New to AHIII... cannot start up the app

[Pudgie]

@Pudgie, it says 1920x1080 for both native and current mode in his DxDiag clip.

@Warty, as has been said in several answers, upgrading your GPU should do the trick. And as Coogan said, check if your power supply has the needed connectors. Memory is optional, but it's so inexpensive that 8 GB is recommended. Your specs make me think that the video card is from an older build than the rest of your rig - which by the way is actually better than mine!

As for the blank screens, did you temporarily disable your anti-virus during the installation as I suggested? Avast, AVG, Kaspersky, Norton... Most anti-virus programs tend to treat "lesser known" programs as viruses until specifically told not to. This behaviour goes on and off with the updates, so you never can tell.

Duh...........

Thanks for pointing that out, Biz!
 

Warty,

I looked at your dxdiag again and if I'm right your using a VGA connect to your monitor (output type = HD15), yes?

Does your monitor have the capability to use the more modern connections (DVI, HDMI or DisplayPort)? If not then I would suggest that you consider this as well if your going to look into getting a more modern graphics card as I'm not sure that any of them are putting an analog converter (VGA) onboard these graphics cards anymore.

Skuzzy,

Could this be his issue?

Is anybody running AHIII thru a vid card thru VGA connection to verify this is capable?

 

[Warty]

Hi Pudgie,

I do use the VGA, it's true. From memory there was at least HDMI and DVI. I prefer the VGA with this monitor because the other two produced very "hard" lines. I can't describe it, but the VGA looks better to me. Kind of a pain, because VGA has signal strength issues after a certain length of cable. I am resigned to having to go to HDMI or display port if I upgrade the card though. Not sure the TV has display port, but has lots of HDMI of course.

I dug up the PSU specs, am I right in thinking I'll be ok here as far as PSU? (with those 2 cards I mentioned, or something similarish?):
---
Corsair CMPSU-650TX
TX Series

Details
Type
ATX12V / EPS12V
Maximum Power
650W
Fans
1
PFC
Active
Main Connector
20+4Pin
+12V Rails
Single
PCI-Express Connector
2 x 6+2-Pin
---

My motherboard is only PCI-E v2, not v3, but it seems like that should be ok for me, although not totally ideal. ?

Bizman: I pretty much would just be using this for AHIII, maybe a racing game at some point if I find a ton of extra time (Hey! I can dream). The problem is, I don't know how power hungry AHIII is, compared to all the games I see in the benchmark tests.

[Bizman]

Your psu is capable for most of the cards on the market. Built by Channel Well which means it's not the best nor the worst. Decent quality for a good price. Anyhow, no need to upgrade it as long as it works flawlessly. CMPSU-650TXV2 is built by Seasonic who have an even better reputation.

[Pudgie]

Hi Pudgie,

I do use the VGA, it's true. From memory there was at least HDMI and DVI. I prefer the VGA with this monitor because the other two produced very "hard" lines. I can't describe it, but the VGA looks better to me. Kind of a pain, because VGA has signal strength issues after a certain length of cable. I am resigned to having to go to HDMI or display port if I upgrade the card though. Not sure the TV has display port, but has lots of HDMI of course.

I dug up the PSU specs, am I right in thinking I'll be ok here as far as PSU? (with those 2 cards I mentioned, or something similarish?):
---
Corsair CMPSU-650TX
TX Series

Details
Type
ATX12V / EPS12V
Maximum Power
650W
Fans
1
PFC
Active
Main Connector
20+4Pin
+12V Rails
Single
PCI-Express Connector
2 x 6+2-Pin
---

My motherboard is only PCI-E v2, not v3, but it seems like that should be ok for me, although not totally ideal. ?

Bizman: I pretty much would just be using this for AHIII, maybe a racing game at some point if I find a ton of extra time (Hey! I can dream). The problem is, I don't know how power hungry AHIII is, compared to all the games I see in the benchmark tests.

