Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: Pyro on August 22, 2005, 12:15:40 PM
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This thread is for any discussion about the optimization test and any compatibility problems you may encounter. Please only use the results thread to post your frame-rate test. Any other discussion can go into this thread.
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How do you do the opt test?
Edited, DUH nevermind
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Does the screen resolution and texture size matter?
In P-51D default back view show seat-back only (in whole screen, heh), its correct?
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I asked HT the same question :)
It shouldn't matter as long as you always use the same view for each test.
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I take it that testing is still offline on trinity only?
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hud: You can fly it online. But is hard to do a standard test online.
So for the formal FPS results, the offline trinity test is best.
HiTech
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OK, and do we need to use the AHoptest.exe to open AH if we wish to try it online?
I'm surprised by the leap in my fps in ground vis mode, and would like to see the difference it makes online (where the crappy framerates made things extremely difficult).
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Impressive ground view improovements, good improovements overall.
I noticed that the lighting of object is diffrent with the optimisation, when i switch the op object on the cieling is lighted a bit, i actually like it makes the tower feel more comfortable. Still i think the optimisation shouldnt change the brightness of the objects ?
The handle of the coffee cup gets darker... looks more solid and profiled.
Did you change the light calculations with the optimisation to, or is it another part of new code that gets switched on/off on accidant in the test?
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Schutt: Basic Lighting doesn't change but double sided polies, like the tower ceiling will get lit differently. To not do so would decrease the optimization.
There are other large improvments, like when you are viewing a group of bombers. Also we have changed some shapes to improve things overal, but they are not compatible with the current online version, so they will wait until the real release.
HiTech
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Did the test on my current game PC. Improved FR by average 30%. WOW. WTG! I hope that lasts :). Flying with the Test.exe online in TA, the FR was even higher than offline on trinity. More than double to 130+ *gasp*
Am currently updating my Laptop (had still Vers 2.01). It had difficulties when P38 or Ju88 were in range below d400 (FR down to 2-3). Ill post result on that later.
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Nomde:
Your performance seems odd to me, guessing you are running out of video mem, do you have antialias set to 4x with 1600x1200 per chance, if so tunr antialias off and repost your results.
HiTech
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i have different head positions saved in the "tower" for viewing outside of the windows...
should i go back to the "home" head position for the tests?
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sounds great. you need a 'gud!' at the end of your avatar HT :D
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Great results. I see almost 3x improvement in "ground" view and a nice 20% in regular view. Well done.
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Slight improvement for me (results in results thread )
I am 1280 x 1024 so called quincux AA and performance set to good (as opposed to high) in the Nvidia set up.
I tried it online
noticed cloud (thin cirrus) could dissappear behind the cockpit frame when climbing toward it (not level with it)
I latterly dumped whilst in heavy 5" ack with a funny audible zzzzzzzzt in the earphones
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HT made a new test version that fixes a CTD bug. You can download it at the same link, the file name did not change. You don't need to retest with this version, the performance should not be any different. If you plan on playing online and downloaded the initial version, you'll want to get this one to avoid the CTD bug that he fixed.
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My results showed just how sad my FPS is and how much Im willing to go through just to play my addiction.
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Wow, I had substantial improvement on my system.
From 27fps P51 fwd to 100fps P51 fwd.
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I'd like to help with the test, but I have a problem: the instructions say to check that Vsync is off.... well, I feel very ashamed for this, but I wasn't able to find where to check it. I looked under Video setup in the clipboard at the splash screen, and under Setup --> Video when offline, but I found nothing.... must I disable it in the video card driver setup? Can someone help me?
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Should be in the video card's control panel. For ATI cards it is under the "3D" tab. Not sure where it is for NVidia cards.
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For NVidia cards its under Performance and Quality settings, should be on the list that shows up, its says vertical sync.
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Ok. First of all, thanks for the quick reply, Skuzzy and BlueJ1.
In second place, I'm dumb.
I have a Radeon X850XT, with Catalyst 5.3 installed. This is the Control center, with the 3D voice opened:
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/853_1124752152_accc_i.jpg)
And this are all the options available:
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/853_1124752204_options_i.jpg)
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/853_1124752232_options_ii.jpg)
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/853_1124752268_options_iii.jpg)
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/853_1124752351_options_iv.jpg)
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/853_1124752407_options_v.jpg)
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/853_1124752441_options_vi.jpg)
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/853_1124752501_options_vii.jpg)
What must I do?
Thanks for your patience.
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Overall results are great, but I ran into a problem with custom objects. The trees in the background are clutter and the ones on th beach are stand alone objects but otherwise they're the same objects. This only happens if I start the test version with optimize objects already checked. If I uncheck it then recheck it everything looks normal.
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/154_1124752018_ahss34.jpg)
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/154_1124752085_ahss35.jpg)
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Pyro messed up the 2nd upload this afternoon, optest.zip is now the correct link for redownloading.
HiTech
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Gianlupo:
What must I do?
Where it says 'wait for vertical refresh' slide that to the far right.
Also the 5.8CCCs are out, you might give them a try...
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Thanks for the help, Wotan. :aok
I'll try the 5.8!
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I set the video to SKuzzy's reccommendations:
1280 X 1024
Now I have a couple "anomilies" occuring while running the optest online:
1. When I goto the Hanger, and highlight the ship/field gunner position, I see red and blue shapes instead of the field. I'll get booted if I trry to lower the clipboard.
2. When climbing, the clouds are all distorted until I reach 7.9k alt, then they appear correctly. I took a picture with "alt + s", but when I looked at the bitmap, it only shows a clear sky
:p
3. I'm getting CTD every 30 minutes, and I have the new optest loaded :mad:
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Originally posted by Wotan
Where it says 'wait for vertical refresh' slide that to the far right.
