Author Topic: AHII Open Beta First Impressions (Read 1123 times)

Tumor · « **on:** October 15, 2003, 09:42:37 PM »

I knew there was a reason I refused to get excited about new eye candy.

Good: Looks pretty

Bad: Lost 20fps on average

Rate vs Wait: 2 out of 10

P.S. But them I'm a "new plane" geek long before "pretty picture" geek.

AHGOD · « **Reply #1 on:** October 16, 2003, 03:39:14 AM »

sucks.

1K0N · « **Reply #2 on:** October 16, 2003, 06:40:31 AM »

Too early to rate an Alpha release...

Twist · « **Reply #3 on:** October 16, 2003, 07:07:49 AM »

I liked what I saw. Definately a different 'feel' to it. The smoke tracers were a nice surprise, as was the base itself where detail is concerned.

Then again, I was using a 2 year old PC with an Athlon 750 on an Asus K7V mobo with 512MB SD133 and an ATI 7500 vid card. Frame rates varied from 9 to 23.

My new system is not finished yet, sitting here next to me waiting for an OS, HD, NIC card and a monitor. Won't be long now.

mora · « **Reply #4 on:** October 16, 2003, 07:50:51 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by 1K0N
Too early to rate an Alpha release...

ditto

LePaul · « **Reply #5 on:** October 16, 2003, 08:48:42 AM »

I think its great they opened up the beta for all to see.

I can only imagine all the broken hearted La7 drivers not able to up their ride (yet)

Its rough, it has some warts....it'll get prettier and evolve into a very cool game. I really liked the feeling of speed as you fly down low near the trees. Very cool.

I really expected HiTech to have an RV be on the plane list!

Eagler · « **Reply #6 on:** October 16, 2003, 08:50:04 AM »

the ground flying by at low levels give a better feeling of speed

the corkscrew tracers - need to get use to them I guess

muckmaw · « **Reply #7 on:** October 16, 2003, 08:56:07 AM »

I liked what I saw....I did not expect a full release..

I don't like the tracers, though. Especially on the M3..they look like something out of a bad cartoon.

The older tracers were better...but this is just beta...and even if the tracers make it into final release, there are greater tragedies in life.

Westy · « **Reply #8 on:** October 16, 2003, 09:20:32 AM »

I like it so far. But I'm not all hoopety-doo excited like I was when I came from stagnant AW to the AH open beta in '99.

I've no idea what the damage model is like yet. A screen shot of a wing damaged looks like AH does now so if thats whats to come then I'm not impressed.

Tracers are ok. The corskscrew looks fine. No idea if it's realistic or not but reports of it occuring with GV guns is wrong imo. I have never seen a tracer corkscrew lin real life with a ground mounted .50 And I never saw it occur in the combat films of ground battles. I hope they change that for GV's. And there are some bugs such as seeing the traces through cockpit framing and other obstructions. And the 190 has all guns firing from the nose nothing from the wing. Bugs I'm sure will be fixed.

I DO like the mouse-view!! A very nice, handy feature when cruising and looking for bogies. Not a lot of help in combat I imagine unless you have a thumb ball on your new fangled HOTAS. And supposedly if you have TrackIR it will really take you to another level of immersion!.

No change or evolution with the icons. Like an Oldsmobile, they're still your fathers icons harking back to AW circa 1995

A MAJOR dissappointement there for me.

No idea if the dweeby auto-flaps are still modelled. No twin engined trainer to try out

Torque seems to be back. (no. not that tail sliding, HO dweeb!

) As was said earlier no more "WEP-it and go!" on take off!

I love the scale-ability of grpahics details However, if you scale your details down enough you can remove the canopy rails and framing. Did that in the 190 anyway. Bad idea IMO. Allows people to fly with a P51D-like bubble canopy and that IMO is wrong. Hopefully this is a bug.

Can't open the canopy to let the morning "breakfast ghost" out.

Overall the graphics are much better. Especially the terrain. The feeling of speed is better and it looks more realistic in comparison to AW, WB's and the current AH. Better. Not dramatically better though. I was hoping for something at least as good as WWIIO terrain is when down low. (WWIIO terrain up high, 3K or so, is bland, repetitious and sucks)

However I say this knowing that this is early beta and that it I expect it to improve and most of the bugs will be fixed. Heck I've experience far fewer bugs than a lot of other testers have already.

Ecliptik · « **Reply #9 on:** October 16, 2003, 10:20:54 AM »

Keep in mind that frame rates are so bad because the rendering code hasn't been optimized yet. Performance on all machines will improve as HTC moves along.

MetaTron · « **Reply #10 on:** October 16, 2003, 10:46:18 AM »

I think the corkscrew tracer effect is actually the appearance of white phospherous ammunition but I dont know any WWII combat veterans readily available to ask about that.

GScholz · « **Reply #11 on:** October 16, 2003, 10:48:33 AM »

The thing with the tracers is that AH uses the same tracers for every plane. In RL there were lots of different tracers used. Different colors, some used smoke (which did corkscrew) others did not. The Germans used the smoke tracers a lot. Il2 got the tracers down pretty good, but AH and prolly AH2 seems to be limited to only one type of tracer. Using smoke tracers on the ground would be pointless, but in the air it aids in determining lead on fast moving targets.

Saurdaukar · « **Reply #12 on:** October 16, 2003, 11:13:41 AM »

Granted its just a Beta, but Im almost ashamed to say that I didnt really like what I saw.

Visuals are only marginally improved, frame rate dropped considerably (new machine being built - fixes that problem), and Ill really be looking forward to Mitsu's first AHII sound pack.

The tracers... dont like them at all. I dont know if the 'swirlly marks' are the final build, but I think unless the IL2 effects can be closely mimiced (sorry), HTC would be better off retaining the straight line smoke trails - the spirals come off as really, really annoying to me in current form. The hit sprites... argh. I was really hoping to see something closer to WB's damage system visually - parts falling off - critical systems 'popping' when hit... not yellow tennis balls.

The 'feel' is not there for me. I feel like Im playing a game, not simulating air combat.

Hopefully the ToD setup will be the savior and help me get more immersed in the game, but I guess I was just expective to see a little bit more than AH with forests in the initial beta. Id be interested to know what features will remain in the official release and which will be 'upgraded.'

Biggles · « **Reply #13 on:** October 16, 2003, 11:45:03 AM »

Working good for me so far. Frame rates lower, but not that bad. They probably average about 38 on my machine. I've seen FR as high as 72 and as low as 19, so far. I can remember back in the days of Fighter Duel (or Net Duel) when I'd get frame rates of about 14, and that was always considered adequate for effective flying. So those who pine for the 80 they're accustomed to should remember that about 50 of that is in an area imperceptable to the human eye. Don't place too much importance on framerate, unless it's low enough to be causing serious (and obvious) problems.

I think AH2 will be great. I think they've done a great job; there's more work to do, and I'm sure all of our feedback will be taken into consideration as things progress.

AlgyFT

hogenbor · « **Reply #14 on:** October 16, 2003, 01:19:33 PM »

Have an Athlon 1800+ 1Gb of RAM and a GeForce 4MX. Should be reasonable.

Not a wizard in the way of optimizing but managed to drop my framerate to 1 when chasing a P-51 drone. Not good.

Any help?