched it up to #5 and Then Set the Video To 640x480 and Textures to 128.  I left the Fps to unlimited and left the rest of the settings default.  

On the Runway during AutoTake off,  I was getting 15fps,  Not Great, but workable.  

Once Airborn, with the nose up and only seeing blue skys, I would get 40fps out the front glass.  

When shooting down a Drone, I was a pretty Steady 25fps.  

Then I figured Id see how bad I could make it.  I went LAN H2H and Launched 2 formations of B17s  (6 total) and rolled directly behind them.   Now things where working hard but I still had 11fps.  Thank god for Autotake off  

So, This computer is about half the Minimum and It still runs AH2.  Yes its not great, but it works.

I just thought I might post this up to give some of you hope that you can get AH2 working on an older system until you can afford that mega-machine.

[Roscoroo]

<--- drags out the good ole 486 ...  i'll get back to you  all . muahahahahaa

[mojo55]

so what are you saying  ?

[Nilsen]

Originally posted by mojo55
so what are you saying  ?

if you had read all the threads bout people complaining that they need monster pc's to play you would know.

[FT_Animal]

Originally posted by Grimm
I just thought Id point out that everyone doesnt need a $3,000 monster to run this game.

I just installed a Video Card I took out of another machine into my old 450mhz machine to see how it did.

Specs
PII 450mhz
128mb RAM
Win 98
Soundblaster PCI64 sound card
Nvidia GForce DDR 32mb Video Card

Once Loaded, I patched it up to #5 and Then Set the Video To 640x480 and Textures to 128.  I left the Fps to unlimited and left the rest of the settings default.  

On the Runway during AutoTake off,  I was getting 15fps,  Not Great, but workable.  

Once Airborn, with the nose up and only seeing blue skys, I would get 40fps out the front glass.  

When shooting down a Drone, I was a pretty Steady 25fps.  

Then I figured Id see how bad I could make it.  I went LAN H2H and Launched 2 formations of B17s  (6 total) and rolled directly behind them.   Now things where working hard but I still had 11fps.  Thank god for Autotake off  

So, This computer is about half the Minimum and It still runs AH2.  Yes its not great, but it works.

I just thought I might post this up to give some of you hope that you can get AH2 working on an older system until you can afford that mega-machine.

ABSOLUTELY!!!!!!

Been saying this for two weeks.

My rig:
PIII 450
Geforce 4 MX 420 64mb (CRAP!!!!)
256 Memory
1024x768 32 Bit Res
Windows XP (Some nerd tech wannabie told me XP would never fly on this system )

Runway FPS is 25\27
I didn't fly much because I'm still tweaking using runway as a starting point refrence. But I did notice when I hit blue skys I started to see 40+ fps. I haven't taken it into anything rough yet, because I'm striving for 40 fps ont he runway.

I'm not going to say that upgrading is hog wash, but I will say that If me and grimm can do it on 450 cpus, then ANYTHING over that, with a decent video card, will pull the game.

The problem I am starting to see is a LOT of AH folks seem to have no idea how to hop a machine up PROPERLY. There are many things that need to be in line before the PC becomes streamline in thinking. Starting with the BIOS.
BIOS Video Cache, Video Shadowing,.. etc...

You all heard from two guys on basically similar machines, small, slow and old, getting the game to play with very little tweaking, in reality. At this point I have not OCed anything, yet, although experimenting. I'm taking my card clock up a little at a time until I find the honey spot.

When I get as fast as I can on the runway, at 1024x768 32 bit. I'll crank it down to 800x600 maybe even 16 bit to see just how fast I can get it. It will also take what I did and add stability to it.

GRIMM, we should do a little more tweaking and meet sometime in the H2H, if there is one , and film a fight between our two mini machines. BTW isn't that 450 a PIII?

Tweaking takes time to experiment until you find just the right settings that make the machine streamline, fast, and stable. From top to bottum, not just on the surface. I've taken days to tweak a machine.

Will I see the same art performance of those with newer monsters, prolly not, but it gets me into the air and playable.

