vid card upgrade...

[MrRiplEy[H]]

he didn't mention the hardware belonged to the company...my hardware belongs to me, the software is provided by the company so i can do my job from home when called upon to do so.

That's why there's something called 'work laptops'. Only a complete moron of an administrator would let any employee install game/fun/malware applications on anything that's going to be used on the company network.

I've seen a few of these along the lines.. Machine boots up 20 minutes. Slower than a turtle. User has replaced the mouse pointer with an animated kitten.. Mouse pointer regularly flashes as something (!) interrupts the processes.. Browser has at least 4 different extensions, 3 of which are from known malware/adware providers.. and that's just the visible part

[Debrody]

That's why there's something called 'work laptops'. Only a complete moron of an administrator would let any employee install game/fun/malware applications on anything that's going to be used on the company network.

I've seen a few of these along the lines.. Machine boots up 20 minutes. Slower than a turtle. User has replaced the mouse pointer with an animated kitten.. Mouse pointer regularly flashes as something (!) interrupts the processes.. Browser has at least 4 different extensions, 3 of which are from known malware/adware providers.. and that's just the visible part

haha that must be a REALLY old/cheap/both one. Cant even imagine, as the win xp was running fine on my old 200mhz pentium2-based machine  : )

[MrRiplEy[H]]

haha that must be a REALLY old/cheap/both one. Cant even imagine, as the win xp was running fine on my old 200mhz pentium2-based machine  : )

Actually it was a Core2duo 2Gig + 320gig hd laptop running windows XP.

[RTHolmes]

Uhm, looking for excuses to get fired? Installing/playing games on work hardware

Its a company box based at my home, and since I'm the sysadmin and also write our usage policies I dont anticipate too many problems I even paid for the GPU myself, even though the workstation didnt have onboard vid so required a card anyway.

[guncrasher]

What's wrong with playing Aces High at work?  I do.

yeah but that's different you're friends with the boss.  mine hates me .

semp

[gyrene81]

That's why there's something called 'work laptops'. Only a complete moron of an administrator would let any employee install game/fun/malware applications on anything that's going to be used on the company network.

I've seen a few of these along the lines.. Machine boots up 20 minutes. Slower than a turtle. User has replaced the mouse pointer with an animated kitten.. Mouse pointer regularly flashes as something (!) interrupts the processes.. Browser has at least 4 different extensions, 3 of which are from known malware/adware providers.. and that's just the visible part

i'm a systems admin and civ4 works fine on my work laptop. my work linux box has some good games on it too. if i had a work windows desktop, it would have stuff on it as well since i'm the guy who will have to reload it if it craps out.

i've cleaned up many cases of what you describe over the years, from people who made the rules everyone else was supposed to follow...3 or 4 full format 10 hour long, reinstalls and some missing "important" files gets the message across fairly well.

[olds442]

let me ask.. if its a low end why do people claim to play Crisis 2 and/or Black ops with it? those games are far more advanced graphically then AH....just saying.

im aware i have a 6 core CPU, but AH only uses 1 core of it.

i role with AH open, and mozilla with 6 tabs. mozilla takes upa good bit of space no doubt, but why would 5 free cores not be able to handle it?



if i could dedicate AH to a single core and isolate that core for STRICTLY AH i think i would be happening right now until i save up the money for a 6970....

ehh no
i can play black ops with a 60fps rate all maxed out but aces high all maxed i got low-high 30's so black ops is not near aces high grafics becasue of the hugeness of aces high and the tiny little maps of black ops
plus in black ops anything pass  50 feet out side of the "map" is a 2d shape and is a simple painting and has no shadow to it. ace high is not this way.

[MaSonZ]

ehh no
i can play black ops with a 60fps rate all maxed out but aces high all maxed i got low-high 30's so black ops is not near aces high grafics becasue of the hugeness of aces high and the tiny little maps of black ops
plus in black ops anything pass  50 feet out side of the "map" is a 2d shape and is a simple painting and has no shadow to it. ace high is not this way.

really? havent played black ops or Crisis 2 ion the PC, but that is interesting to know.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

ehh no
i can play black ops with a 60fps rate all maxed out but aces high all maxed i got low-high 30's so black ops is not near aces high grafics becasue of the hugeness of aces high and the tiny little maps of black ops

Actually advanced game engines can produce blistering speeds on maps much larger than AH2's. The only issue is most likely that HTC has no resources nor financial reasoning to build such an engine.

I know Skuzzy will most likely jump immediately on the comment. I've seen enough software projects where 1 team says something can't be done while the other team produces the scope needed, and more with ease and performance.

[gyrene81]

Actually advanced game engines can produce blistering speeds on maps much larger than AH2's. The only issue is most likely that HTC has no resources nor financial reasoning to build such an engine.

I know Skuzzy will most likely jump immediately on the comment. I've seen enough software projects where 1 team says something can't be done while the other team produces the scope needed, and more with ease and performance.

there you go again ripley, completely out in left field and the play is at second base. name one game that has a map fully rendered at more than 500 yards.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

there you go again ripley, completely out in left field and the play is at second base. name one game that has a map fully rendered at more than 500 yards.

Are you claiming AH2 renders maps *fully* at more than 500 yards? Every game has LOD levels which hide the smallest details at beyond what can be seen on end-users monitor.

