Patch 73

[MADe]

See post with a link to the eur2015 terrain.

Is a downloader bug at the moment.

this fixed load of euro map.

Very orange,
hud shows when outside cockpit,
clouds load funny when entering map, 59fps and they load by large areas, stepping across the sky. using +1000mb of vram.

[bustr]

Euro 2015 Staged Missions.

AMD HD6770 1G GDDR5

This card just doesn't have the Band Width or Shaders for clouds at this time.

If your card has 1G or less ram, don't try playing the missions in 4096. It is possible offline and in the other arenas. With clouds and 30 or more drones, it's slide show city. 2048 may even be a stretch.

In 1024 Mode with the defaults all on, the mission flights were very low FPS. Clouds were not worth joining the missions. I finally had to do the following to have playable FPS when not near or in clouds.

I will venture players with Godzilla class graphics cards will be fine no matter what Hitech throws at them. You guys are very fortunate.

Graphics Options Disabled

1. - Environment Map
2. - Other Planes Skins
3. - Ground Clutter
4. - Clutter in flight
5. - Post Lighting

FPS with the above disabled.

Ground - 40's
Flight below clouds 2kft-3kft below layer - 50's-60
Flight in clouds - 16-19
Flight above clouds 2kft-3kft above or away from layer - 50's-60
Tower - 30's
Hanger - 20's

Clouds still have diagonal streaks.

Memory Max usage during session.

Memory detected - 1010Mb
Max used - 616Mb

Fortunately the missions only flew for a moment in clouds. If the combat was in clouds, even with everything disabled and turned down to the minimums, I would not be able to play. I tested that at the HQ on the England side.

I'm not sure if the periodic event of my screen going black was due to a game malfunction or due to the fact the game pushes my card's temp 80-90+ C. I logged graphic card stats to review what happened to the card during bugs and screen malfunctions. Each black screen event was after a 90+C period. Two of them took place in the clouds. AH2 only pushes my graphic card to 75C at the most.

Clouds right now remind me of why Hitech said he wouldn't implement rear view mirrors. At this point I would never follow anyone into clouds, the slide show would make me a sitting duck for a Godzilla class video card.

Note about the AI fighters: Slowing down to force an AI to overshoot will get you rammed and dead from a collision.

[MADe]

went looking for clouds, found none.

New card, sheep map, all settings default but enviro slider at 0. 2048 text selected

using 1GB of vram.
AA is exceptional, will no longer need sweetfx for AA. I mean its GOOD!
fps 59 rock solid, never dropped even when flying thru trees.
shadows exceptional, no flickering just changing with view point change
trees exceptional
entering hangar used to cause fps drop, no more
hud appears outside cockpit view

nothing jittered or jumped, Need to fly a packed arena now to see how all those plane objects from others affect my puter. AH I feel you need to arrange a time where a whole bunch of us can log in and fly close proximity to each other.

how do I find clouds to fly thru?

pics with AA enabled

[715]

AA is exceptional, will no longer need sweetfx for AA. I mean its GOOD!

Are you referring to the in game AA check box available when you don't disable Post Lighting?

[MADe]

Are you referring to the in game AA check box available when you don't disable Post Lighting?

yes
pics AA disabled

my vid card has all AA disabled in profile, strictly games AA, FXAA.

Got a run thru the clouds in sheep map. WOW! Bombers are gonna be able to hide, clouds will force low level bomber runs.

Comment I have is that from a distance the clouds appear like a bag of cotton balls. Flying thru them is like the real thing, close up they are the right stuff.

I lied cloud run was in the flag map not sheep. Sheep map ctd now. Hit the ah3terr file in load and crashed.

[715]

yes
pics AA disabled

my vid card has all AA disabled in profile, strictly games AA, FXAA.

Strange; on my system vid card AA is significantly superior to in game AA.

[Pudgie]

D'ld new eur2015.res file & put in Alpha 3dterr folder...................

Went in Alpha & Europe arena loaded up w/o issue now................

Hopped in a mission but didn't get any action as the others had cleaned up the sky of bogies but I tried to pull my slow Hurri into formation w\ a flight of 6 P51's flying in pairs but I either overshot due to smash or when I barrel rolled to drop some E to mesh the formation started turning & I fell out of pace trying to turn to stay w/ them...............

 

The graphics were clean & beautiful. There's something I've noticed w/ the Alpha when it comes to the game's flight performance vs AHII..............the Alpha handles the FM's IMHO MUCH, MUCH better than AHII does to me. I know that Hitech & crew ain't touched this part of the game code (yet) but it looks & "feels" pretty obvious to me when comparing flying around in both versions.............

I'm guessing this is part of the reward for the Alpha using the Shader 3.x graphics model as more CPU cycles are available to actually run this part of the game coding as opposed to AHII but anyway I'm LIKING that!

 

Now if they say I'm hallucinating then I don't wanna come down off it!!!!!!!!!

 

 

[MADe]

Only reason I prolly even notice is cuz I have been using SweetFX with its AA options. I have been flying AH3 quality look awhile with it.

It may be monitor quality, or vid card quality????????

The new terrain engine really does allow for more interactive objects. ie grass, trees, and the skin detailing for the ground is way better.

I was so impressed, flying thru the clouds, banking left and viewing left. The look of the snow dotted mountain terrain thru the clouds, looking thru a glass effect with the sun going down. IMPRESSIVE! I been flying as a passenger since I was 5. Looked out from plane many times, I'm reminded of that in game now.
Sadly I bet most will turn the new stuff off in order to not get a new vid card and/or better system. Money's tight for most I'll bet.