I regualarly read the Tech Support and Hardware forums and many of the questions I see that come up are the same ones asked by other people. I think we should create a FAQ file with the answers to the most common issues people have with AH. I'll go ahead and post what I know and others can add to it in the future. (Perhaps HTC can post this information on their web page?
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Q. When I try to play AH I get a blue screen with a strange shape in the corner.
A. The main cause of this problem is an incorrectly selected color depth. If you have a Voodoo card the maximum color depth is 16 bit (High Color). Delete your video.cfg file in your Aces High directory. When you restart AH select no greater than 16 bit color. Other video cards may also have this issue. The solution is the same as above.
Q. I have a GeForce video card and my computer locks up after playing AH for a short time OR My computer intermittently locks up when playing AH and I have a motherboard using an AMD or VIA chipset.
A. If you have an Athlon processor this problem is due to a flaw in AMD's 750 "Irongate" North Bridge chipset. There is currently no fix available, but there is a workaround. First of all, download the newest AGP and IRQ routing drivers from your motherboard supplier. Next, make sure you select AGP 1x as your AGP bus speed.
This problem also occurs in systems using VIA Apollo MVP3 chipsets. The solution in this case is to download the newest AGP driver and IRQ routing drivers from
http://www.viatech.com . In addition you should disable any settings in your bios refering to AGP "Turbo Mode" or VGA Pallet Snooping. Known MB's with this issue include the ASUS K7 and a number of EPOX MBs.
If the above steps do not correct your problem, try searching for a newer bios version for your motherboard.
Q. I keep getting the message "Don't move your controls so rapidly." followed by a complete loss of control. (Stick Spiking)
A. There are a number of causes/solutions to this problem. First, if you have an analog stick, make sure your "pots" are clean. (If you don't know how to clean them, ask on the tech support board.) Next, if you have a version of Direct X older than DX 7.0a, try downloading DX 7.0a from
http://www.microsoft.com/directx . (Note: This version is far superior to either Direct X 6.1 or 7.0. You may notice improved frame rates after downloading this version. Also note: The version on the Windows Update page is NOT Direct X 7.0a, it is Direct X 7.0. This version should be avoided like the plague.) If this doesn't solve your problem, try unchecking "Poll with interupts" in properties for game controllers under the device manager. Others have solved this problem by buying a seperate game port card.
Sidewinder Users (Digital Joystick users): Many soundcard game ports cause stick spiking issues with digital joysticks. (Aureal based soundcards have been known to do this in the past.) If the above steps do not solve your problem, try downloading the newest soundcard drivers and the newest joystick drivers. (Sidewinder drivers are currently at version 3.02.) Some people have also reported that using the USB connection option has solved this problem for them as well. (I am one of them.
) If you STILL are having problems, try calibrating your stick in Windows and then in AH. Also try
slightly turning up the "dampening" slider.
Q. My computer intermittently stutters when playing AH.
A. If you connect with a modem, try removing the connection icon from your taskbar. To do this, uncheck the "Show icon on taskbar" box in your connection settings configuration window. This generally solves the problem. Other causes include: Disk Fragmentation - Defrag Harddrive, Poor video card drivers, and selecting too high a color depth setting - try 16 bit color.
I have encountered this problem on video cards using the ATI Rage Pro chipset. It is a driver issue that has not yet been resolved, and at this time is uncurable. Consider replacing your video card.
Q. My plane seems to be missing pieces!
A. I've seen this problem with ATI Rage 128 chipset cards. (ATI Magnum 128, Xpert 99, Xpert 2000, Xpert 128, All-In-Wonder 128, etc.) It is again a driver issue. Use driver version 4.11.6063 to correct this issue. It is a missing texture bug that has yet to be corrected by ATI.
Q. I keep getting a message saying "Missing Shape NULL."
A. This is again a missing texture bug. I have seen this problem on video cards using the Intel i740 chipset. Driver version 3.02w and a bios update corrected this issue.
Q. I get a message saying "Not receiving updates, switching to TCP."
A. This means that somehow your system is failing to send/receive the standard UDP type packets used by AH. This issue is commonly caused by a firewall. It should not impact your gameplay.
Q. My framerates are poor compared to others. I have a AMD K6 series processor.
A. Unfortunately this is caused by the poor floating point performance of the K6 series of AMD processors. ALL K6 series processors (K63 included) have this problem. All you can do is try making the rest of your system faster and/or getting drivers better optimized for the 3d Now! SMI instruction set. (Voodoo chipset drivers are particularly good for this. Nvidia chipset drivers are particualarly bad for this.)
