Salt101, there is a huge difference in how the game uses the computer between AH2 and the Alpha. If you have a powerful processor, you can get decent frame rates in AH2 with almost any video card. The Alpha uses your video card much, much more. A DxDiag output would help to find the bottleneck in your system.
You have a point in people having problems to play both AH2 and the Alpha. AH has always been playable with quite moderate gaming gear and HiTech is working to continue this trend. However, the truth is that many people don't have the slightest clue about how to read game requirements, nor do they know what their computers are capable to do. Insufficient resources has been the main reason to poor playability asked about on this forum.
The minimum requirements for AH2 can be found here:
http://www.hitechcreations.com/gameinfo/gameinfo-minimumreq. For the Alpha anything will do, even the poorest performers give valuable information about how well the optimization has succeeded. When the Alpha goes to Beta and finally to AH3, the requirements will be published. For what I've learned a couple of decades ago, a game gets truly playable by doubling the recommended requirements. Even then performance issues may occur, mostly because of a weak video card. Their marketing hype is something that makes me grit my teeth!
