Hitech Creations - Please Note...

[AKDogg]

Dmax has a point though.  Take Farcry or even Doom 3 and look at the graphics compared to AH.  Farcry and doom 3 look alot better get higher frame rates then this game.  I not a programer but it seems that this games runs to ineffiecient or should I say not utilizing resourses proberly.  I get doubled the frame rates in farcry, Silent Hunter 3, doom 3, FS2004, etc...

AMD 64 3200+
Asus K8NE Deluxe MB
1 gig ram
80 gig SATA Seagate
Geforce FX 5700 128 meg

AH I get 25- 100(if I look up at sky) fps running at 1024x768 res
4x antialias

Farcry I get 50-70 at same settings  Never falling below 50
FS2004 60-80 at 1280 x 1024  Never falling below 60.
Etc..

[TexMurphy]

Another thing that is important to do is to clean spyware regularly, they eat resources like crazy.

Tex.

[Creamo]

I think it's more getting it to run properly, as he stated 15 fps in some situations. I can run everything like Far Cry and SH3 just fine, but 'double' the frame rates? I'm getting 40-60 in AH2 which is more than enough.

Bang for the graphic buck AH2 is certainly behind the curve, but compaired to AH1 and the new features, it's working itself out slow but sure. You forget gameplay and the gaming format AH2 provides. Operation Flashpoint craps all over Far Cry, and has dated graphics. To each his own.

[XrightyX]

Originally posted by Kweassa

 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 If it looks old and outdated, then the game is not fun for them.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.

Agreed.  

Anyone I've ever shown AH1 or AH2 to has always remarked something like, "Well, cool idea, looks fun, but the graphics aren't that great..."

But, it's not just the young folks.  Big kids like graphics too.

[TexMurphy]

@Creamo

I raised my FPS about 3-5 by just cleaning out a crap load of spyware. Releaseing memory resoruces does help.

@XrightyX

Ultimate combo is ofcourse Game Play + Graphics.

To sell a game to new players graphics is important, especially when dealing with 2 week trials. First impressions ARE important.

Beyond that its all about the gameplay if players stick to a game long term. If the gameplay aint there the eye candy doesnt help to retain them.

A game with great gameplay and crapy eye candy will always struggle to attract new players.

A game with crappy game play and great eye candy will always struggle to retain players.

Both are needed.

While all the vets that are hooked on the game play dont need the eye candy HTC needs it. HTC needs to attract new players to their game to keep their business going. If HTC falls further behind in eye candy, meaning dont do anything, they will keep loosing customers to "worse games" and if one day a equaly good game shows up they are out of business.

Tex

[Skuzzy]

Mwdogg, you cannot compare FPS games to a flight simulator.
FPS games have highly restrictive view distances and far fewer complex objects and modeling than a good flight simulator does.
The physics alone in a good flight simulator would kill a FPS game.  Motion, for the most part, in a FPS game is predefined and scripted.  Not so in flight simulators.  Flight simulators work in real-time.
So let's turn the view down to a mile or less in the arena and watch how high your frame rate gets.  Of course you will not be able to shoot down many planes, but the performance would be killer.

Max, there is something eating CPU time up on your system.  My little 800Mzh P3 w/ATI8500 video card runs about what you are claiming yours does.  Give me call.

[doc1kelley]

I believe that HT is running in safe mode.  They are programming the game to be available to those with low to high end computers.  The game is mainly CPU dependant and not GPU dependant and the other high end games are taking advantage of the Graphics Processing Unit instead of the CPU.  I base this upon my last two graphics cards, an ATI radeon 9800 Pro 128 AGP card and my current Geforce 6800GT OC 256 mb card.  I always run optimized drivers and noticed only a small frame rate increase between the two cards.  HT is not only running in "safe mode" but also "smart mode" in a business scense as if they were to take advantage of the GPU, it would shut out those with lesser graphics cards.  The bottom line is they are programming for the middle ground.  This will need to change as older system are upgraded on a large scale.  Then again I've been wrong before and could be wrong this time.   If I'm offbase on this one, my reply is in the words of Emily Letilla, "NEVERMIND".

All the Best...
Jay
awDOC1

[AKDogg]

Skuzzy, I have added a flight sim which was FS2004 which has alot more moving parts on planes then AH, Viewing distance is about same, clouds etc...  As for water effects, look at Silent Hunter 3. The waves and water effects far surpass AH water effects.  I not trying to get into an argument here I just trying to compare graphics to others.  I understand what U saying about FPS games but like I said with FS2004 and Silent Hunter 3.  These games run perfect even with my avg video card with higher graphic settings.