Sorry to bother you again, Wotan, but I want to be sure: if I set the slider to far right, the ccc says it's "always on", on far left, it's "always off"... must I put the slider on far right?
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Originally posted by Nomde
Now I have a couple "anomilies" occuring while running the optest online:
1. When I goto the Hanger, and highlight the ship/field gunner position, I see red and blue shapes instead of the field. I'll get booted if I trry to lower the clipboard.
3. I'm getting CTD every 30 minutes, and I have the new optest loaded :mad:
im in 800x600 got the same thing in the hanger, and I did get a CTD. Clouds were fine here.
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I didn't get AHoptest until about 2200 tonight, which I assume was after everybody'd gone home and thus is the most current version. It worked fine so far except for 1 thing: I get a CTD when I try to select the B24 in the hangar. So far, that's the only ride I've had that problem with, but I've only tried 5 or 6 of them yet.
I'm greatly impressed by the increased performance all around. I've been using 128k textures and other such radically lowballed settings, despite having a 3.4 and a 9800, but my FPS has never been satisfactory since the new trees came out a few versions back (previously it was OK, although I still had to skimp a little on some detail settings). With AHoptest going, however, all is wonderful, even with 1024 textures and nothing preloaded. Damn, I'd forgotten how good this game looks :).
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@ gianlupo: Far left, always off.
Also put the anti alialising and antistrophic filtering to application preference.
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Thanks Schutt! I guessed Wotan made a typo there, so I thought it was better to ask again. And thanks for the further advices!
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CTD here also with the selection of B-24's as well as cloud layer anomolies (clear sky one view, clouds the next).
Else smooth as silk, lovely!
Flying up close to the offline drone B-24 = CTD for me too.
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Originally posted by Gianlupo
Thanks Schutt! I guessed Wotan made a typo there, so I thought it was better to ask again. And thanks for the further advices!
always 'on' means that your frame rate will be limtied to you montors rehresh rate.
Always 'off' means its not...
For the test they want Vsync 'off' so yes move it to the far left...
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cc, Wotan, Thank you again! :aok
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When running the test on my old Notebook i found two anomalies:
The tower roof disappeared in left/right/back view when one or both Opts were checked.
The airfield textures (runway, grass etc) got scambled up, i e my pony was sitting half on grass.
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were do i get the test download??
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CDT was while moving inside 1k of B24 btw/
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Originally posted by Meatwad
How do you do the opt test?
Edited, DUH nevermind
im still waiting to find out how to get it :confused:
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Vaulcan,
Here's the thread, make sure to perform test exactly as stated.
Optest Thread (http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=158310)
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Don't feel bad. The main post stated we could find out where to get it in the "Two Posts" here. Havent seen any discussion on where to get it.
Figures someone just posted it before i replied. never mind :)
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looks like from the results the ATI guys are getting the biggest leaps in FR (for a cursory look at them)
from my results on my old dumb card it did some, but nothing dramatic.
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Originally posted by Gianlupo
cc, Wotan, Thank you again! :aok
NP it was my mistake. I thought they wanted Vsync 'on' rather then 'off'. Thus my mistake...
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using Optest2 today, no CTDs at all even seeing or flying 24s.
port graphics are messed up slightly, and some terrain hills are
inviso/clear graphics but u cant see through them like glass, they are just clear.
whels
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This is from Radeon 9800 pro w/ 2xAA + Temporal & 4x Aniso.
It might be bad luck, but I seem to get worse sorting stuff like this:
(http://users.dedac.com/cregentin/sort.jpg)
Also, here's the cloud problem.
Looking straight:
(http://users.dedac.com/cregentin/goodcloud.jpg)
Lookup up:
(http://users.dedac.com/cregentin/badcloud.jpg)
And some invisible terrain polys. This went away as I climbed:
(http://users.dedac.com/cregentin/terrain.jpg)
Nice frame rate improvement though. Real nice.
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Did some Flightesting offline, everything running smoth, besides CTD while closing on B24. Downloaded AHoptest 2 hours ago, so it should be the latest version.
With AHop turned off i had no problems, With AH op for Objects turned on I get CTD once I am below D600 trying to zoom in. Without zoom i can pass B24 without getting CTD around d400.
Framerate improvement is great though
Specs:
P4 2.6, 1GB Ram, GeForce 6800GT, Sb Audigy2 player.
greets
maik
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Got a crash while returning from alt-tab. Could have been that a '24 flew by me while afk, but I didn't see any in the area. Computer is otherwise a really good alt-tabber.
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Just got CTD midflight. Game running on optest. Pulled up vid settings to see if I had the frame limiter on ingame. Closed clipboard, game crashed. Windows "AHOptest has encountered an error" message pops up.
This a common occurance for anyone?
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Same thing happened to me trying to shoot the B-24 down. got discoed out of game
Didnt really see major improvement with my dinasour pc, but any improvement is appreciated:aok
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New optest version released this afternoon. Should fix the B24 CTD bug, along with a couple others. See HT's post in this forum.
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Just played using optest v3 online for an hour and had no CTD problem and a substantial increase in frame rates in furballs. WTG HTC:aok
Cheers,
asw
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Anyone else getting little micro lockups or is it just me?:confused:
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While I noticed slight frame rate increases across the board, mostly in the ground vis mode, I didnt see any of the big jumps the other guys did. I did notice that when I'd first start with the optimized version, frame rates in the tower would be up in the hundreds, but if I let it sit for about 30 seconds they would drop suddenly down into the 80s and stay there. Was also a rather wide variation in fps from the forward tower view, as much as 10 fps up and down (depending on how many planes were in view, how many guns firing, etc). Not so much in ground vis mode.
This was with OpTest3
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My framerates doubled with optest 2. Lost udp session once on MA which is rare to me.
But the most notable thing was that as long as I flew optest version I didn't land more than 1-2 kills in 10 sorties. Died 8 out of 10.
