Uber AH2 PC

[scottydawg]

This is for HTC 'n' Skuzzy.

I know from reading the board that you guys are reluctant to provide advice on PC hardware for the game aside from the minimum requirements, but I think a lot of us would like to know which video cards are better for AH2, when SLI might work, etc., in effect, what would you guys build as an uber PC if you could (actually you probably can ).  I'm sure you guys have dev machines and test boxes, but what's the best combination you've found ingame?

Thanks!

[Krusty]

Good question. Not that I can build anything other than what I have, but it would be nice to know what the HTC "in-house" dev box is.

[Skuzzy]

Aces High II performance is not tied to any specific hardware.  We do not favor anyone.

Our in-house dev systems are pretty low end, actually.  HT has a 2.4Ghz P4 and an ATI 9600XT, and Sudz has a 1.8Ghz P4, and a GeForce Ti4600 card.  I use an 800Mhz P3 with an ATI8500.


SLI has to be done by NVidia.  There is nothing we can do to add support for that.

Dual core AMD CPU's have a problem in XP as Aces High II is one of the few true multi-thread games on the market.  And XP has a bug with multi-threading in DirectX, when using dual core AMD CPU's.  Microsoft does not appear to be in too big a hurry to fix it.

Stay off the bleeding edge and you are less likely to get cut.  Best advice I can give.

[sharp8th]

thats 30x better  then my pc skuzzy

[Skuzzy]

Well, our goal is for the game to run on hardware which is about 5 years old, or so.  All the hardware I listed is 5, or more, years old.

[Brenjen]

I can attest to that "5 year" thing. My Dell Dimension 4300 is going on 6 years old & AHII still runs on it. I upgraded to a 2.8gig P-4 from a 1.8gig & added an Nvidia 6800 video card & a soundblaster audio card and that's it. It will still give frame rates that are barely playable ( low to mid 20's in medium to heavy action )

 My new PC I built myself & will provide the monitors max frame rate of 100FPS almost without fail, if it gets really busy in the MA my frame rates will drop to the high 80's on ground vis. with my detail settings at around 75% & 1024 textures.

 This is what I'm using:

Asus A8N SLI Premium mobo
Athlon64 4000+ san diego (single core)
2gigs of Patriot dual channel memory (2x1gig)
Evga 7900GTX video card
Antec Tru powerII 550 watt P/S
Audigy 2-Z sound card
Windows XP-home
Dell 19" CRT monitor
Saitek X-52 h.o.t.a.s. twisty stick

[humble]

I think the Ti-4600 is one of the best cards ever made. From what I gather from the various threads....CPU 1st, memory second and GPU third as a general rule. All that being said you can get an awful lot out of a well tuned "2nd tier" system.....

[humble]

Originally posted by Brenjen
I can attest to that "5 year" thing. My Dell Dimension 4300 is going on 6 years old & AHII still runs on it. I upgraded to a 2.8gig P-4 from a 1.8gig & added an Nvidia 6800 video card & a soundblaster audio card and that's it. It will still give frame rates that are barely playable ( low to mid 20's in medium to heavy action )

 My new PC I built myself & will provide the monitors max frame rate of 100FPS almost without fail, if it gets really busy in the MA my frame rates will drop to the high 80's on ground vis. with my detail settings at around 75% & 1024 textures.

 This is what I'm using:

Asus A8N SLI Premium mobo
Athlon64 4000+ san diego (single core)
2gigs of Patriot dual channel memory (2x1gig)
Evga 7900GTX video card
Antec Tru powerII 550 watt P/S
Audigy 2-Z sound card
Windows XP-home
Dell 19" CRT monitor
Saitek X-52 h.o.t.a.s. twisty stick

what drivers....

You should beat my compaq pretty easily. I'm running 1024 and all sliders to left with A 7900GT. FR will vary a bit but is usually in the 130's if Vsync is off with a high of 150-180 and lows (ground view burning field etc) in the 85-95 range....unless the ati drivers kick in in which case F/R falls way off...

**at edit**

Run an aquamark benchmark....my box is right at 73000 without overclocking anything...I'd guess you should hit 73500 or even 74000 with the better card faster CPU extra memory...

[Brenjen]

Originally posted by humble
what drivers....

You should beat my compaq pretty easily. I'm running 1024 and all sliders to left with A 7900GT. FR will vary a bit but is usually in the 130's if Vsync is off with a high of 150-180 and lows (ground view burning field etc) in the 85-95 range....unless the ati drivers kick in in which case F/R falls way off...

**at edit**

Run an aquamark benchmark....my box is right at 73000 without overclocking anything...I'd guess you should hit 73500 or even 74000 with the better card faster CPU extra memory...

 I don't really understand the question. I am running the latest drivers. If I had a monitor that could support higher frame rates...I'd have higher frame rates; 100FPS is all my monitor can handle. ( 100MHZ is the max refresh rate )

[humble]

ahhh....so your getting max at V snyc....actual FR is higher....

[Hap]

Originally posted by Skuzzy
Well, our goal is for the game to run on hardware which is about 5 years old, or so.  

Thank-you Skuzzy et al!!  Makes upgrading affordable.  And the "drool factor" that strikes me when i see other folks' rigs has been tempered by your stay off the bleeding edge and you won't get cut

hap

oh, and the box has 2.7 something intel chip, p4g8x asus board, bunch of old ddr (2600?), 5900 nvidia gs card (5800?), and the bus speed of chip and mobo is i think is 400 something.

was pretty cool 3 years ago but now is a yawner spec wise.

i just started playing again and get 75 fps on default vid settings.  i don't get over 100.  that's okay.  my skills are probably about a 50.