8800GT

[MrRiplEy[H]]

I'm 99% sure you don't want the water effect - it's highly disorienting and you won't be able to tell the distance to the sea anymore.

I crashed several times and turned it off.

[Wingnutt]

water effect?

what is that?

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Animated water, it looks more like pink noise instead of water reflection. Probably because it doesn't reflect through a real lightsource like it should.

[Wingnutt]

umm, where is it?  i see no option in game to turn it on or off.

[Halo46]

According to the help section, your video card miust support shaders, which my card supposedly does, to get the option under video settings ingame. It would be a box to check on/off like vehicle and weapon effects. I would like to have the choice rather than the game telling me I can't even decide because it has determined my card doesn't support it. I don't care if I like the effects or not, just want the option. Besides, challenging is fun, make me use instruments more than I do already.

[BaldEagl]

I think they dropped that in the last big terrain change.

[Wingnutt]

I think they dropped that in the last big terrain change.

that makes sense, im runnin the "latest and greatest" so the idea of a game, especially this one, having a feature my card doesn't support seemed a little weird.

[Halo46]

I am not sure, my squaddie says he still has the waves. I don't know.

[araiguma]

I have been having problems with the horizon ground tiles rendering slowly at high altitudes (10,000ft).  It's quite annoying to see ground tiles building in front of me as I fly.  I contacted alienware and asked tech support if I could add more RAM, better RAM, or a new video card to improve my performance and they recomended that I upgrade to an EVGA NVIDIA GEFORCE 8800GT 512MB PCI-E in SLI (2 cards).  They did state that these cards are power hogs but that my 700 watt power supply should be ok.  The tech said that 1200 watt power supplies are becoming more common in high end game machines. 

As far as RAM went he said that a 32-bit OS is not going to be able to use 4GB of RAM and that at the most I would get 2.5GB  of usable RAM if I did upgrade.  Does anyone here use a 64 bit OS and is it worth the upgrade to see any performance improvements?


Processor: Intel® Core(tm) 2 Duo Extreme X6800 2.93GHz 4MB Cache 1066MHz FSB
Operating System (Office software not included): Genuine Windows® XP Professional with Service Pack 2
Chassis: Alienware® P2 Chassis - Saucer Silver
Chassis Upgrades: Alienware® AlienIce(tm) 3.0 Video Cooling - Astral Blue
Power Supply: Alienware® 700 Watt Multi-GPU Approved Power Supply
Motherboard: Alienware® Approved NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI Motherboard
Memory: 2GB DDR2 Performance SDRAM at 800MHz - 2 x 1024MB
System Drive: Single Drive Configuration - 150GB Serial ATA 1.5Gb/s 10,000 RPM w/ NCQ & 16MB Cache
Primary CD ROM/DVD ROM: 16x Dual Layer DVD±R/W Drive
Graphics Processor: Dual 512MB NVIDIA® GeForce(tm) 7950 GT - SLI Enabled
Video Optimizer: AlienAdrenaline: Video Performance Optimizer

[MrRiplEy[H]]

A 32-bit OS can use 4Gb of addressable space of which peripherals typically eat about 500mb. That leaves you with 3.5 gigs of ram which is _more_ than enough for anything you can throw at your computer.

64-bits is nothing but trouble and you will be running 100% 32-bit programs on it. Think about it. Every program you run is still limited by the 32-bit code it has and 2gb maximum memory PER program. So with 3.5 gigs you can run one 32-bit app with every possible bit of memory it can address and then a dozen more smaller programs in the background with the OS.

[BaldEagl]

I'd stay away from a 64 bit O/S.  There are incompatability issues with 32 bit applications, application installers and 32 bit hardware.

Looking at you system specs though, it doesn't look like memory or processing power is your problem.  I'm not sure what it is but you might want to post in the tech support forum.  It could be something as simple as having ground range set.  Try hitting F1 in flight to see if that's it.

[715]

Don't you mean SHIFT F1 ?

[BaldEagl]

Don't you mean SHIFT F1 ?

Yes.  It just goes to show I never use those but I know they exist.

[Mini D]

I'd stay away from a 64 bit O/S.  There are incompatability issues with 32 bit applications, application installers and 32 bit hardware.

As you go to SLI and Firefox configurations, it almost becomes necessary to go with a 64bit OS or limit yourself to 2 gigs of memory.

My experience with 64 bit vista says that most programs will not have a problem with a 64 bit OS. I have yet to have one fail on install. The only game I've had a problem with was ArmA, which had a problem with any system that had more than 3 gig of memory (not necessarily 64bit specific). When it comes to drivers, however, that's a different story. Very few of the wireless and networking companies had stuff on the market to support it. But, I imagine that will get better over time. I still can remember how many 16bit network cards there were when Microsoft introduced XP and the uproar that ensued.

Also, at work, our custom made applications (written by programmers here) are less likely to be compatable. I seriously doubt any company that has any customized software will venture into the vista world anytime soon.

Overall, though, if you want to go with 8gig of memory and SLI or firefox configurations, you don't have a choice.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

As you go to SLI and Firefox configurations, it almost becomes necessary to go with a 64bit OS or limit yourself to 2 gigs of memory.

My experience with 64 bit vista says that most programs will not have a problem with a 64 bit OS. I have yet to have one fail on install. The only game I've had a problem with was ArmA, which had a problem with any system that had more than 3 gig of memory (not necessarily 64bit specific). When it comes to drivers, however, that's a different story. Very few of the wireless and networking companies had stuff on the market to support it. But, I imagine that will get better over time. I still can remember how many 16bit network cards there were when Microsoft introduced XP and the uproar that ensued.

Also, at work, our custom made applications (written by programmers here) are less likely to be compatable. I seriously doubt any company that has any customized software will venture into the vista world anytime soon.

Overall, though, if you want to go with 8gig of memory and SLI or firefox configurations, you don't have a choice.

But where would one need over 2gb on a gaming computer considering current games are predominantly 32-bit?