Author Topic: Hitech Creations - Please Note... (Read 1859 times)

Max · « **on:** March 28, 2005, 10:37:36 PM »

First off, let me say this...as a four year subscriber to Aces High, and someone who's addiction to WW2 air combat sims goes back to 1996 (AW/Macintosh via AOL)...HTC has developed the best air combat sim on the market today. That's the good news.

The bad news is that given increased eye candy via recent patches and version updates, the game becomes less and less user friendly in terms of frame rates/playability. Permit me to explain. Two years ago, prior to the release of AH2, word from the top was that AH2 was predicated more towards uppper-end graphic cards as opposed to high "octane" CPU's and motherboards.

I own a Dell Dimension 8200 loaded with a P4 1.9 Mhz CPU. It's 3 years old, came equipped with a top-of-the line Geforce 3 128 mg vid card at the time, which I upgraded to a Radeon 9800 Pro - 128 mg card...and along with that...my power supply, needed to drive the new card. Total cost, about $400. Mind you, aside from AH, my Dell purred like a kitten insofar as running all the other programs I expected it to run.

Prior to the release of AH2 I was getting upper 90 frame rates. That dropped 30% when AH2 was released. A quick chat with Skuzzy suggested that my CPU was on the lower end of the horsepower needed to maximize the Radeon 9800 Pro card I just bought. OK...fair enough...I'll live with 60 - 70 fr/sec.

In the past few months my frame rates have dropped to an average of 15 - 30. The large - lotza water/CV maps seem to take the biggest toll on FR hits. So do the clouds. All the new eye candy is lovely but the game is just about unplayable at frame rates less then 20 per second...which is what I wind-up with if there's any conglomeration of players in a specific area. By the same token it would be lovely to afford a new, top-of-the-line computer every 6 months or so. I can't.

Bottom line, as you work through the plans for new graphics and game play, please keep in mind those of us who are tethered to 2-3 yr old systems we can't afford to renew and update every year or so.

Thank you,
DmdMax

GScholz · « **Reply #1 on:** March 28, 2005, 10:50:56 PM »

I have a 9800Pro and an AMD Athlon running at ~2Ghz. I have constant 60 fps (the refreshrate of my LCD monitor). No stutters.

Do you have the latest drivers for your card?

Try the Omega drivers.

doobs · « **Reply #2 on:** March 28, 2005, 11:16:38 PM »

running Geforce40 with 2.26 pent 4, wish ihad 60 frame rate.
But I have no prob running at 30fps, game plays fine, no animated water, but I'm not here to go swiming anyway.
vox works,(most of time:rolleyes: ), bad guys go boom, I go boom,

but waiting on TOD before I go ubersize.

btw; need some technical jargon excuse to give my wife, on why I need a new pc after only 2 years.

Anybody looking for a dell 4500

oh and had the same frame rate in AH1, so I'm used to it whatever that means, cause I've been in FSO with 60FPS and didn't notice a difference in gameplay. But with that said I do have better fiter results in FSO.

GScholz · « **Reply #3 on:** March 28, 2005, 11:20:04 PM »

You don't need a new PC, only a new gfx card. Shouldn't set you back more than $300 for a good one.

214thCavalier · « **Reply #4 on:** March 29, 2005, 05:26:29 AM »

DMax the game is fully configureable with regard to detail processed and hence frames per sec achieved.
A lot will depend on the graphic settings you have selected within AH.
You have made no mention of your settings, however if you have them set too high it will cripple your fps.
As an example i run an AMD64 3500 with an X800XTPE and i cannot run at full detail or even 1024 textures and get the gameplay i desire.
So i turn the detail down a bit and use 512 textures.

Kirin · « **Reply #5 on:** March 29, 2005, 05:41:53 AM »

Wow - 3 years in gaming hardware is ancient... Sure, you don't have to update every 6 months but every three years should be possible.

I'd say go full eye-candy. The hardware is steadily developing - so should AH. AH is still behind box games concerning eye-candy. It made some good ground lately but still some distance to go.

Cav, I got a similar setup (Athlon64 3800/6800GT) and I run 1024 tex at 1280x960, 8s AA, no AF - capping out at 60 most of the time. Dropping around mid 40s over large areas of water. Set the detail sliders slightly higher than default. Setting them way up gives me a slide-show without any visible change in IQ.

214thCavalier · « **Reply #6 on:** March 29, 2005, 06:17:21 AM »

Yea i use 1280 res but 512 textures, i have to admit its a while since i tried the 1024 option.
However for acceptable gameplay for me i want to be able to be close to the ground in a vertical descent and able to fast roll without any jerky graphics updates.
If it does that i dont care what the fps shows.
Its worth noting i have seen jerky updates in that situation even with the fps showing 30.
Normally if i bother to check the fps is 80 or higher or pegged at monitors refresh rate.
But as some of my best fights are in the weeds thats where it matters more to me.

