Video Card Settings

[smedddd]

Greetings to all allies and foe's. I'm three years in game now. Bought a new computer this past May with the following:

Asus M2N SLI socket AM2 motherboard / AMD phenom quad core 9550 2.21 Ghz / 500 GIG Maxtor SATA hard drive / 4 Gig OCZ platinum SLI ready dual channel PC 6400 DDR2 800 Mhz memory / 650 watt SLI power supply / two SLI BFGTech BFGE96512GTOCE overclocked 675 Mhz GeForce 9600 GT 512 MB 256 bit GDDR3 PCIE 2.0 X 16 HDCP ready vid-cards hooked together = 1 Gig dedicated memory. I know nothing about what this all means; a trusted friend put it all together for me.

I have turned off all the VISTA programs that Sir Skuzzy recomends in his stickied vista post.

It runs steady 45 (hoard) -60 (solo) FPS across the 3 monitors (matrox) 3840 X 1024 pixels.
I run the in game video settings at 1024 textures / anti aliasing set to "most" / "disable V-synch" is un-checked / max'ed out detail / 4 miles vis selected / all other options selected except the object self shadow, ..........which I just don't like.

I've done searches in these forums, experimented with different settings as listed below; but I'm just not smart enough to figure out the most optimum settings because the descriptive statements for these settings are foreign to me (read: I'm computer stupid)

Any help or good advise would be appreciated greatly:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------break

3D advanced image settings(selected)    or   let 3D application decide    or   use my preference emphasising quality / performance
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------break

Under 3D advanced settings (program-for only aces high which is the only thing I use this computer for)
1) anisotropic filtering: application controlled / off / 2X / 4X / 8X(selected) / 16X
2) anti aliasing gamma correction: on(selected) / off
3) anti aliasing mode: override any application setting(selected) / off / application controlled / enhance application setting
4) anti aliasing setting: 2X / 4X(selected) / 8X / 8XQ / 16X / 16XQ
5) anti aliasing transparancy: off(selected) / multisample / supersample
6) conformal texture clamp: off / use open GL specification / use hardware(selected)
7) error reporting: on / off(selected)
8 ) extension limit: on / off(selected)
9) force mipmaps: none / bilinear(selected) / trilinear
10) max pre-rendered frames: zero through eight (eight selected)
11) multi display/mixed GPU acceleration: single display performance mode / compatability performance mode / mulitple display performance mode(selected) / or    
 single GPU multiple display performance mode
12) texture filtering anisotropic sample optimization: on(selected) / off
13) texture filtering quality: high quality / quality(selected) / performance / high performance
14) threaded optimization: on(selected) / off / auto
15) triple buffering: on / off(selected)
16) texture filtering anisotropic MIP filter optimization: on / off(selected)
17) vertical synch: use 3D application setting(selected) / force on / force off

Do any of you fine gentlemen (or skuzzy -LOL) see anything totally out of whack here???

V/R and <S>, LTARjink  

[The Fugitive]

Check out THIS LINK its a bunch of different people talking about what the optimum setting for video cards in AH might be.

[Chalenge]

Old information Fugitive.

In the new version of AH you are better off setting everything to Application Controlled on the Nvidia control panel and then modify the AH settings until you get optimum performance (and using antialiasing as you like). You can still use the 1024 textures I believe but I never did try your specific video card. For view range you might choose to move the sliders to the right just a tad (on 8800s I had them to the right about 1/16 of the overall range). On shadows you might chose to have them on or off but I cant recommend going above 4096 shadow size. After you get all that set properly try try changing these settings in Nvidia Control Panel (and only these settings) from Application controlled to:

Anisotropic filtering 4x
Antialiasing - Mode - Enhance the application setting
Antialiasing - Setting - SLI 32x
Maximum pre-rendered frames - (0)
Multi-display/mixed-GPU acceleration - Single display performance mode (unless you have multiple displays)
SLI performance mode NVIDIA recommended (SLI)
Texture filtering - Negative LOD bias - Clamp
Texture filtering - Quality - Quality
Vertical sync - Use the 3D application setting

If this doesnt work out for you at least you have notes here in the Technical Support forum as to where you were before you started making changes. These settings work perfectly on a 8800 GT SLI system and a GTX 295 Quad SLI system both.

[smedddd]

TY Sirs. I'm tinkering around with these suggested settings this weekend.
I appreciate the advise. 

V/R,and <S> , LTARjink

[guncrasher]

dont forget to do a system restore point and save a copy of your settings folder in ah, if your anything like me that have a tendency to mess up even the simpler tasks 

semp