Ace's High playability

[ghatfield]

The key to BaldEagl's statement was that 'he keeps a very clean machine'.  With proper resource management computers are capable of much more than most people think.

[Raptor]

Originally posted by kj714
I've seen comments posted about the playability of Aces High and how it's too strong for many older machines.

I have a 3 or 4 year old Dell Dimension 4550, nothing stellar, and I was having issues with screen stutters and freezes. I spent $50 on a graphics card from Ebay, Radeon 9250, mid range at best, probably less, and $100 to upgrade my 512k system mem to 1024k and now it's smooth as silk all issues are gone. Being able to load textures into memory makes a huge diff.

Since my initial $50 graphics card investment, I'm considering upgrading again just to see what I get out of it. I've got all the video options enabled and running at a high resolution.

So my point is, some cheap upgrades to your system will probably cure your ills, no need to get a new system, AH2 is still kind to a wide range of CPU's. If I could only upgrade my ACM and gunnery skills at BestBuy life would be perfect.

I have a Dell Demension 4550 (400mhz) from 2002. I was able to play AH1 fine on it with 128mb RAM and the stock video card. When AH2 came out I upgraded to 384mb RAM and a 128mb GeForce 5200 video card. I used that setup fine since AH2 was released.
However I recently upgraded to 2gb RAM, not due to AH, just because I am going on an overhaul to update my PC instead of buying a completely new one.

[Fulmar]

Originally posted by kj714
Re-read my post Fulmar

I'll work on my skimming next time.

[BaldEagl]

Originally posted by Raptor
I have a Dell Demension 4550 (400mhz) from 2002. I was able to play AH1 fine on it with 128mb RAM and the stock video card. When AH2 came out I upgraded to 384mb RAM and a 128mb GeForce 5200 video card. I used that setup fine since AH2 was released.
However I recently upgraded to 2gb RAM, not due to AH, just because I am going on an overhaul to update my PC instead of buying a completely new one.

You're lucky.  My machine was purchased in (I think) 1999.  

It origionally had 64 meg RAM and a 32 meg NVidea card.  When AHII came out I tried to upgrade to a 128 meg video card but the key slots were reversed on the 4x/8x cards (new) and the 2x/4x cards (what I have) so the biggest card I could get to fit was 64 megs.  I bought that card (NVidea G-Force MX 440) and was still having some fps issues so I upgraded RAM to 512K (the most I heard that Win98 could handle).  That did the trick.

Now, in game, I'm usually using ~50-60% of video memory and ~60-80% of RAM.  Close tolerence.  Not a lot to spare but it seems to work fine.

I have absolutely nothing that the machine doesn't NEED to run running in the background except my wallpaper changer (changes desktop wallpaper on start-up then sits idle) and my software firewall (which I could probably also turn off as I'm behind a router).

The reason I leave the SW firewall on is so that if I pick up adware/spyware that wants to communicate out it's blocked.  I leave all auto-updaters as well as anti-virus/anti-spyware turned off and run them manually once a month.  I've never had an issue there but I'm careful what I D/L or open.

I also run disc clean-up, scandisk and defrag at least monthly as well as manually clean up the temp folder and other areas.

System resources are mostly free (93-98%) at all times.

I also upgraded from a 13 gig HD to dual 120's along the way (actually the drives are bigger but Win98 disc defrag will only recognize drives up to 128 gigs so I placed a 120 gig overlay on them).

About the only thing left that I could do to this machine is to upgrade to WinXP so I could bump RAM to 1 gig but I guess I'll probably just upgrade the whole thing next time I need to.  I just have to figure out how to afford it.

[kj714]

I followed the advice on Blackviper's website, set up a gaming profile and cut out the BS, helped a lot. I'm not a computer wizard but the instructions were easy enough. I think I have about 15 processes running to play. I think I have svchost's that boot for programs I end up shutting down, but I don't know which ones and am skeert to close them.

[kj714]

Also, I maybe could've done better on the mem upgrade, but the guy at Microcenter asked me what front end bus I was running, who the heck knows, so he probably got me some memory that would work, but maybe not the best. I'm pretty happy with my $100 investment though.

My tragedy in all this is that I bid on two x52 systems from ebay, didn't think I would get them, so prematurely ordered an x52 and rudder pedals from newegg. Auctions aren't quite done, but it looks like I will now be the proud owner of 3 x52's, 1 pedals, and the two x45's currently at the house. Will have to invest in more pc's, shades accounts and a better internet pipe into the house to atone for my ebay mistake obviously. I will be my own squad.

[blkmgc]

Originally posted by BaldEagl
and my software firewall (which I could probably also turn off as I'm behind a router).

Software firewalls are a waste of disc space..especially if your behind any current $39 router.

Another good little proggy is End It All. It closes or kills all unnecessary crap running in the background. I use it before any gaming. I also update and run Spybot Search & Destroy and Lavasoft Adaware weekly. One seems to pick up adware/spyware that the other misses. I also defrag weekly because if you do a lot of gaming, you end up auto downloading a ton of stuff.

[TalonX]

Originally posted by kj714
and $100 to upgrade my 512k system mem to 1024k  

Dang someone beat me to it.. I think that MEG of RAM might still be an issue.  

Personally I'd run at least a gig, if not a ter...  

[Sketch]

Originally posted by BaldEagl
I bet I've got the lowest end machine of anyone playing.

I've got a 7-8 year old Dell, Win 98, 600 meg PIII, 64 meg NVidea graphics card and 512K PC100/PC133 SDRAM.

I've got to leave object detail at min but otherwise everything's turned up.  I get 35-40 fps most of the time... not great but not terrible either.  Sometimes I'll dip into the teens but not often.  I also only use default skins.

I do keep a very clean machine though and I think it makes a big difference.

The only time I have trouble is around massive bomber missions where my fps get killed (3-5 fps when there are 5 or more buff flights together).  No real trouble with fire, smoke, clouds or any of the other things I hear affect peoples fps.

  BaldEagl has not seen an update of eyecandy in this game since he first downloaded it.....

[Fulmar]

Originally posted by blkmgc
I also defrag weekly because if you do a lot of gaming, you end up auto downloading a ton of stuff.

If you're installing and unistalling and moving and copying a lot of files every day this is pretty much a waste of time.  It's good to defrag, but once a month is sufficient.

[kj714]

Originally posted by TalonX
Dang someone beat me to it.. I think that MEG of RAM might still be an issue.  

Personally I'd run at least a gig, if not a ter...  

What can I say, I'm an accountant not an IT guy!