Creamo · « **Reply #7 on:** March 29, 2005, 07:29:57 AM »

Dmax, only thing I can suggest, and your rig is about on par with mine, is to make a fresh reformat, install the latest drivers, and see what you have then. When AH2 came out it wasn't playable. A few updates in I was discouraged, and finally did a fresh format with new drivers. The results were AH2 started working like Ah did, with only a small noticable FPS drop. To be fair I also changed some settings in the game, but forget which now. Certainly someone could post a guide to setting up AH2. There is just too many settings I don't understand, but i do know there is hope for getting it to run better.

As far as the 3 year old computer upgrade thing. That is a long time in a true gamers world. Problem is your kinda stuck as it's a Dell. Hope you find a fix.

TexMurphy · « **Reply #8 on:** March 29, 2005, 07:39:41 AM »

One of the biggest differences for me in terms of frame rate is view distance. Setting it to medium instead of long gives me about 15-20 fps back, running on old 9600XT card.

Tex

TexMurphy · « **Reply #9 on:** March 29, 2005, 07:42:36 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Kirin
Wow - 3 years in gaming hardware is ancient... Sure, you don't have to update every 6 months but every three years should be possible.

Im running on a 3 year old rig as well but the development has NOT been as drastic as a few years ago. This is actually the first time Ive not felt desperate to change my rig within 2 years.

As it will approach the 3.5 year mark this summer Im likely to upgrade though.

Tex

Max · « **Reply #10 on:** March 29, 2005, 07:43:37 AM »

Here's some info on my card and set-up specs which I should have included to begin with.

Radeon Pro 9800 128 mg using Omega 2.5.97 drivers. I'll check today for newer drivers. Questions here: it's mu understanding that Omega drivers are tweaked to the max when they're installed. True? If any of the 3D setting options should be reset, to what do I reset them to?

My game settings are ~
Video resolution 1024x768
Preload textures and skins are both checked
Max texture = 512
frame rate = unlimited
my three detail/performance sliders are all set about 1/3 rd across from the left
All of the "disbale" boxes are checked; animated water is unchecked.
Under options, horizons, transitions and terrain mapping are all checked.

Thanks folks.

DmdMax

Creamo · « **Reply #11 on:** March 29, 2005, 07:47:22 AM »

Just remembered another thing I do now that helps. I kill all programs running in the windows tool bar. Seems memory is a good thing with AH2, and anything sapping it will hurt your performance. I always shut everything down that isn’t essential before I get into AH gaming mode.

Granted I have let them get out of control, but if you have a lot of stuff running, try starting AH2 with them on and check your FPS. Then kill them all but what you need to operate, and see if there is a difference. Is for me.

Max · « **Reply #12 on:** March 29, 2005, 07:49:38 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Creamo
Dmax, only thing I can suggest, and your rig is about on par with mine, is to make a fresh reformat, install the latest drivers, and see what you have then.

Creamo could you please explain reformat? Of what? Not sure if you're talking about wiping my hard drive and doing a clean reinstallation of WinXP or what...

DmdMax

Creamo · « **Reply #13 on:** March 29, 2005, 07:58:38 AM »

Yes, a clean reformat of the HD, and then install the Service Packs and latest drivers. Like i said, AH2 would just not run on my machine to where it was playable at first. I really don't know the tech stuff on computer programs, but AH2 seems real memory dependant. That should kill any hidden programs, startup crap that saps your system, etc.

In fact, I'm due for a reformat again myself, but I'm so close to an upgrade I pry won't have too, but I bet that will make AH2 run well enough on your system to enjoy it.

Kweassa · « **Reply #14 on:** March 29, 2005, 08:06:59 AM »

Frankly, I feel that the increase in visual realism (aka 'eye-candey') just cannot be delayed anymore.

Times change. How people view games change, and the customer base also changes with it. Most of us currently playing AH have seen what the early days of PCs were like. I used to have a great deal of fun playing ascii coded games.. and the RPG that I really loved were the totally text-based Ultima series from Lord British.

To us, AH1 is more than enough. Eye candy is always 'secondary', as long as gameplay is always smooth and fun.

But think about the teenagers now. These young people were born in the late '80s. When these boys and girls were playing games as toddlers, they were using Pentium III based machines with GeForce2 cards and internet connections. In their mid-teens, these people are now playing games with incredible visual qualities. Anything less than they've already experienced, they will be turned off by it.

It's just how things go. The standards of the eras never flows against time.

These people are offered with a variety of other games of different genre(RPGs, MMOGs, action, driving, FPS, RTS etc etc..) that has incredible level of graphics. Would they even care about simulation games, if it at least didn't have some graphical quality that sparks interest?

To the young people, graphics, is a part of game play. If it looks old and outdated, then the game is not fun for them. They're not like us, DMax.

In a few years, these young people will also become potential customers for Aces High. Are we gonna be still saying that "AH looks sucky, but that's okay, since gameplay is what matters the most"?

They are gonna carve that on AH's tombstone, DMax.

AH still has a lot of catching up to do. AH2 is a refinement of AH1 engine(at least I think so), but it's shown tremendous potential, when compared to old AH1.

This should not stop, ever.