Low end computers...My rant.

[Saurdaukar]

EVery time some kid gets one here and says he does not have the money for a subscribstion they get blasted about mowing yards or washing windows.....

A fine point, all things being equal.

[MjTalon]

I have I think 2 p4 chips (2.6ghz+) and a AMD64 4000+ processor laying around.  I am willing to give up 1 of the p4's.

Dogg, Pm sir. And I'm truly Grateful sir. 

[ScatterFire]

how come every other game tries to stay updated... look at eve online, constant graphical updates. what makes AH players so damn poor?..

Not quite.

Remember?  Eve Online just retracted their plans to force everyone to use SM 3.0 with the winter expansion this year.  They are going to "upgrade" to SM 2.0 with the March 10th expansion.

Eve's graphic card requirements are only a little higher than AH2's right now.

By the way, the most prevalent SM 2 cards out there are the very same Intel GMA cards that HiTech mentioned in his post about still supporting, but with poorer appearances.  Same cards Eve's Devs finally realized were very common in not only desktops but many laptops including ones being sold today. Course that doesn't mean they don't suck, but they do represent a large portion of your potential client base.

[1701E]

Dogg, Pm sir. And I'm truly Grateful sir. 

It's people like Dogg that make the world a little nicer.
I am currently scraping together an old AMD Socket 939 PC for someone, shh it's a secret.

[AKDogg]

I still running a 939 processor.  I have a AMD64 4800 X2 with 2 gigs of 3200 DDR ram, 3 HD's (1 is a raptor), Nvidia 9800GTX 512meg and a Audigy 2zs sound card.  I get 60fps 95% of the time.  My game settings are 1440x990 res with 1024 Hires textures, sliders full left, Preload all textures including skins.  I run my video card at 16xAA.  Even when we up during FSO and we have 100+ planes lifting off at same time, My FPS are 45+ with no stutter.  No I don't have the best system but like I stated in another thread, It all how you set the system up that can make all the difference.  I still have a p3 1.13 ghz machine here that will run the game full sliders to left at 1024x768 res with 512 textures and get 40+ fps with lowest maybe 28fps.  No I can't run any AA but it still very playable.  All the info is out there on tweaking your system.  U just have to make the effort to find it, read it, experiment and comeup with the best settings/tweaks for your system.

[MjTalon]

Wonder who's the lucky Lad 1701E. Whoever that person is will be highly pleased.

As for Dogg, couldn't have spoken any better than that sir, as for your systems that's an darn good setup on the P3. 

[Spikes]

I custom built my newest PC, and I can play all the games I have on it. I have my crappy laptop for work related stuff.

[Murdr]

Do we really have to listen to why HTC cant do this to "me" and cant do that to "me" because you wont upgrade your computer.

Not at all.  There's no requirement to read those posts.

It's very amusing how some people think they have a right to dictate the developers priorities just because they don't feel like upgrading their system once every decade.

You know what dictates the developers priorities?  Come on, I know you do    The Market.  I would guess HTC has a pretty good handle on their perspective market.  They would need to since they are not a studio that has a plethora of other in house games to fall back on if they make a bad judgment. 

This topic is petty.

[Wingnutt]

This topic is petty.

[MjTalon]

Not at all.  There's no requirement to read those posts.

You know what dictates the developers priorities?  Come on, I know you do    The Market.  I would guess HTC has a pretty good handle on their perspective market.  They would need to since they are not a studio that has a plethora of other in house games to fall back on if they make a bad judgment. 

This topic is petty.

Thought so from the beginning murdr.

[dunnrite]

About 2 years ago I bought a new computer with plenty of memory, hard drive, blah blah.  Put a higher end video card (factory of course had an onboard) and was doing very well.  Then, lightning hit the tower that my broadband was on.  They tried to fix it for about a week, then decided that they didn't make enough income off the people who were on that tower and decided to decommission it.  That was the only broadband in my area, and still is.  I now play the game with a sprint card, which is only slightly better than dial up.

My point--

Sometimes it is not the CPU one has, but what one has to connect it with HTC.  Should I move?  My kids really like their school and friends, but sometimes eye candy is more important I guess.

[Shuffler]

Well I'm waitINg for Windows 7

Cheers,
gus

It's already out... it's called Vista. They will just be renaming it since Vista has such a bad rep.

[Stratocaster]

My moms old dell from 2000 with an nvidia 5200 and a 2.0 p4 plays ah2 just fine. I built a system a couple of years ago with an amd x2 2.4 2 gigs of ram and an nvideo 7950 gt oc. That played AH maxed out at 60 fps solid wherever. I however recently upgraded to a 9800GT and got 4 gigs of ram. My performance in AH stayed exactly the same but in newer games the difference is amazing.

Well that being said If anyone has a system that could use some ddr2 4200 let me know. I have 4 512mb sticks if anyone can put them to good use.

[FireDrgn]

I am not trying to make anything personal here Firedrgn but my main point is that I havev never read any whines on these boards about the game being too copmicated or anyone ever say that HT needs to keep the game playable to those with lower systems. What I have read were posts that said that is the reason why HT might be keeping some of the asked for features out of the game.

Every single person that has a lower than average computer that I have ever seen respond seems to me to be the type of person that not only appreciates the fact that HT has kept the game playable for them but also would understand if the game ever went beyond what their computer could handle.

HT decides what features they are putting in the game and it sounds as though try to keep a balance between the masses and I personally think they do a good job at that. Look at the new eye candy, that looks freaking awesome, but they also put in a feature that would allow low end users to continue playing as well. To me this is a sign of good business management. You are really playing alow cost game here and in order for HT to continue to do this they will need to keep it playable to as many people as they can and still find a balance of eye candy to keep everyone interested, this is not easy.

Look at it this way, every person that leaves because their system is not up to playing is income lost. To make up for this they would either need to cut back on time spent working on the game, making matters worse or charge each player more and potentially making more leave.

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I appreciate your reply. Im the same way with my computer I wont upgrade mine because of other priority's...  ( wife and four children so i understand that end of it) My main point was.....those that  bring it up every time HTC does something or when someone else post a suggestion or something they would like to see....

Also I would think that YES HTC wants to keep currant customers... In my business it takes 3 dollars a customer to keep one and 68 dollars to get a new customer.

Mabye im just out of touch with reality.. but Is it petty to complain about my frame rates and such not do anything about it. and interject it into conversation all the time.  At the same time hope that HTC gives us more candy....



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[Vudak]

and i have no idea what your talking about!


Would you mind expanding on that?
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I was talking about the way the economy is in the toilet, unemployment lines are starting to stretch, and even once-safe jobs like state employment are getting rocky.  It just seemed like bad timing for your post.

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