The game has come along way, that I will say but it just seems like were using yesterdays graphics and not todays if U know what I mean.

[hitech]

Doc1: your never mind is correct.

HiTech

[Elfie]

I am running an Athlon 2000XP, 512m ram, FX5700 128m vid card.

Until a few days ago I also had an Audigy sound card in my machine. I pulled the Audigy card out because I heard Sound Blaster and VIA chipsets dont do so well together. I am now running on the onboard AC97 sound. I did see a performance increase, but not as much as I was hoping for.

The large maps like Oz-Kansas, FesterMA, and Trinity are HUGE fr hogs for me. On the other maps (with the exception of Cat 5 furballs) I can maintain an acceptable fr. I have all the detail sliders all the way to the right, and I have other planes skins, plane/vehicle wpn effects off. I also preload textures to system memory.

On the large maps I have to avoid large fights, or stay on the very fringes to avoid watching a *slide show*.

I have tryed running with lower resolutions  in-game. I currently am running the game at 1024x768. Lower resolutions did not improve my fr and in fact, the lower resolutions actually hindered my fr.

I don't have spyware on my machine, I run multiple proggies to ensure this. I also shut down all processes that Windows will allow before playing. I only have 13 processes running when I start the game.

Now I think my only option for better performance is to overclock my cpu, although I am unsure of how to do this.


*edit* last night I also unchecked  Horizons and Mipmapping in the video options. I already had transitions off.

[mason22]

i think what i love most about AHII is the ability to turn off and adjust the eye candy.  

i play on a 1.53mhz AMD with 512 megs of ram GF5700.

average 30fps, 1280x1024, medium/high eye candy.

[Jasta]

I don't play anymore, but I still browse the boards. One thing that very much turned me off about the game was that when I went out and bought Pacific Fighters.

I get 50+ frames in high combat action, low to the ground, in PF, compared to under 20, meybe with 3 or 4 planes in the area, in AHII.

I believe there is something wrong with the way AHII utilizes graphics and CPU power, but I think it can easily be corrected.

[airbumba]

I'm lucky to get in the 20's when planes are around, and in large missions I get 3 . That's 3 frames per mission, one on takeoff, one in the air and one blowing up.....

..I still manage to amuse myself .

 'Framerates?...we don't need no stinking framerates'.


(...hmm maybe i'll make that my sig.)

[WMLute]

I think everybody has missed the point.

DMax is talking about gameplay vs. "eye candy"  Granted, as was suggested, many of the "younger" types equate the two as the same.  It is not.

ALL Dmax (i'll assume here) and myself really WANT would be a smooth game playing experience.  With the current setup, it is far from smooth.  I have the greatest fear (reading the update re. new terrain etc) that with the release of 2.03 AH will become even less stable, and harder to enjoy.  

I have no need to have hirez cockpits with little chigger gauges that my old eyes can't read.  I could care less about (i had a list going, but decided against it) all the other "eye candy" that seems to be the main thrust as of late.

I DO care about a smooth, enjoyable experience in a flight sim.  I wish with all my heart that HT thinks back to the old AirWarrior days, and remembers just what got him addicted to flight sims in the 1st place.  It was never about the graphics, but about smooth gameplay.  I dearly pray, that in future releases, HT moves the focus on to making the "flying/fighting" part of this most excellent sim the main thrust of his attention, and turns away from the dark path of more "eye candy", which is an evil, horrible path to travel.  Granted, there is a happy medium, and that of course can be obtained with some effort, but please, PLEASE HTC move your focus BACK to what made it great in the first place.  Don't tread the path of the heathen IL2 types, or cater to the FPS wanna b's.  Awesome looking trees won't make AH2 a better sim.  Smooth flying, and great fighting will.  Far, FAR better to be the best flight model and smoothest game experience, than the best looking.

[JB88]

Originally posted by Skuzzy
Mwdogg, you cannot compare FPS games to a flight simulator.
FPS games have highly restrictive view distances and far fewer complex objects and modeling than a good flight simulator does.
The physics alone in a good flight simulator would kill a FPS game.  Motion, for the most part, in a FPS game is predefined and scripted.  Not so in flight simulators.  Flight simulators work in real-time.
So let's turn the view down to a mile or less in the arena and watch how high your frame rate gets.  Of course you will not be able to shoot down many planes, but the performance would be killer.

Max, there is something eating CPU time up on your system.  My little 800Mzh P3 w/ATI8500 video card runs about what you are claiming yours does.  Give me call.

skuzzy...why do my FR take a huge dive when i switch to ground view mode as opposed to full view?