When I returned to old version with half the framerates, I landed 13 kills in two consecutive flights before logging off for the night. Seems a bit strange, the situation was normal furballing in both cases.
I have a suspicion that the optest somehow changed my gameplay. Call me crazy but with optest I died over double the amount from normal and my k/d rate took a hit of 2 in one day.
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I run a 512mb ram pc, 1.8mhz celery, GeForce3 Ti200 64mb and usually pull 40/60 FPS in flight, 20/40 shift-f4, map dependant.
My texture is set to 256, res 1024x768
Should I consider upping to 512 or should I just run Optest at my current settings?
Smiggs.
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Given the amount of RAM in the computer and the amount of RAM on the video card, you probably should not go beyond 256 maximum texture size.
You can always try it if you want to see what will happen.
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Forgot to mention in my test I was running a max texture size of 512. At work now so I cant test it, but do you think I'd see a big jump if I went down to 256? I've tried it before in normal gameplay and never seen a difference.
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I haven’t had a chance to run the Optest, but I did run it on line last night.
3200+ Athlon, 512MB RAM, ATI X700 Video card 256 MB RAM, 1600X1200 resolution with 1024 textures.
Here is what I noticed.
Much better FPS all around.
I had a couple of micro stops where the screen froze for a split second, but only a couple.
I only had one sortie, 3 kills. I would have to say that my guns (109F4) seemed to be much more destructive, but that is only 3 kills.
I am off to work the Alaskan bush until Saturday, I may get to run the test after that.
All in all, it seems quite a nice improvement, thank you for the effort :aok :aok
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Having tested both of my computers and then comparing the results to all of the other posts, one thing becomes very apparent:
The fps is almost wholly independent of the graphics card!
The screen resolution and texture size being used has a noticable impact, but the fps almost always scales directly with CPU power.
The 9800 Pro is roughly half the card that the X800XL is, yet PCs with equivalent CPUs typically showed at most a 25% difference when using these two cards. Whereas two PCs with the same exact video card (9800 Pro for instance) had very different scores depending on their CPU.
Either way, the FPS increased dramatically on both my machines. Max quality is more than playable on my high end machine while the low end one can play more than acceptably at default in-game settings while maintaining my preference for 1600x1200x32 with max ATi quality settings. I am very happy with these results :)
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Was flying OP3 last night in the MA...noted a problem in the hanger if a shore battery/manned ack was selected...you could not select which gun you wanted because of some polygon stuff going on.
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mild improvement, 39-41 to 49-51 (offline)
but i didnt run follow the testing guidelines, so anything i report would be useless, made so even more by the fact my video card has a reported 0 ram...
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I tried Optest3 tonight.
PC- AMD Athlon XP 2500+
RAM 512 MB
Vid RADEOM 9200 , 128 MB
My frame rates dropped way down, 1 - 9 FPS. I shut it down, then went back and started AH normaly. My frame rates seemed to be normal, but everything seems to be moving in double speed.
I re-booted, and I get the same thing. It seems to start ok, but when I try to fly, about half way down the runway, it kicks into double speed.
Any way I can un-install this so I can get it back to normal?
Gunner
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>>My frame rates dropped way down, 1 - 9 FPS. I shut it down, then went back and started AH normaly. My frame rates seemed to be normal, but everything seems to be moving in double speed.
<<
Offline or online?
Offline, the fast speed bug is well ducumented but hardly ever discussed. It a matter of a buffer over running when preloading textures (my guess). It has nothing to do with op test but I can see how that could make you look like you're getting a frame decrease ( during the double speed bug frame rates appear to drop). Disable preloading of Textures and HT adress this bug.
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Has anyone ran any stats on the animated water and the Op test?
I was in the MA last night flying a patrol looking for enemy CVs. I was at 10-15k and only water in sight. My FPS was about 18-24 with animated water. When I shut animated water of my fps was 69-85.
Are there any optimizations done at all to animated water? Doesnt feel like it in fact it actually feels like Ive taken a performance hit on animated water as I usually dont go below 25 fps when out over water.
Im running on a 2GHz 512 ram system with a 9600XT 256MB card.
Also skuzzy with that system would you preload in vid mem or in sys mem?
Tex
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Here's the results of the test collated by video memory.
Observations:
1) GeForce 6600-68-- 256 meg look like the sweet spot for AH right no.
2) GeForce FX with 256 meg will probably not deliver the speed you thought.
3) It's worth tinkering with drivers and settings. You can get a big increase in fps. Radeons are especially sensitive to drivers.
4) I would shoot for 50 frames to play AH.
32 meg
P51d fwd 19 19 24 25 Video: GF2 MX400 AGP, Mem 32 MB
64 meg
P51d fwd 30 30 40 42 Video: GF2 Ti AGP, Mem 64 MB
P51d fwd 25 28 33 35 Video: GeForce2 GTS/GeForce2 Pro 64 meg
P51D Fwd 18 19 23 23 Graphic Card: NVIDIA GeFORCE3 TI 500
P51D Fwd 27 27 33 32 GFX Card: GeForce3 Ti200
P51d fwd 7 6 8 8 Video: GeForce4 MX 420 63.5 MB
P51d fwd 22 21 27 28 Video: GF4 MX440 AGP, Mem 64 MB
P51D Fwd 42 42 56 56 Card: GeForce4 mx440 64 mb
P51D Fwd 28 29 33 35 Graphic Card Nvidia GeForce MX/MX400 64mb
P51D Fwd 8 16 21 25 Chip type: RS200M AGP
128 meg
P51d fwd 28 28 28 28 Video: Nvidia MX 4000, Mem 128 MB
P51d fwd 33 34 38 41 Video: Nvidia MX 4000, Mem 128 MB
P51D Fwd 42 42 46 50 Graphic Card GeForce 4 TI4600 Card Memory 128mb.
