Without Antivirus: Running Lean : Questions

[DeltaFox]

Hi,

What is the likelihood of picking up virus/malware crap dropping my antivirus program specific to running without AV to Aces High servers?  Do I also drop its firewall?

I recently built my 1st scratch built PC:  Asus P6T Deluxe V2 motherboard, Intel i7-920 processor, 6 gigs Corsair DD3 memory, did not like the ATI Geforce 5770 card so changed-over to nVidia GTX 260 single card.

In game I sometimes do quite well in wirble and even 2K out; other times as bad as not hitting cons as my 6 year old, Pentium 4 other PC.  Flying dogfitting I still suck just as bad and flying sluggish.  My new PC is dam fast, but not in this game!  I specifically built this thing to play this game with some xtra room so this thing will last a few years, before doing it again.   

I have played around some using my DSL router's DMZ; I think it does help running faster.  Will try dropping the router's firewall.  Current router is 4 years old.  Just got a new one to install from the phone company, still in its box.  My DSL feed is typical 4 stranded phone wire to the router that runs Ethernet wire to the PC.  My download speed is 4Megs per second tops, even with their best purchase plan, which I have.  Their switch is limited to 4 megs per second download speed and they think that is fast enough.  Go figure.  I am locked into their DSL for another year.  TimeWarner's RoadRunner will be next, next year, fiber optic cable 10Megs, their Turbo is 15 megs.

I need to get very lean.   

Early on I lost 4 hardrives to trojans, 4 separate times, and 4 separate times started over from scratch.  I now backup using Noton's backup and also Ghost to a MyBook external hard drive as hopefully better protection.  I have been running Norton 360 Premium for 2 years without incident.  But Norton is a dog!  I know.

I am self taught with PCs, trial and error, approaching age 60.

I am looking for help so I can shoot you guys down better!

Aces High wants to keep me as a customer, I need to do better in game.  Been playing this game I think since 2007.

I will try to figure out a dxdiagnosis drop to here.

Thanks in advance for any help. 

[DeltaFox]

Running Windows 7 Ultimate, 64-bit

Most of build was parts thru NewEgg, trinkets thu BestBuy and Staples.

All new CH products very soon.

[Knite]

DeltaFox,

I haven't read the whole post yet, but wanted to say you do NOT want to run any Windows PC with no firewall (at all) and no anti-virus, ESPECIALLY if you are using Internet Explorer as your primary web browser. Adding your computer to the DMZ is basically removing your router's firewall too. That's very, VERY dangerous. As you are running an i7-920, you should have no problems due to "horsepower" running an anti-virus program and Aces High. I have a much "weaker" processor and generally run with AV installed and on, and my windows firewall off, but do NOT run with my computer on DMZ.


One thing to try, since you stated you are running Win7Ultimate... are you right clicking Aces High and running as administrator? That can make a big difference for some games/programs.


Also... as an addition, what are your graphics settings set to? I'd suggest self shadows set to 512 or 1024. Any higher (with self shadows on and other self shadows on) and you run the risk of running out of video memory, which will severely bog the game down.

[Tigger29]

With that setup, you should easily be able to run Aces High at your monitors native resolution with 1024 Textures (with Hi-res download), all settings MAXED and self shadows at 1024 or less.  Make sure 'other planes shadows' is turned off.  If you're still having performance issues at that point, try turning shadows off completely and see what happens.

Your computer is pretty much 'overkill' for AH, so your bottleneck is going to be either an extremely slow hard drive (doubtful), or a video card that is lacking in memory.  The 260 is better than most people in AH play with, and should hold up on its own just fine, but it may not be able to smoothly support shadows.

If you are running a software firewall, I'd be tempted to just disable it altogether, as the router acts as a hardware firewall and will catch most of the bad stuff that is going to come through.  As far as Norton goes, you can try uninstalling it and see if it affects performance, but when installed, Norton actually modifies some windows files so the only way to get rid of it completely is to format and do a fresh install of windows.

I still think people tend to overact when it comes to Anti-virus/Firewall protection.  As long as you secure your browser (While IE is getting better, I personally still don't trust it.  You CAN uninstall IE from Win7.  I've done that since day 1 and run Firefox), follow safe internet practices (be careful what you download... don't go to questionable websites, especially ADULT or WAREZ websites, avoid P2P), and don't leave your computer on 24/7 that reduces your chances of infection by probably more than 99.9%.

I personally think malware/spyware/adware is a much bigger threat than trojans/viruses these days and this is software that comes 'packaged' with other, sometimes mainstream, software packages.  For example, one of the more common 'free' downloads (I think it's Sun Java but not 100% sure) has a page that shows an End User License Agreement, and underneath it is a checkbox that says "Accept the EULA and install ASK.com Toolbar" that is checked by default.  If you don't take 2 seconds to look at it (most people don't) you'll just hit next and not even notice.  If you DO take the time to look, it makes it look like there is no way to install this without the toolbar, however you CAN uncheck this box and still proceed.

Paying attention to little things like that during software installs will eliminate 90% of these baddies from getting installed.  And before you say anything, I FIRMLY BELIEVE that 90+% of the 'toolbars' out there are Malware in nature.  I have yet to find out that actually does anything beneficial or enables features that you can't get by using one or two clicks elsewhere.  Luckily, Spy/Mal/Adware is usually relatively easy to remove.

