On/offable smoke please

[Tozza]

Unfortunatley not all of us own or can afford
the latest gateway ferrari Pc and have to make do with lower spec machines.

I am one such person but due to a few recent upgrades (mem-vid card) I can get a respectable frame rate.

UNTIL...

I swoop low over a smoking hanger where my frame rate drops to 4 frames per millenium.
Surley it's possible to put a smoke on/off switch in setup.
Perhaps then,less smoke will be seen billowing from the case of my Vic 20


Gotta go-the PC needs more diesel.

Tozza

[SKurj]

Add on/offable smoke Tozza, and then it comes down to why put it in the game at all?
It hits frames so hard for eveyone, it would likely be turned off on 80% of systems used to play the game.
When I say so hard I mean even the best system likely takes a 50% hit in smoke.

Perhaps it is time smoke was revisited by HT though.

SKurj

[Karnak]

I don't want to see an EAW situation where what one person is dealing with the other doesn't have an issue with.

I dive into clouds and smoke to get away sometimes.  That tactic will go out the window if I think there is a good chance that he doesn't even have clouds or smoke turned on.

[Tac]

maybe add the option of the smoke being as it is now or being a solid (no alpha blend effect) black blob with no animation coming from the object?

[Zigrat]

uhm mabye he shoudl just make the smoke look like a thin pillar slanting with the wind coming off something burning instead of that stupid looking big funnel

like

          /   /
         /  /
       / /
       /


rather than

\              /
 \            /
  \          /
   \        /
    \      /
     \    /
      \  /
       \/


which looks pretty gay imo

plus a new thinner scheme would take up less space on the screen,  so itd create less overdraw and be faster

[LePaul]

I have to agree....AcesHigh Smoke should be a commisionable reason for folks to upgrade PCs.  2 video cards, 2 cpus and oodles of ram purchases just to make dealing with it better! <g>

At my specs (p3 550  384mb ram  3dfx v3 3000 agp 16mb) I'm blasted down to 3 FPS when I dive in near smoke.  

[214thCavalier]

The smoke has to stay, how the hell else do you escape the obligatory N1k vulch dweeb hordes, when in deep toejame head for the smoke and a quick break turn when in smoke works wonders.
I dunno when you last saw a building on fire but believe me they belch out real dense smoke, not some wispy thin column.

[hazed-]

to be honest , and i realise it is selfish but my system handles to smoke ok although it hits fps HARD.
on a side note id like to see huge explosions for my bombs like i see on those war films but this would hit slower systems even more wouldnt it  
im sort of caught between greed for MORE eyecandy because my machine can handle it and accepting that others with slower systems must be catered for.

[Minotaur]

Smoke needs to stay or no smoke period.  This can not be user selected.