P51D FWD 25 36 42 44 Graphic Card: GF4 Ti4600 Card Memory: 128 mb
P51d fwd 18 19 28 29 Video: GF FX 5200, Mem 128 MB
P51D Fwd 11 17 22 23 Video: G3Force FX 5900XT, Mem 128.0 MB
P51D FWD 42 43 60 64 Graphic Card: Gforce FX 5900 XT
P51D Fwd 42 44 53 54 Graphic Card: NVIDIA GeFORCE4 TI 4800 128MB
P51D Fwd 46 46 50 53 Video Card: FX 5900U 128MB
P51d fwd 43 44 56 62 Grahpic ATI 9600 XT AGP Mem 128 meg.
P51d fwd 54 58 72 71 Grahpic: ATI Radeon 9600 XT AGP, Mem: 128 MB
P51d fwd 38 40 48 55 Video: Radeon 9600XT Mem: 128meg
P51d fwd 24 16 32 33 Video: Radeon 9600
P51d fwd 38 42 53 56 Grahpic RADEON 9700 PRO AGP Mem 128 meg.
P51d fwd 45 45 58 60 Grahpic RADEON 9700 PRO AGP Mem 128 meg.
P51d fwd 46 47 59 60 Grahpic nVidia 6800 AGP Mem 128 meg.
P51d fwd 34 35 42 43 NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4800 128 MB
P51d fwd 45 46 65 68 Video: Radeon 9800 AGP, Mem 128 MB
P51D Fwd 54 37 46 47 Graphics: Radeon 9800 Pro AGP, Mem:128 MB
P51D Fwd 54 55 71 74 Graphics: Radeon 9800 Pro AGP, Mem:128 MB
P51D Fwd 40 51 63 67 Graphics: ati radeon 9800 AGP 128Mb
P51d fwd 35 36 45 48 Graphic ATI 9800 Pro AGP Mem 128 Mb
P51d fwd 51 51 74 79 Grahpic Radeon 9800 Pro AGP Mem 128 meg
P51D Fwd 36 40 49 50 graphic gard Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb
P51d fwd 26 51 61 62 Graphic: GeForce FX5200 AGP Mem: 128 meg
P51D Fwd 28 27 32 33 Graphic Card - NVidia GEForce FX5200 Card Memory - 128MB
P51d fwd 17 17 24 17 Video: ATI 8500 AGP, Mem 128MB
256 meg
P51d fwd 32 36 46 48 Grahpic Nvidia FX5200 AGP Mem 256 meg.
P51D Fwd 24 20 25 27 Graphic Card NVidia_5500 256
P51d fwd 32 32 33 33 Graphic NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600 AGP Mem 255 meg.
P51d fwd 34 34 36 36 Graphic NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600 AGP Mem 255 meg.
P51d fwd 19 22 24 28 Graphic Card Fx5700LE Mem 256
P51, Ful 45 51 67 71 Graphic Card: nVidia GeForce FX5900 Ultra
P51D Fwd 25 30 51 42 Graphic Card GeForce FX 5900 Ultra Card Memory 256.
P51d fwd 62 65 84 88 Video: GeForce 6600, Mem 256,0 MB
P51d fwd 52 53 72 75 Graphic GeForce 6600 PCI-E Mem 256 Mb
P51d fwd 62 65 79 81 Graphic GeForce 6800 Ultra PCI-E Mem 256 Mb
P51D Fwd 58 60 71 100 Graphic Card GF 6800 Card Memory 256 MB.
P51D fwd 72 80 99 102 Graphics Card - GeForce 6800 GT
P51D Fwd 44 46 55 58 Graphic Card GF 6800GT Card Memory 256 MB.
P51D Fwd 36 58 70 74 RADEON 9550 (Omega 2.6.53)
P51D Fwd 53 55 70 73 ATI RADEON 9600 Series AGP (0x4150)
P51D Fwd 39 57 57 57 Graphic Card: Mobility Radeon 9800 AGP laptop) 256MB
P51D Fwd 45 47 65 68 Graphic Card RADEON X800 Pro AGP Card Memory 256.
P51d fwd 86 84 108 114 ATI X800PRO agp 256 mb
P51D Fwd 57 57 72 76 Graphic: Radeon X800PRO AGP 256
P51D Fwd 59 59 63 63 Graphics: Radeon X800XL AGP, Mem:256 MB
P51d fwd 64 65 96 99 Grahpic ATI X800XL PCI-E Mem 256 MB
P51d fwd 59 60 87 90 Gpu: ATI Radeon X850XT, PCI Express, 256 Mb GDDR 3
P51D Fwd 61 60 78 81 Graphic: Radeon X850PRO PCI-E 256
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I tried opt yesterday for the 1st time. Frame rates increased by 30%-50% across the board.
I quit AH because my computer couldn't handle it anymore, but this improvement might just push preformance into playability! frame rates did not fall below 20 fps offline. I need to start some fires and smoke to simulate better the online enviroment.
PIII - 1GHz
512 mb RAM
Nvidia FX5200 128 mb, latest omega drivers
textures 256
res 1024x728
Bozon
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Notice in that list sorted by video RAM that some very high end 256MB cards get the same frame rates as some of the Radeon 9800 Pro entries. Include the CPU power in that list, and sort by frame rates rather than video RAM and you will see a very strong trend. PCs with Athon 64 CPUs at 3500-3800 are one class, slower Athlon 64 CPUs, Pentium 4s at 3GHz+, and Athlon XP 3200s are the next class, and so on.
If my 939 motherboard supported AGP, I am sure my Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB would score in the high 70s or low 80s like some others with high end CPUs which isn't bad considering the best setups barely break 100. The only problem that the video RAM causes is the limit of using 512MB textures, other than that, its settings were identical for this optest3 (FSAAx4, AFx16, 1600x1200x32). It scored a playable 46 compared to my new PC's 99.