Other things to try to improve framerates can be found under "How can I improve my framerates."
Q. How can I improve my framerates?
A. There are many ways to improve your framerates and I can't possibly list them all. Here are a few ways to improve system performance that myself and others have reported: Click start - go to run - type "msconfig". Click the startup tab and uncheck any unneccesary programs that run in the background continuously. (One particularly bad resource hogger is "fastfind" included with MS Office Applications. Remove it if you see it.) Anti-Virus programs can also use excess resources, consider checking things such as NAV.exe for Norton Anti-Virus. (Truthfully all that is neccesary for Windows is Explorer and Systray.) You can see what all is running in the background by pressing CNTL-ALT-DELETE
once. Also, try defragmenting your harddrive. Use Direct X 7.0a. Add more RAM to your system, 64MB is really the minimum you should consider having. Upgrade your processor. Get the newest drivers for your video and sound cards. Manually set your virtual memory to a value 1.5 times your system memory. Go to system in the control panel, click the performance tab, click the file system tab, on the pull down menu select "Network Server" (A good idea anyway if you have 64MB of RAM or more.) Buy a better video card. Get a Direct Sound accelerator soundcard versus a soundcard that only supports Direct Sound. Try using a different monitor resolution, some people actually get better framerates at 1024 x 768 versus 800 x 600. (If you have a GeForce card this is partucularly true.)
Q. Are there any methods build into the game to increase framerate?
A. Yes, there are a few. First, push CNTL C to remove ground clutter. (Sheep, Trees, etc.) This is actually a good idea if you are planning on driving a tank. Next, use SHIFT F1 - SHIFT F3 to change the distance at which the terrain graphics appear.
Q. On screen colors look bad.
A. Try increasing color depth to 24 or 32 bit color. (Do NOT attempt this if you have a Voodoo based video card. You should also probably not attempt this if your video card has 8 MB or less video memory.)
Q. Planes jump all over the place (warping) OR I get the message "Host connection lost" frequently. (Also Rubber Bullet problems.)
A. Try downloading a traceroute utility to test your connection speed. (At
www.nessoft.com there is a freeware program called PingPlotter version 1.0. Version 2.0 is shareware.) Trace to
www.hitechcreations.com. Ideally your connection should have no more than 250ms ping times to the HTC server. Also, MAKE SURE there is NO packet loss whatsoever. If you do see packet loss, post your traceroute to the technical support forum and let HTC contact the appropriate networks.
If you have a Dial-Up (Modem) connection, try setting MTU settings. To do this you will have to play around in your registry, for most of us this is NOT a good idea. Fortunately MTU optimizing utilities exist and can be downloaded for free on the Internet. (Make sure you make a backup copy of your registry if you do decide to play with those settings!) If you do choose to change your MTU settings, try calling your ISP and change your MTU settings to match exactly with theirs. Here's one more thing to try:
1.Go to modem settings and select properties. Change your Maximum Speed to the next lowest setting and try it. I've found that 19,500 works the best for me.
2. Next select the Connections tab and click on Port Settings. Reset Recieve and Transmit buffers to low.
3. Next click on Advanced (still on Connections Tab). Uncheck Compress Data under the "Use Error Control" section.
(Contributed by TS)
Q. When I try to play AH, I get a BSOD. "Blue Screen of Death."
A. Usually this is caused by trying to run AH with a version of Direct X older than 6.1. Download 7.0a from
http://www.microsoft.com/directx .
Q. I get poor framerates with my Rage Pro based video card OR The ground looks like snow! (Xpert 98@Play, Xpert@Work, All-In-Wonder PRO, etc.)
A. I've noticed poor framerates with ATI cards using the above chipset. You can generally bet that it is a problem with a poor driver from ATI. The newest version (.2550) has both of the above issues and should not be used. Unfortunately I have not been able to find ANY driver version for these cards that give a framerate higher than 25 fps or so. (The problem has to do with the way in which the video card tries to rendar the propellor. You will see either a huge grey blur ahead of your plane, or a pixelated grey line moving back and forth when in the cockpit view.) Unless ATI releases a newer driver, this problem is uncurable. Note: ATI Rage 128 chipset based cards do not have this issue when using driver version 4.11.6063.
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That's all I can think of for now. Please, anyone who has had a problem not listed above, feel free to add to this list. I'm hoping we can make it easier for people who are having problems to find answers. Also, if you see an error in what I have typed above, let me know.
Hope this helps someone!
[edit: Make a few changes and additions!]
bloom25
THUNDERBIRDS
[This message has been edited by bloom25 (edited 04-11-2000).]
