Author Topic: What do I need for Max. Preformance (Read 392 times)

Digger01 · « **on:** January 27, 2008, 11:27:19 AM »

Hey Guys, I've been enjoying AH for almost a year, I'm running an HP 630 w/intel pentium 4, 3.00 ghz processor, 1.0 GB pc3200 DDR SDRAM , 250 GB harddrive, and a PCI NIVIDA Geforce fx 5500. I have the settings of AH set to 1024, I have no idea if it is actually running at that! I'm not that computer savy, I know a little bit but "alittle bit of knowledge can be dangerous!" I have seen the commercials on the history channel advertising AH and my graphics are far from that, and i have seen clips on youtube of AH and my graphics are ALOT better than that! My system runs fine but i start to warp when more than 20 planes are around me or flying threw heavy fog. With all that said I am going to buy a new computer and i want it all, I want to experiance everything AH has to offer! What am I looking for when shopping? Best Buy has an HP Intel core 2 quad processor Q6600 3GB DDR2 memory, 720 GB hard drive, nvidia GeForce 8500 GT graphics w/256 dedicated graphics memory. will this give me everything aH has to offer? and also I'm looking at a 24" LCD will AH fill the screen? Thanks Guys for all your help!:aok

OOZ662 · « **Reply #1 on:** January 27, 2008, 12:53:10 PM »

AH always fills the screen, but is cropped to do so. Without modification on a widescreen, the top and bottom of the view will be cut off.

Look mostly for CPU power. Graphics are very secondary. I run full graphical settings on a three year old self-build.

Keep your computer clean of spyware and trojans. You could have decent performance on your current system, but by the sounds of your symptoms it's got something bugging it. Lags and warps are easily caused by update programs constantly calling home. Run a program called EasyCleaner (Google it). Under the Startup button, look for anything with "update" in it, or things that don't need to run all the time. Common suspects are Adobe, QuickTime, ect.
Hit ctrl-alt-del. If you're running XP Pro, click Task Manager. If you have more than probably about 21 processes, you have cleaning to do.
If you have an AGP slot, you could put in at least an nVidia 6800 and 1GB of RAM. That would bring your system up to a near exact copy of mine which runs full settings everywhere but the huge furball, an even then gets 35FPS.

Last but most important, never use Vista on a gaming rig. Yes, it will work. Slower. On some machines yes, it will run fast. But slower than it would with XP. Not to mention all the other stuff wrong with it. Retailers are still required to sell XP on systems, but usually you have to order over the phone and specifically ask for it.

Side note: You must download the hires texture pack from the main downloads page to use 1024 graphics. Without it you're running 512, IIRC.

Digger01 · « **Reply #2 on:** January 27, 2008, 01:56:07 PM »

Thanks for the wealth of info you provided, Maybe I'll just keep the system I got now. What does the AGP slot look like? I know i have PCI and not PCI express. My machine already has 1.00 GB DDR SDRAM memory or did you mean something else? And is also 3 yrs old and running XP home. I'm going to try easy cleaner now. thanks for all the help!:D

eagl · « **Reply #3 on:** January 27, 2008, 02:12:29 PM »

I think it all depends on if you have a pci-e slot on your mobo. If you do, then it's an easy upgrade to get a lot better image quality from a new video card. An nvidia 8800Gt would let you get the same or better framerates with a LOT better image quality without getting a better cpu. An extra gig of ram might also help reduce how often the computer accesses the hard drive, although AH works just fine with 1 gig of ram.

If you only have an AGP slot or worse, only regular PCI slots, then you're stuck with a complete system refresh including motherboard and new memory.

An nvidia 5500 series video card is going to be a huge bottleneck. Those cards are very old and weren't very spectacular even when they were new. Lots of people skipped the entire nvidia 5xxx series because they were considered rather craptacular.

The good news is that memory is pretty cheap right now... If you shop around and utilize rebates and stuff, you can get 2 gig of decent DDR2 memory for about $60. The bad news is that by the time you refresh everything, you're gonna spend at least $600 and probably more like $900 like Toad.

Of course, if you go with the upgrade Toad is doing (read his recent thread), you'll have a very nice system that should last quite a while.

eagl · « **Reply #4 on:** January 27, 2008, 02:17:38 PM »

As for that computer at best buy... I think you'd be happier buying a computer from anywhere except one of the big computer/electronics stores. mwave is where Toad is going, and there are plenty of other places to get computers.

That said, the basic specs you quoted will run AH fairly well, however an nvidia 8500 card is definately a "budget" card so it will probably run AH ok but won't run anything else except on the minimum graphics settings. An nvidia 8500 certainly won't give you high FPS in AH if you try to use high graphics settings, high resolution, and FSAA. So from that point of view, no that best buy system won't give you "everything" AH has to offer. You will end up turning down the graphics settings to get good framerates.

For "everything AH has to offer", which in my mind includes the graphics sliders pretty far up, at least 1280x1024 resolution, and some FSAA as well, you'll probably need a really good graphics card like the nvidia 8800GT. But that's just my opinion... I can't stand framerates below 45fps because I can SEE stuttering anywhere below about 60 and that really bugs me. Some people don't mind lower framerates though, so that is completely personal preference.

OOZ662 · « **Reply #5 on:** January 27, 2008, 06:21:59 PM »

If you keep your system clean, AGP will do very fine for Aces High. Hell, CPUs/FSBs are still too slow to keep up with AGP, much less PCI-E.

You know you have an AGP slot if you open the side of the case and look in the bottom left and see that there is a different looking slot (usually a weird brown color) above several uniform looking slots (usually white). If that slot is only about an inch long, you have AGP 1x. If it's almost as long as the others, you have AGP 16x, the standard.

Digger01 · « **Reply #6 on:** January 28, 2008, 05:22:54 PM »

I'm no computer expert but i'd have to say I don't have a AGP, i got 3 PCI slots one bare spot that is maked PCI Express but doesn't have no connector and off to the right and perpendicular I got some empty long slots which i'm assuming is for memory. but nothing above all the PCI's:rolleyes: thanks for anymore advice