So, the moral of the story is get a fast CPU with at least 1GB of fast system RAM if you want good AH performance.
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Aside from a good jump in FR so far i've seen the manned ack bug in the hanger and also all the P38's have no props or cones in the hanger. Must be the new jet powered P38's :) looks like air intakes now.
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The problem with clouds flashing out still happens, though it seems in a much narrower window.
Also, I'm having some wierd problem with frame rate. Despite the frame rate being indicated at being pegged at refresh (72fps), view panning is choppy, as though my frame rate is much lower - and temporal AA won't kick in, so the the vid card agrees with me that it's not running over 60. This was plauging me pretty regularly, even at 10k+ alt. Is there some piece of work being done every four frame now or something?
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Thanks BTW!
Gunner
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Here is a chart ranking everyones entries by FPS. I also provided a column to show approximate CPU in equivalent P4 clock cycles to help make comparisons. Keep in mind, different people run at different resolutions and image quality settings such as FSAA and AF. Notice how the results are largely independent of the video cards!
Near the bottom, at 30 FPS you will see my 9800 Pro which is being bottlenecked by a 1.2GHz P3T and running at 1600x1200x32 with FSAAx4 and AFx16.
Near the top, at 81 FPS you will see a different 9800 Pro which is enjoying the benefits of a 3.0GHz P4. I don't know what screen resolution or image quality settings are being used.
At 99 FPS, you will see that my X800XL is doing pretty good for an underclocked "budget" version of the X800. Obviously it is the CPU that is pulling the weight.
Most people are running at 1280x1024 and little or no FSAA, which puts both of my scores at a disadvantage.
(http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/3016/ah2fpsvscpu4sf.jpg)
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Very cool to see the results in a chart like that, but your conclusions are a little bit of a stretch of the data supplied. I'm guessing that the FPS listed are more a function of what FPS people choose to play the game at. If you bumped your 9800 Pro down to 1280x960 no AA or AF, I expect your PIII would do quite a bit better than 30fps. It'd be cool to try this out for a real data point.
For instance, Athlon XPs between 1.8 and 2.2 Ghz (a 22% clock bump) range from 33fps to 73fps (121% fps bump).
Guys who shell out for new CPU/motherboard/memory setups also shell out for big video cards, and use setups that are optimized for high frame rate. I think these results are an indicator of psychology, not technology.
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My frame rates jumped up by 33.6% on the deck while over a heavy forest area. Over all the game flies much smoother, and best of all, no last second pop up trees. :)
Pentium III 2.0 Ghz
1 Meg Ram
ATI 9600XT with 256 Vid Ram
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In addition to P-38s having no props in the hanger, there aren't any rockets, just the word stenciled.
ack-ack
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Interesting chart streakeagle. I see my setup ranked 73rd out of 78, that sucks! I am doubling my RAM soon, but I believe it’s my video card that’s the problem, I’ve wanted to replace it for a while. I will show your chart to my wife, thanks.
AKQwik
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Not quite right streakeagle. The CPU is always important, but you will find those with high end video cards using higher resolutions with AA and AF, which mask the overall potential gains from this test.
Without knowing what those settings are, you cannot really get an idea of how much more the video card is important in this test.
Take a look at this example.
1280x1024 = 1,310,720 pixel per frame
1024x768 = 786,432 pixels per frame
Now, let's take a look at one of the low end video cards numbers, using the ground vis. An FX5200 ran it from 23 to 50 frame rate. On the surface it indicates a 54% increase in performance.
But the real performance gains could be turned into a pixel per second number. At 23 FPS and 1024x768 resolution, that would be 18,087,936 pixels per second. At 50 FPS it would be 39,321,600 pixels per second. I happen to know this particular system was running at this resolution.
Now, let's take an FX6600. It ran from 31 to 75 FPS, a 59% gain in performance. It happens to be running at 1280x1024. At 31 FPS that would be 40,632,320 pixels per second. At 75 FPS, it would be 98,304,000 per second.
What do these systems have in common? Both are 3.2Ghz Pentium 4's with 1GB of PC3200 RAM.
FX5200: 23FPS/18,087,936 PPS to 50FPS/39,321,600 PPS.
FX6600: 31FPS/40,632,320 PPS to 75FPS/98,304,000 PPS.
Now if you look strictly at frame rate gains, the FX6600 gained 16% over the FX5200 at the low end. Looking at the PPS gains show a very different number. A 56% gain over the FX5200 at the low end, and a 60% PPS gain at the high end.
Bottomline, you cannot do a proper comparison using only frame rates. Pixel rates are more important. And I have not attemtped to factor in the AA or AF impact either.
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My test was with 4xAA temporal at 1280x1024x32 bit color. I probably over the 100 mil mark in pixel rate,lol.
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I will post a graph of the above chart and you can draw your own conclusions. I cannot compensate for variations in resolution and quality settings, but most that bothered to post their settings in the mid range and higher computers listed a resolution of 1280x1024... presumably to match their LCDs?
If you group results by video card, the numbers are all over the place, grouped by FPS, it almost looks like they are grouped by CPU clock. I am positive this is not a coincidence. Put the best video card in the worst pc and play AH2... you will get low fps no matter what resolution or quality settings you use. Put the worst video card in the best pc and play AH2... if you drop your resolution and/or quality settings low enough, you will get playable frame rates. If you take a medium video card like the 6600GT, it scales with the CPU clock.
Some games tend to be GPU limited. Others CPU limited. Based on my own experience with 5 computers in my home and 1 laptop from work, AH2 has a very strong lean toward the latter.
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It depends on the combination. Some systems are CPU limited, some will be GPU limited.
The 3.2Ghz P4 will be very GPU limited with an FX5200 card, but this flips when you install,say an ATI850XTPE or NVidia 7800. This is why people with higher end cards put more stress on the video card by upping the AA and AF levels.
