Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: mrniel on October 03, 2004, 10:39:12 AM
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Just upgraded my 9700 to a X800Pro
and every game more than doubled in framerate.
Unfourtunatly I forgot to test AH2 before the change
so this could be bad memory, but it seems that
AH actually run worse with the new card.
Newest drivers installed and DX9c on top.
typical tower 16 in 1024x1280
typical runway 28
P4 2,66 ATI X800
Have anyone experienced dissapointing AH result on this card ?
If I remember correct the 9700 was at least double as fast.
in AH
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AH is very CPU dependant once you get past a Geforce4 Ti 4200 you wont notice a huge benefit from a better video card, and once you pass the 9800 pro level....your 100% CPU bound. Its possible that as the AH2 engine matures you will gain some benifit, but at this time Ive noticed on my two computers that:
AMD 2300+ w/Geforceti4200 is only about 14% slower thatn my
AMD 2500+ barton with 9800 Pro wich typically is about twice as fast in all other 3d games.
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Thanks Alf, Usefull info. Explains perfect what I experienced.
They probably are about equal, and as I not did a test
before the change. I probably was dissapointed because I
was expecting to se a dramatic increase in framerate.
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Originally posted by mrniel
Just upgraded my 9700 to a X800Pro
and every game more than doubled in framerate.
Unfourtunatly I forgot to test AH2 before the change
so this could be bad memory, but it seems that
AH actually run worse with the new card.
Newest drivers installed and DX9c on top.
typical tower 16 in 1024x1280
typical runway 28
P4 2,66 ATI X800
Have anyone experienced dissapointing AH result on this card ?
If I remember correct the 9700 was at least double as fast.
in AH
If it is a 256 MB card - ATI just published a fix for a bug with the 4.9 catalyst software. Something to do with the memory. Can't find the article but you could search the ati website for details - Cat 4.10 is supposed to have a fix also (a patch may be found somewhere on their website
This hotfix was generated for a star wars game but if you have a 256 card - may also affect you..
patch is here http://www.ati.com/support/infobase/4649.html
Here is the inquirer article and a link to the 4.10 beta cats if you're ok with beta software : http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=18763
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Originally posted by mrniel
Thanks Alf, Usefull info. Explains perfect what I experienced.
They probably are about equal, and as I not did a test
before the change. I probably was dissapointed because I
was expecting to se a dramatic increase in framerate.
Be sure to try playing at 1600x1200 with FSAA on full blast. A P2.6 should be just about enough to keep good framerates in 99% of the situations.
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Just FYI... I notice no framerate improvements in AH2 with this patch. YMMV.
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I have an X800Pro at home and it runs AHII beautifully. Pegs the refresh rate of th emonitor at 85, most of the time, and has dropped as low as 45.
I run 1280x1024 with 4X anti-aliasing and max textures set to 256 (leaves enough video ram to run the textures out of video ram).
It plays smoother than any other game I have tried when set like that.
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Originally posted by Skuzzy
I run 1280x1024 with 4X anti-aliasing and max textures set to 256 (leaves enough video ram to run the textures out of video ram).
It plays smoother than any other game I have tried when set like that.
Do you have it set so textures are loaded into vid ram or system ram? Might be a stupid question but I'm an old fart learning new tricks.
I tried these settings selecting vid ram for textures but it seems the textures load slowly at first compaired to using system ram. However, after loading it seems to run good.
I've been running my 3.2g Nwood, 1g pc3200 and Geforce 6800GT at 10x7 res w/o AA and AF on and have had great frames but rather mediocre image quality that I attribute to the lack of AA and AF.
I'll try these new settings tonight under more typical conditions in the MA, my initial testing didn't stress the system enough IMO.
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I have it loading into both system ram and video ram. Yes, it is a bit slower to load to video ram due to the AGP bus not being as fast as system ram.
Do not turn on anisotropic filtering. It will just blur the text in the game.
If you run anti-aliasing, just remember than it requires much more video ram. You must avoid using too much video ram or you will suffer horrible performance problems.
Here is a basic formula for calculating how much video ram your card needs to run at whatever settings you use.
((Horizontal game resolution X Vertical game resolution) X 4 bytes) X Anti-aliasing setting = Video ram used by card to process the frame, in bytes.
For instance, if you run like I have mine:
((1280 X 1024) X 4) X 4 = 20,480 KBytes (20MB)
Now, look at how much video ram the game shows to be used. In my case it is around 80MB. Take the above number and multiply by 2, then add in what is shown to be used in the game.
(20MB X 2) + 80MB = 120MB
Why multiply by two? Video cards keep a frame buffer and a working video frame buffer plus scratch memory for all the work to generate the rendered screen frame. In a worse case scenario, my video card would need 240MB of ram to do everything for every frame.
Doubling the resulting number from above (120MB) and finding it still under the amount of video ram you have simply means you probably will never see a stutter related to the actual video card processing.
With my settings, it would be very difficult to run out of video ram, which helps to insure smooth video motions. Hope that helps.