So if AH2 indeed renders all of the area at full detail, that's nothing but poor optimization. IIRC some early versions of AH2 suffered from very poor performance (slideshow) because some ground clutter was rendered to far and beyond and was later optimized.

In fact I know AH2 has strict LOD rules in place. It can be seen with 'detail' sliders in settings and the way that distant aircraft location information is updated in slow intervals.

[Skuzzy]

Actually advanced game engines can produce blistering speeds on maps much larger than AH2's. The only issue is most likely that HTC has no resources nor financial reasoning to build such an engine.

I know Skuzzy will most likely jump immediately on the comment. I've seen enough software projects where 1 team says something can't be done while the other team produces the scope needed, and more with ease and performance.

It is not the size of the map.  It is the view distance.  We are always looking for better technology to make things run better.  No one, we are aware of, has come up with a terrain engine that can handle our view distances without choking most computers.

If you have first hand experience with a terrain engine, which allows a 34 mile (or greater) diameter view distance, without choking on a 2Ghz, dual core CPU with 2GB of RAM and an Intel video chip, please feel free to post it.  We would be happy to look at it.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

It is not the size of the map.  It is the view distance.  We are always looking for better technology to make things run better.  No one, we are aware of, has come up with a terrain engine that can handle our view distances without choking most computers.

If you have first hand experience with a terrain engine, which allows a 34 mile (or greater) diameter view distance, without choking on a 2Ghz, dual core CPU with 2GB of RAM and an Intel video chip, please feel free to post it.  We would be happy to look at it.

Obviously your hardware requirements are very tight. I was thinking something of the likes of frostbite 2 engine but that falls far beyond those specs.

[olds442]

Actually advanced game engines can produce blistering speeds on maps much larger than AH2's. The only issue is most likely that HTC has no resources nor financial reasoning to build such an engine.

I know Skuzzy will most likely jump immediately on the comment. I've seen enough software projects where 1 team says something can't be done while the other team produces the scope needed, and more with ease and performance.

agree with skuzzy says below

It is not the size of the map.  It is the view distance.  We are always looking for better technology to make things run better.  No one, we are aware of, has come up with a terrain engine that can handle our view distances without choking most computers.

If you have first hand experience with a terrain engine, which allows a 34 mile (or greater) diameter view distance, without choking on a 2Ghz, dual core CPU with 2GB of RAM and an Intel video chip, please feel free to post it.  We would be happy to look at it.

now i have modded black ops and i can tell you, they use a VERY VERY VERY basic engine. black ops has bout one or two big maps. and there engine is so basic that they have no building's past a like 1/5 of the map or the game would freeze and you had to CTRL ALT DEL out. after a patch black ops disallowed custom maps because they can be to big...

in aces high we can make our own maps with huge distance,s and in any shape or form.... try that in any other game and prepare for a "(insert game here) .exe has stoped responding.
aces high 2 IMHO is THE best game Ive ever played in term of not only game play but what you can do.

Obviously your hardware requirements are very tight. I was thinking something of the likes of frostbite 2 engine but that falls far beyond those specs.

now idk about the new never before played frostbite two engine. but frostbite one is the same way as black ops or any other game besides aces high for that matter. past a certain point everything is simply 2d shape no shadow just a painting, the best thing about frostbite is that you can simply blow stuff up. not one frostbite 1 game has a 34 mile view all the way around like aces high i think the max was like 26 miles long and only 6 miles wide. this was a modded map that someone made for BC2 and it was the max frostbite would do, and even then it had rendering problems.

aces high has a engine that is advaced in a way that its huge, okish graphics's but a single core CPU and no vid card (my old computer) can run at a solid 30 fps at minum graphics's.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

agree with skuzzy says below now i have modded black ops and i can tell you, they use a VERY VERY VERY basic engine. black ops has bout one or two big maps. and there engine is so basic that they have no building's past a like 1/5 of the map or the game would freeze and you had to CTRL ALT DEL out. after a patch black ops disallowed custom maps because they can be to big...

in aces high we can make our own maps with huge distance,s and in any shape or form.... try that in any other game and prepare for a "(insert game here) .exe has stoped responding.
aces high 2 IMHO is THE best game Ive ever played in term of not only game play but what you can do.
now idk about the new never before played frostbite two engine. but frostbite one is the same way as black ops or any other game besides aces high for that matter. past a certain point everything is simply 2d shape no shadow just a painting, the best thing about frostbite is that you can simply blow stuff up. not one frostbite 1 game has a 34 mile view all the way around like aces high i think the max was like 26 miles long and only 6 miles wide. this was a modded map that someone made for BC2 and it was the max frostbite would do, and even then it had rendering problems.

aces high has a engine that is advaced in a way that its huge, okish graphics's but a single core CPU and no vid card (my old computer) can run at a solid 30 fps at minum graphics's.

FB2 is known for it's ability to run huge maps and long view distances utilizing advanced realtime effects while at it. The developer of black ops may have set limitations on the implementation in order to make the game lighter - it doesn't mean that the engine wouldn't be able to handle it.

Let's take WOT for example - it uses BigWorld engine and is limited to 1kmx1km maps. The BigWorld engine can however handle much larger maps, it was developer decision to limit max map size to 1x1km.