A simplistic comparion of just FPS is really not a good indicator of where the performance bottlenecks are.
Note, I am not saying AHII does not depend on a fast CPU. The faster the better. But, overall performance of a good CPU can be strangled by a slow video card.
The only reason I am bring this up is you made a very pointed statement which can be read as the video card does not matter to AHII. Nothing could be further from the truth, especially as we go forward.
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I ran the OpTest and saw pretty dramatic results.
The only gripe I had was when I went into a Field gun, the screen was filled with green. It was as if the feild gun icon was extra large. If there were more than one gun available, you couldn't destinguish which gun was selected. (If that makes any sense at all). I also notice when taking off from an airfield there was a base of a field ack on the runway. It wasn't solid so i didn't hit or crash, but it was a little strange seeing a feild ack in the middle of the runway.
Don't know if anyone else has seen this or not.
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Yeah ,I have seen the field gun in middle of runway. It disappears when you get close to it while trying to land.
As for the field gun in hanger you can pick which 1 you want just click around for awhile till you see it turn green. Thats what I did and had no problems.
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And to add to Skuzzy's comments streakeagle, another bottleneck these days are soundcards.
If you're running an old 16bit or an on-board soundcard (soundcard that is built into the motherboard), you will have problems playing Aces High or other hi-end sims.
I found that I had slowdowns that was directly related to explosions, especially when there were multiple sound directions in a heavy battle at an airfield. I was using an SBLive Value soundcard, which is pretty slow for a modern machine (my on-board sound wasn't much better). When I popped in a Audigy 2 ZS (a $70 soundcard), ALL my stutters and micro-freezes went away during these heavy engagements. My machine is only an Athlon 2500+ (~1.8GHz), Ati 9700 pro, with a gig of PC3200 DDR SDRAM. In the end, it was my sound card that was causing most of my grief. FPS didn't go up too much (if at all), but it definately improved my gameplay in Aces High and other games like HalfLife 2.
To add to Skuzzy's comment on CPU/GPU limits, your machine is as fast as your slowest component. If you're using an on-board soundcard, or an on-board video card, it will really have a negative impact on high-performance games.
Something to think about...
On a side note, with the OPTEST excutable, my FPS have trippled vs the regular. :aok
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Of course every component matters, but the question is to what degree? Traditionally, gamers solve their problems by buying more RAM and video power. But some games respond better to CPU power. Take a low end PC, a mid range PC, and a high end PC. Test each one with a low end card, a mid range card, and a high end card. Observe how much performance difference you see with each swap. Only on higher end CPUs will you see a significant FPS benefit to using the better GPU, whereas FSP of mid range GPUs will scale with the CPU.
I think based on what I have seen, you will find that if you hold the resolution and image quality settings constant constant, say 1280x1024 with FSAAx4 AFx8, if you start with a mid range pc and mid range graphics card, , that you will get a better return investing in a $300 CPU with a $150 GPU than a $150 CPU with a $300 GPU.
Of course those who get a $800 CPU with a $600 GPU will get optimum performance. Being a married guy, I settled for a $330 CPU and a $280 GPU and can't complain about the all-round performance I am getting from this combo in all my sims. But I could still use that $800/$600 combo to run LOMAC maxed out, presently I have to knock the ingame settings back to Medium to keep smooth FPS with my 1600x1200x32 FSAAx4 AFx16 settings. Everything else I play pretty much locks at 85Hz Vsync when maxed out :)
Sound is a very annoying subject. With video cards you have at least two major brands that are aggressively competing with steady driver updates. With sound cards, there is one dominant market leader, and they don't seem to care too much whether their hardware and/or drivers work well with all the possible PC setups. It seems no matter whether you go with a motherboard chipset or a discrete card, there is always some issue with some application. My TUV4X (VIA 694X) chipsets would not even boot Windows with an SB card. I ended up with Santa Cruz cards on those machines. After the last driver was released, the only game that still gave the Santa Cruz any trouble was: Aces High! For my new MB, I decided to give the nForce sound a go... so far it works okay. But nothing impressive either.
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A 2.4Ghz Intel CPU would benefit more with a video card upgrade, than a CPU upgrade, if the system has a middle of the road video card to start with.
Streak, you could just ask us about this instead of speculating about it. I really am concerned someone is going to make a bad decision based on your speculation.
No offense nor disrespect intended.
And on the SB problem with VIA. You are putting the blame on the wrong horse. It is a VIA issue, not a Creative one. Just FYI. I do not think it is up to Creative to work around errors in the VIA chipset design. They could, but that really is the wrong place to put the problem, as it effected more than just Creative.
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I guess we will have to agree to disagree, because despite the variance caused by the range of resolution and image qualities used during this test, I don't believe the trend of this graph is speculation. I would be equally concerned that someone with a 1.8 to 2.4 GHz P4 didn't notice the fact that ALL of the 70+ FPS scores are by CPUs of 3.0 or higher in P4 GHz ratings (except one AMD Sempron 2800) whereas some of those are achieved with mid-range GPUs:
(http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/7564/ah2ghzvsfps5yr.jpg)
I am aware of the limitation of the VIA chipsets since I have owned and maintained many of them. I just find it strange that SB products are the only ones that gave me problems. It's not like VIA users are alone either, there are plenty of intel users that have had nothing but trouble with SB products too... some of them have had experiences comparable to mine ;)
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Hmmmm....
Looks great but literally no change in FPS I can see?
Downloaded the file...installed it to AHII main directory...says Opt 1.3 or something when I fire it up....was on line so I'll do it on trinity to be sure. Am I doing something wrong??
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Originally posted by humble
Hmmmm....
Looks great but literally no change in FPS I can see?
Downloaded the file...installed it to AHII main directory...says Opt 1.3 or something when I fire it up....was on line so I'll do it on trinity to be sure. Am I doing something wrong??
