Aces High Bulletin Board
Help and Support Forums => Technical Support => Topic started by: Darkish on May 04, 2005, 11:57:38 AM
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Are there any ingame settings I can change to help reduce the fps hit caused by burning aircraft. I've tried the level of detail and detail size sliders, texture sizes,
screen resolution, preloading, AA settings all to no avail. Ground smoke is fine; a completely porked base affects fps v little - but a burning plane chops it in half.
p4 3.06, ati 9800 with omega's based on cat 4.12 (latest release made no difference either)
Couple of pics:
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/384_1115224862_1.jpg)
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/384_1115224886_2.jpg)
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My guess is you are overloading the video card's memory. You've probably been playing with the right settings, just not in the right combinations.
Also, I'm not sure how much my advice could help since the only ATI card I ever used was an old Rage Pro 10 years ago. Still, your system should be kickin mine's rear and its not, so maybe something I got can help you.
First of all, basics. Driver install/uninstall. Uninstall your current driver. Completely. Reboot and let Windows detect the card as a generic VGA Compatible. Install your new drivers for the card. Reboot again. Reinstall Direct X just to be safe. Run the Direct X Diagnostic and make sure everything is working properly. I'd use the 4.12 drivers, because I know those are safe. If you want to experiment with newer ones be my guest. Just follow the directions above every time you change drivers to prevent Windows from getting confused.
Go into your BIOS at startup and make sure your AGP Aperture setting is high enough (it normally is by default, and you have a GB of RAM; I doubt this is an issue but it doesnt hurt to check). With a GB of RAM you should be able to set it as high as 512MB. Every system is different on what it likes. They have run so many tests and benchmarks, and no one can come to a really good decision. Best guess for most modern systems is 128MB, but again individual systems seem to sometimes want more or less. Play with it and see what happens. It may be a moot point, you may not even be able to adjust it. Worth a shot though.
Now that you can be sure of your hardware interface being stable, time to play with software. As I said, I'm not real familiar with the ATI interface, so instead of possibly putting my foot in my mouth, I'm going to provide you with some links I have used in the past that helped me setting mine up (most are useful for either ATI or Nvidia).
Nice little tweak utility
http://guru3d.com/rivatuner/
Driver cleaner to prevent any leftovers from gumming up your fresh installs
http://driverheaven.net/cleaner/
The best guides I have ever seen on getting the most out of your stuff are here at Tweakguides.com. I linked directly to the ATI Catalyst tweak guide. Enjoy.
http://www.tweakguides.com/ATICAT_1.html
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The video card is definately over-extended.
Here are some combinations which should work, assuming 1280x1024 or 1280x960 resolutions.
2xAA, 256 maximum texture size, enable skins, no AF
2xAA, 512 maximum textures size, disable skins, no AF
4xAA, 256 maximum texture size, disable skins, no AF
no AA, 512 maximum texture size, enable skins, no AF
With only 128MB of video ram, you will not be able to use the 1024 maximum texture size without the card thrashing.
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:(
After a reformat/reinstall of xp, upgrade to SP2, installation of updated chipset driver and then graphic/soundcard (Audigy 2 ZS) drivers running the game at 600x480 (2xAA) with 128 texture size and everything loaded to card and system memory; I get this - 25 fps
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/384_1115263947_ahss16.gif)
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Just curious, as I'm dumber than a brick sometimes, but what happened to the Video Memory? 389? :confused:
Woof
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You will find most modern day video cards do not perform well when using lower resolutions. ATI cards, in particular, will perform worse at that resolution versus 1280x960 or 1280x1024.
You also do not want to use 128 as the texture size for them. 256 would be fine.
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Skuzzy, not to steal the post or anything but I never got a email on what to do with my settings. I sent U the DXDiag file that u requested but never got an answer back.
BTW skywolf, My video card says its 512meg in game,lol. Every other game says its 256meg.
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That means I did not get the email.
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Then I guess I will resend it when I get home from work.
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I have a 5700VE and I have found that it runs far better in a higher res 1024x768 than in 800x600
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DXdiag sent again to support@hitechcreations.com
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Referring to the 9800 Pro and Cat 4.12s, should the ATI 3D settings for Open GL or D3D be at quality or performance, or seeing we use DirectX it doesn't matter on those two settings?
I vaguely recall a previous post saying slide it to performance.
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Darkish,
I have a 9700 ATI AIW 128. After a clean re format and the newest Omega drivers I get 100+ FPS
I dont like what the SP2 has so I stay with the SP1.
Did you do a Clean re install? Refreash rate at 80hz
I have a 3.06 p4 512 ram
Turn down the AF and AA to about 4x
Make sure you Uninstall the ATI control panel b4 installing the Omega drivers
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You get 100 FPS 200 yds off a heavily smoking bomber? Please post a pic, I need to see.
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Did I say off a smoking bomber? No... I said my FPS were at 100+. It was in reply to your comment that after you did a re format your FPS dropped even further.
Though I'll go offline and get a bomber smoking and see what I get.
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Well, it is the topic of the thread.. as I said in my first post, game runs smooth apart from this one exception; a heavily smoking plane.
What I don't understand is that if I run the game at its lowest settings, surely this eliminates the possibilty of the vid card being thrashed.
I posted the 600x480 only because this was the lowest settings I tried out. I did indeed try ALL settings from this resolution up to 1280x1024 with AAx2, no AF and texture sizes of 128,256 and 512. No joy.
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Originally posted by Elyeh
Did I say off a smoking bomber? No... I said my FPS were at 100+.
I was under the impression that your "real" FPS couldn't be any faster than your monitor's refresh rate. ;)
Woof
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FPS can be higher then refresh rate if you have VSync turn off.
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Darkish,
I understand the topic of the thread...
Looking at your sys specs, which are almost identical to mine,
I really think you should be getting way better FPS than 58 (before you smoke the bomber).
I was using the latest and greatest Catalayst drivers and was getting in the 60's
I then downloaded the newest Omega divers and FPS shot through the roof.
I'm just wondering if you uninstalled the ATI control panel before you installed the omega drivers?
If you didnt, the omega drivers will not work the way they should and cause problems.
I really think with your system and vid card you should have no problems at all. Sounds like the ATI driver is trying to control your omega driver.
when I get home from work I'll duplicate your screenshots and post what I come up with.
Just trying to help
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I appreciate that Elyeh.
I have never installed ATI's control panel, the 9800 was not the generic card that came with this PC. The original drivers (fx5200) have been cleaned out with Driver Cleaner.
However, I did forget to mention that the above screenies were taken on the OzKanzas map, which me for a least, gives me the biggest performance hit.
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Ok I'll load that one up and see what happens
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Using the OzKanzas map, FPS where down a tad but not much.
After getting the bomber smoking, i trailed the bomber to get an FPS avg. Did the same in the beginning.
Now if I can just figure out how to post these screenshots..
Its says under forum rules you may not post attachments.....
How do I change this?
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http://www.sendpix.com/albums/05050711/40v4gun5fu/
Ok here are the screen shots
once you select a pic, click on it and it will open larger