Another good practice is to review your list of installed software (add/remove programs) and uninstall anything you don't use, looks suspicious, or that you don't remember installing.

Personally I'll do manual scans with Malwarebytes or Glary Utilities from time to time, and I have Avast (free standard antivirus) running in the background, which I disable prior to flying AcesHigh or MSFlight Simulator and my Win7 installation seems to be running lean and clean.

[gpwurzel]

Deltafox, you definitely do not want to be running in the DMZ fella - as Knite says, thats extremely dangerous (and probably how you picked up your virus's).

You can run your machine lean, one of the processes you can kill will be superfetch (squaddie had issues when this was running). You can also shutdown your av with little risk as your connecting thru to the game.

There are programs out there that will shut down processes and restart them once you have finished. AlacrityPC, Enditall etc - tho I've not used win7 at all.

You can play with most things maxed on the nvidia card - (I use a gts250). I dont have self shadowing on, other planes shadow etc - its a case of turning bits on bit by bit to see how your framerate holds up etc.

hth,

Wurzel

[DeltaFox]

Hi,

I called up the Texas office, spoke to Skuzzy and did a DXDIAG by e-mail to him direct.  I am sure he will help me tweak this thing.

I am setup as administrator but did not know I could run it that way with a check box right clicking Aces High.

A lot I don't know.

Thanks for the answers and the good advice. 

[fbWldcat]

This contains a list of processes you can run to optimize performance
http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,71591.0.html

You absolutely should use an anti-virus. I recommend Kaspersky, it doesn't use up a lot of your Computing power. Very low impact. I'm sure others here can also recommend an anti-virus that works well with AH as well.

[DeltaFox]

The trojan / hard drive corruption was not my new build, not my current setup.

Early on, I meant my old PC when I graduated from WebTV Internet capable to my 1st Internet ready PC in 2004.  WebTV had no hard drive to corrupt and an inexpensive way to do the Internet.  But can't do much with WebTV. 

My 1st PC was a Commodore 64 about 1985.  Bought an IBM 386 used in the early 1990s, but wasn't Internet capable.

I figured just buy stuff and learn trial and error instead of a lot of college courses and a lot of money.

My current build was only about what 4 or 5, 3 credit courses would cost.  And more fun making mistakes learning, yeah right.

LOL

[guncrasher]

Deltafox are you running the test version of AH or the regular version.  lots of use have really low FR with the test version of it, but when we switch to the regular version, FR are at max all the time.  I dont disable my AV or firewall, even when I had Mcaffey I never had to.

semp

[DeltaFox]

Hi,

This is what I am running off the download site:

Current Version : 2.19 Patch 8
Last Updated : June 10, 2010
Size : 180.14MB
   
I run consistently at 60 fpm even in a massive furball.  Experimented changing display frequency and fps changed with it.

I do not know what the test version is, unless you mean the beta.

I read on forums recently, Skuzzy recommended dropping the anti-virus in game.  I will try to find the thread and post it here.  I am not sure when the date of the post was.

I think my issue with sluggishness is my DSL router via Frontiernet.  I am sure I run too many processes also.   

Thanks for the input.

[Chalenge]

You are really killing yourself with Nortons. I suggest your change over to ESET NOD32 as soon as you can.

You are using a router? Use a service like OpenDNS instead of your ISPs lookup service. That way you can lock out 90% of the garbage sites that have trojans. Visit OpenDNS for instructions on how to do that (its free).

Lock down your browsers so they dont bring in infections so easily. Skuzzy has great suggestions for that.

The more you load on your system the more likely you are to get slow downs in AH. Adobe and Corel programs are examples of things that load in license systems and updaters that have a mind of their own (and dont care about your AH session).

Any mobile device that you use with your system (syncs... updates... downloads) will load things that slow you down also. RIM Blackberrys latest update program can and does cause random two minute freeze ups.

Windows is a slave to its sound system (like it or not). Avoid brand "C" and get a great sound card! M-Audio is too much card usually (and doesnt support game environments that I know of). I recommend HT Omega Striker 7.1 card.

Sound devices are from worse to best: Onboard - USB - PCI/PCIe card - Firewire (avoid onboard and USB)

Unfortunately I have not yet found a firewire device that works as well with AH as the HT Omega.

DO NOT leave your wireless router open. Change the default name. Lock it down. Encrypt it. Bury the key.

Turn off all of Windows automatic processes like Update... Backup and Restore... and so on.

[Skuzzy]

As long as you do not have another application open, you can safely shutdown your anti-virus to play Aces High.  Your computer is not going to get a virus through the game.  Leaving any anti-virus running is just asking for troubles.

Trouble comes in many forms and most people will not think they are being caused by anti-virus programs.

Norton/McAfee are the worst anti-virus programs available.  They damage your computer in ways which can only be corrected, by a full wipe and reinstallation of the operating system.

[fbWldcat]

You can turn off Anti-virus when you play the game, like Skuzzy said. But never browse the web especially with IE without it.

[Skuzzy]

You cannot turn off Norton, nor McAfee.  Yes, they have options for it, but those options only shut down the reporting of potential viruses.  It does not stop the scanning from occurring.

[fbWldcat]

I seem to remember somewhere that Norton is a double whammy because you can "turn them off" but the Firewall and scanning still work. I was always wondering about that, thanks Skuz.