You have to go to video setup and check OP terr and OP obj. They are off by default.
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Streak, your chart/graph is missing a significant piece of information which renders them inaccurate. You can base your opinion on them, but note this.
We actually know how the game works and where the loads are. Your assessment is incorrect and I am trying to explain why.
While upping CPU speed will always be a benefit to the game, it becomes an exercise in diminishing returns once you get to a certain point, and at that point, the video card is more important.
This optest relies heavily on the video card performance. The results are pretty much (with few exceptions) what we knew they would be. Everyone who uses reasonable configurations which do not starve a video card's performance got appreciably better results. No CPU change needed. And there is not a CPU on the market which could have produced the significant gains in performance as seen in this optest version. Think about it.
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I understand FPS is only part of the picture, but it is the obvious and easily measured part that even your own testing is focused on, otherwise you would have specified the resolution and image quality settings for this test.
I understand the purpose of the optest is to reduce the graphics loading while maintaining the same visual quality and CPU. That is does very well! I am not even questioning that this optimization is more useful if the video card has the power to take full advantage of it.
I also understand that building a computer is like matching an engine, transmission, rear-end gear ratio, and tires. If any one of the PC components is too limited be it the CPU, RAM, GPU, or sound card, the performance of all the others is reduced or even clamped no matter what settings are used. But particulars of when and where a bottleneck will appear vary significantly with the application.
I am debating when the law of diminishing returns begins to apply for AH2 (even with the optest) given the above data (which is all I have). The point of diminishing returns seems to be well past 3.0GHz. In fact, to show diminishing returns with cpu speed increases, the pattern should have curved up as FPS increased past your stated optimum of 2.4 GHz. As long as it is linear or curving the other way, the return isn't diminishing. The weak point of the data is that most people with high end GPUs have high end CPUs and vice versa, most with mid range GPUs have mid range CPUs, but the posted data does include serveral cases of mismatched GPU/CPU combinations that help fill in that void and make the above graph at least halfway useful.
I would be interested in learning what you know since all I have is the optest results charted above. I am always eager to learn more about how pcs and the applications that run on them work since I make a living working with them as well as enjoying buiding and testing pcs as a hobby. So, if you don't mind, please continue to go into more details until I get in over my head or you run out of data/info to discuss and expose. I hope my tone in these posts is not being read as being inflamatory or disrespectful in any way. I just don't accept being told my viewpoint is wrong until the facts convince me otherwise ;)
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Your presumption is based on incomplete facts. There are conclusions which can be properly drawn from the data, but you cannot draw an accurate conclusion about the CPU versus the video card as there is not enough data available. Our intent had nothing to do with the conclusion you are trying to present. The results bore out what we expected.
Frame rate is but a small part of the data needed to figure out whether or not the benefit lies in the CPU versus the video card.
To actually figure it out you need a series of controlled systems with various CPU speeds, and then swap various video cards in and out of those systems. You would need to run all combinations at various resolutions.
Then you could draw an accurate conclusion on what is the best bang for the buck when it comes to upgrades. To draw the conclusion you did based on the data available is a *guess* at best.
Understand, my only goal here is to make sure people understand your "guess" is just that and should not be taken as fact. I do not want to deal with support calls from people getting angry when they upgrade thier 2.4Ghz CPU to a 3.2Ghz CPU and get little to no benefit as they have an ATI 9200 video card and that was the real bottleneck.
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Originally posted by Schatzi
You have to go to video setup and check OP terr and OP obj. They are off by default.
Thanks
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Skuzzy me old mucker. Could you have a butchers at this and tell me the obvious. I get best fps in 800 x 600 x512 but much prefer 1024 x 768 x 1024. Aces High is still playable for me with these lower fps's. My vid driver is 77.77 with everything "off", set to "PERFORMANCE". Now bear in mind my perpencity for beer and cigs = limited funds what would you recommend that I upgrade?? Your advice would be most welcomed and eventually acted uppon. I may even go a month without beer:rolleyes:
I suspect more RAM and a better vid card. Or are there any "tweaks" for the short term ?
CPU AMD 64 3000+ 2.0 Ghz Mem 512MB Page file used 228MB 1253 available DirectX 9.0c
Graphics card Nvidia 5200 128 MB in 1024X768 (32bit) & (85Hz)
Oldie Goldie plug and play Monitor maxed to 85 Hz
OS Windows XP Home (not 64 Home)
1024 x 768 x 1024 511.2M 299.8M Tex=79.2M
F1 AH Test Obj Both
40 44 45 47
34 38 40 41
37 41 43 44
35 39 39 41
F4
22 25 38 39
22 24 32 33
17 20 33 34
19 22 30 31
P51
36 42 44 46
29 32 33 35
Another test below but in 1024 x 768 x 512 511.2M 386.8M TEX= 80.9M
45 38 45 47
39 33 40 41
43 36 43 44
41 35 39 41
25 25 38 39
25 24 32 33
19 20 33 34
21 22 30 31
41 42 44 46
33 32 34 35
__________________
LYNX ~SOB~
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LYNX, that 5200 is kind of a problem. NVidia would have been much more honest by giving it a "MX" monikor or something, as it's often slower than the old Geforce4 series. A Radeon 9800Pro or X700 or Geforce 6600 will cost you quite a bit of beer, but allow you to do 1280x960 with AA and AF or better pegged at your monitor refresh rate much of the time. The radeons are cool because they offer a free step of AA that costs no frame rate.
The 512 meg ram is a bit of a problem, but just being careful to run as little crap in the background as possible will help. Look in the process list in your "Ctrl-Alt-Del" window. A lot of "small" utilities actually chew up quite a lot of memory. The low memory will be responsible for mini freezes, though, not overall bad frame rate. Using smaller textures, and no user skins will also save you a bit of memory.