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Great info, thanks Skuzzy!
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MrMars,
Just installed this card myself and was wondering what kind of frame rates your're getting, as a comparison.
Currently I'm at @60 on Trinity, with no AA or AF, 1024x768@85Hz.
Terrain texture size set to 512.
This figure dips in the tower to 35 sometimes. Definite improvement over previous FX card.
:D
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Holy crap....now I gotta do math to play AH :eek: :eek: :eek:
Thanks SKuzzy!:aok
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Originally posted by CYLONN
MrMars,
Just installed this card myself and was wondering what kind of frame rates your're getting, as a comparison.
Currently I'm at @60 on Trinity, with no AA or AF, 1024x768@85Hz.
Terrain texture size set to 512.
This figure dips in the tower to 35 sometimes. Definite improvement over previous FX card.
:D
I followed Skuzzy's recomendations, texture size at 256, AA 4X, 1280x1024 rez, ticked to load in both vid and system memory.
The image quality is great and frame rate is very good also.
In the tower I get 75-85, monitor refresh at 85hz. With the clipboard up it dips to 59-65, in the cockpit on the runway in full view mode looking forward it's around 64.
Haven't seen a dip below 45fps yet. Time to join a hoard in a vulching session to check out how the card does under stress. < eg >
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Hey Skuzzy,
Can you talk about Texture Size for a moment? I have this vague sense that higher Texture Size settings are supposed to translate into "better" video quality somehow (prettier planes? more lush groundcover?), but after playing with it extensively, I just can't see a difference.
Yes, I can see more memory getting consumed and the FPS changing, but that's it.
So, can you explain what texture size refers to, and maybe tell me what situation has to occur where I could see the difference.
Right now I'm running 512 textures in system memory, and it everything seems OK (You saw my rig at the con, and it didn't look measurably better or worse than anyone else's).
-Llama
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This is a difficult question to answer. Quite a number of variables involved.
Video cards process textures using filtering to get the texture to look right at the given distance from the viewer/camera in a 3D environment.
In other words, unless you are right on top of the texture, you will never see the texture in the original design format as the video card is always scaling/filtering the texture down to fit the given distance.
And that is the rub. The quality of the texture is strictly dependent on the video card's filter algorithm. Most modern day video cards have very good algorithms which do a remarkable job of preserving details as they scale the texture down.
However, with larger textures, you can get more details in the texture, which will survive the filtering process better than a small texture would.
The visual difference, using a modern day video card, between 512 and 1024 is probably very difficult to detect from a distance. At 256, you might be able to tell, but it depends on the distance.
At 10,000 feet, I doubt there is anyway you could tell the difference between 256 and 1024 on the terrain. But in close distances during a dogfight, you probably can discern a difference.
We start with 1024 size textures/bitmaps, so there is a lot of detail that usually will be preserved as the texture is scaled down.
This is all pretty general. It is difficult to be exact as there are a high number of variables involved.
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No way of using mipmaps Skuzzy?
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Iam running at 1600x1200x32 @100hz 4xFSAA 8xAF with Tempral AA on. Vsync On. I get a min of about 52-48 fps and I normally top out at 100fps (due to vsync and temporal AA)
I have a 2.8 ghz p4 ht @800 fsb with 1gb cas2 3200 ddr ram and a aiw 9800pro w 128mb (ddrII)
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Kev, we absolutely use mipmaps, but I am not sure what your inference is. Textures still must be scaled/filtered.
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I dropped my max texture size from 512 to 256. I get screen stutters sometimes now but the texture swapping prolem seems to be gone now. Also, the option to load textures to my vid card is greyed out. Is there anything I can do to be able to select that option?
I'm thinking if I can load textures to my vid card and system ram that might eliminate the texute swapping also. I have anitaliasing off and anisotropic filtering off also.
Win XP Pro
Athlon 2000+
512m ram
Audigy sound
FX5700 LE 128m vid
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Sticky your post Skuzzy. Its a good one.
Most of us dont have a clue what some of those settings are and what combos of them to use.
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No inference Skuzzy, didn't realize you used mipmaps already.
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I think I have absolutely fixed my screen freeze problem by checking "Disable other plane skins". But I'm not sure why this would do the trick - whether or not you have enabled other plane skins, there are STILL some skin textures to load and filter when other planes approach your airspace.
I may be wrong, but I suspect that now all other planes will appear using the game's default 256 skin for that a/c, while only my a/c uses the 1024 custom skin I selected. With 'other plane skins' enabled, the vid card has to load/filter 1024 skins for every plane you encounter, thus the screen freezes when in furballs.
I wonder if there would be a way to use 1024 skins for YOUR plane, but 256 skins for everyone elses? I care about detail on my plane (I want to see the rivet detail/weathering when I look out the canopy) but I also want to see the custom skins on other player's planes. I just don't need the 1024 detail for those planes.
Can anyone confirm my thinking? Apologies if this topic has been discussed before...