Anim

[Nilsen]

im glad there are people around like you Animal. This fall im gonna build my first puter and because i have never been used to tinkering around alot with bios settings (have only had laptops for the last 10 years) I have no idea what to optimise etc. There are alot more options on desktop with bios and other settings than im used to, and i would prolly end up using only 50% of its potential.

[Grimm]

Mine is definately a PII.   I believe that was about as high as the PII went.  PIII also start about 450,  So there was a little over lap.

In fact this machine is the screamer that I got so I could fly AW reliabley years ago.  Its never had a reinstall of windows and AW ME is still there able to go Offline.

I like the H2H Idea, that would be a hoot.   "No P4s or AMDs Allowed"  area      LOL

[ergRTC]

I have an amd k6/2 400 and k6/2 500 any takers?  


heheh

[United]

Originally posted by Nilsen
im glad there are people around like you Animal. This fall im gonna build my first puter and because i have never been used to tinkering around alot with bios settings (have only had laptops for the last 10 years) I have no idea what to optimise etc. There are alot more options on desktop with bios and other settings than im used to, and i would prolly end up using only 50% of its potential.

I know next to nothing about PCs, and I know some here are gonna flip when I ask but:  What are BIOS, what do they do, and how can I change them to boost performance?

[Nilsen]

Originally posted by United
I know next to nothing about PCs, and I know some here are gonna flip when I ask but:  What are BIOS, what do they do, and how can I change them to boost performance?

Basic Input/Output System.

When you boot your puter you can enter it and change alot of things that you cant access from within windows. Dont mess with it without being told how to by someone that knows thier stuff. See the manual that came with your mobo/computer to find out more.

[slimm50]

So with my PIII 866 MHz, 512 MB RAM, 32 Meg NVidia TNT2 AGP I should be able to fly AHII if I only replace the NVidia with a cheap ($80, or so) video card?

WooooHooo!:D

[debuman]

Originally posted by FT_Animal
The problem I am starting to see is a LOT of AH folks seem to have no idea how to hop a machine up PROPERLY. There are many things that need to be in line before the PC becomes streamline in thinking. Starting with the BIOS.
BIOS Video Cache, Video Shadowing,.. etc...

Anim

Animal,

Could you post some ideas for us abut what to check in the things you mentioned:
BIOS
BIOS video cache
video shadowing
etc.,?

There are a lot of us here who would love to try to get some more performance out of our older machines, but don't know how to go about it.
I think I probably speak for a lot of others - we'd really appreciate it if you could post some notes on how to do that stuff!  Please!!
Pretty please!!!!
Thanks,
Debuman

[Grimm]

Originally posted by slimm50
So with my PIII 866 MHz, 512 MB RAM, 32 Meg NVidia TNT2 AGP I should be able to fly AHII if I only replace the NVidia with a cheap ($80, or so) video card?

WooooHooo!:D

I would say you probabley could.  Again, your not going to get amazing Frame rates,  But you could at least be able to fly.

Right now, it sees like AH like Nvidia Cards better,  even thou most of the ATI stuff seems to be better for everything else.
Take a look here at the 128mb cards
http://www.compgeeks.com/products.asp?cat=VCD
$60 might get you up and running until you can afford a system upgrade.

Now, It also possible you have a bunch of crap running in the background (spyware and such) on a system thats been around a while.  If you clean it up, get current drivers and DX9 Ill bet you would be playable at a minimum level.

[Nilsen]

btw. Does it seem to matter what operating system you use? Im thinking win2k vs xp pro.

When i build my puter i have a licence for each of them, but id like to keep xp on my laptop and use 2k on the new puter if there is no diff.

[slimm50]

Grimm, thanks for your reply. BTW, I have WinXP Pro. Shouldn't be a problem with that, I'm thinking. I visited the site you recommended. It's encouraging. Hope to see you all in the MA friendly skies b4 too very much longer. H2H is better than nothing, but it's like kissing your sister, as Bear Bryant would say.