Warty,

That PSU should be plenty.
Using a PCI-E 3.0 x16 slot spec graphics card in a mobo PCI-E 2.0 x16 slot is not a concern at this time....no noticeable performance hit.
If you have a HDMI cable you might try it to see if AHIII at least will start up w\o creating a white screen and CTD............ If you don't get a white screen by switching to HDMI then this will indicate that the VGA DAC in your 5700 series vid card is going on the fritz.......

As for HDMI up until now all Nvidia graphics cards since the Fermi series have used HDMI 2.0 spec and AMD have used the older HDMI 1.2-1.4 spec. They both do work but from my experience the Nvidia graphics cards have demonstrated better HDMI connectivity w\ fewer issues than the AMD cards have. Since AMD has come out w\ Polaris they have also upgraded the HDMI specs to the latest so this may be a moot point between the 2 going forward.

Hope this helps you out.

 

[Warty]

I switched the monitor connection to HDMI, and disconnected the DVI->VGA set up I had going there (card provided a DVI to VGA dongle adapter). Still get the same thing, blank window, crash to desktop.

I have new memory and Vcard on order, but I'm starting to wonder if that will even make a difference. As in, maybe something is wrong with my system install.

[Warty]

Got it working. So basic, should have thought about it before. When you first run the game, it asks if you want to convert your AH2 settings to AH3. I said yes. I forgot about that. I remember tonight, and reinstalled, and said no. Game starts right up. Now I just have to remap about 160 keys, buttons, and axes (axises? what idiot made this language?!)...

Thanks everyone for help!

err... if any from HTC wants debug info about my settings or anything for future purposes, I still have them...

[Skuzzy]

What is the exact model number of the video card?  I also noted you are running very old audio drivers for your RealTek chip (circa 2010).  Might want to update those.

Regardless.  The game should not be crashing before the splash screen shows.  That usually indicates a resource issue.

It could be a combination of things. Your pagefile usage seems high to me.  With 4GB of system RAM, you need to make sure you are running as clean as possible in terms of background processes.

Then there is the old RealTek driver.  Make sure your speaker configuration in Windows matches what it really is.

Then the video card.  Has enough dedicated video RAM, but not sure of the model.  I assume it is not being overclocked?

[Pudgie]

Got it working. So basic, should have thought about it before. When you first run the game, it asks if you want to convert your AH2 settings to AH3. I said yes. I forgot about that. I remember tonight, and reinstalled, and said no. Game starts right up. Now I just have to remap about 160 keys, buttons, and axes (axises? what idiot made this language?!)...

Thanks everyone for help!

err... if any from HTC wants debug info about my settings or anything for future purposes, I still have them...

Glad you got it sorted out, Warty!

I never would have thought of that 1 either....................

Gonna put that 1 in the bag of tricks to remember.

 
 

[Skuzzy]

If you could zip up that old folder and post it here as an attachment, it would be helpful.

[Pudgie]

Hi Warty,

Just curious, how's that AMD 5750, 5770 vid card doing now w\ AHIII since you got it to work?

[Warty]

Skuzzy: I am attaching my AH2 settings folder. I had another thought: I was using custom sounds in AH2... honestly no idea at all if that would make a difference, but thought I'd mention it.

Pudgie: It's not working great: I flew quite a bit last night, and what my testing revealed is that my plane is always lower, slower, and less agile than everyone else's plane (and yes, I tried all the different planes, sheesh). Plus my bullets are affected, and don't hit anything. I'm like 99% sure that's the graphics card.

Other than that, I'm getting 20-30 FPS in the main arena, with the default graphic settings. Using the DX9 version. I did have to set max texture size to 1024. Everything but gauges was black before I set that. (full story if it matters: ran fine in DX9, so tried DX11, it started fine, but then more and more things go black. After that, even DX9 version was all black. Setting max texture size to 1024 fixed DX9 version. Didn't try DX11 since then). I'm pleasantly surprised. It may not be great, but it's playable. I think that's a nice testament to the balance the guys at HTC achieved. Good choices were made.