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With only 512MB of system RAM, you are best to stick with 512 texture sizes as 1024 texture sizes will cause some errant stutters due to lack of RAM space for them.
That said, the 5200 is your bottleneck for sure and is where I would first spend some cash. Next would be a RAM upgrade to 1GB.
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Thanks SkyGnome and thanks Skuzzy (Sunday and i get a reply...thats service). As it goes I have a stick of ram knocking about some place. I just hope it's compatible.
I'll be trawling about E-bay for a cheepy Radion me thinks. Although more is best the configuration i use is still playable. I hardly ever get any stutters. However, if I Gv it to the fuel factory and start loads of fires the fps drops to 8 hehe. Now that is a pain but at least it's a rarity.
Thanks again especially Skuzzy.
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Lynx,
An ATI 9600 of some sort ought to be the absolute lowest card you consider getting... Either a 9800 or go for a geforce 6600 or better would be my recommendation. You have plenty of cpu power to drive a vid card up to a 6800GT or X800 quite nicely, so don't short yourself with your replacement vid card.
Also, get a card with 256 meg ram at least. Don't settle for 128 meg memory or you'll max out the memory before you run out of GPU speed as you increase the card's quality settings. With that cpu and the right vid card that has at least 256 meg memory, there's no reason why you couldn't run 1280x1024 with 512 textures and 2x FSAA.
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Ok, with Op Test 3, Temporal AA is kind of whacked. Up in the high skies where I'm easilly pegged at refresh, Temporal will kick on. However, if it gets kicked off, it will stay off for 30 seconds or so. Then something as little as changing view (or opening clipboard, obviously) will kick it off again for another 30 seconds.
I checked this against the production version - there Temporal works exactly as expected. Open the clipboard - it turns off. The second the clipboard disapears, it comes back on.
The new patch really defeats this feature, which is a damn nice feature for us radeon folks - a full level of AA for free. Can someone else who uses Temporal verify that they see the same behavior?
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Since running the tests and seeing, like everyone else more or less, a marked increase in FPS I decided to run the Optest online.
Over the last few days the game has periodically frozen mid flight for a period of about 30 secs to 1 minute.
In most cases by the time the game "unlocks" I've crashed. On one occasion I had to reset the PC as the expected recovery didn't happen.
Any ideas? Would be a pity not to be able to run this as it enhances my gameplay no end.
Any ideas?
Smiggs.
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My best guess is you have an NVidia card, like an FX5xxx series or older and are running the latest NVidia drivers. If this is the case, then you need to be running the 61.77 drivers.
If the above is not the case, then email me the DXDIAG output and let's see what it shows.
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Originally posted by streakeagle
Most people are running at 1280x1024 and little or no FSAA, which puts both of my scores at a disadvantage.
just an FYI i think this statement is incorrect.
everyone i know runs 1024x768 (and i have spoke to many in game)
myself i run 1024, because moniter only does 60hz @ 1280
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Am running a GeForce3 Ti200 with latest drivers from website, loaded other day.
They date from begining of August.
Will roll back as you suggested.
Many thanks.
Smiggs.
:aok
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http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?location=3&var1=88&var2=0
This website is for all video cards ever made to present. It tells u everything about every video card.
Skuzzy U might even want to sticky this website. The best one I have found that is accurate and has every video card going way back to the old riva chips by nvidia to present video cards.
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Originally posted by Siaf__csf
My framerates doubled with optest 2. Lost udp session once on MA which is rare to me.
But the most notable thing was that as long as I flew optest version I didn't land more than 1-2 kills in 10 sorties. Died 8 out of 10.
When I returned to old version with half the framerates, I landed 13 kills in two consecutive flights before logging off for the night. Seems a bit strange, the situation was normal furballing in both cases.
I have a suspicion that the optest somehow changed my gameplay. Call me crazy but with optest I died over double the amount from normal and my k/d rate took a hit of 2 in one day.
I wish I had been filming, but I wasn't
I am not the best shot in the game, or the worst. When running the optest, however, I noticed that I couldn't hit an enemy plane. Not even with an LA-7 at D200.
Then I did finally get a kill. with NOBODY else around, I was fighting an Me-109. We did a high-frontal-deflection pass. I shot, he had no shot. We both reversed, then his tailfeathers fell off.
Things that make you say, "hmmmm...."
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While optimizing the code is the most obvious way to increase performance, a better level of detail management should be also considered.
As an example, with default settings and in the middle of a furball with 10 - 15 planes fighting at low level I get between 50 and 70 fps with short visual range, between 30 and 40 fps with medium visual range and between 19 and 25 fps with full visual range. In that situation, the real visual difference seems to be only the terrain, as all the enemies and friendlies fighting nearby are clearly visible at any visual range. Now, visually, terrain at medium visual range and full visual range seems the very same but the frame rate hit is very noticeable, on the other hand, with short visual range you lose most references to surrounding terrain.
I would like a more flexible and extended level of detail management. As a minimum, let the player to set the ranges associated with short, medium and full visual ranges for the terrain (asociated also with GVs visibility ranges), and also the three visual ranges associated with displayed flying planes.
The player would be able to set the following ground level ranges:
- Minimum visual range for short range associated with terrain and ground vehicles/grounded planes.
- Minimum visual range for medium range associated with terrain and ground vehicles/grounded planes.
- Minimum visual range for full range associated with terrain and ground vehicles/grounded planes.
- Minimum visual range for short range associated with airborne planes.
- Minimum visual range for medium range associated with airborne planes.
- Minimum visual range for full range associated with airborne planes.
A "level of detail calibration mode" would also be very helpful.
The player set three minimum FPS, each one for the three visual ranges (short, medium or full). Then switch on the "level of detail calibration mode". Now the system increase of decrease the visual range to achieve the desired FPSs (+- 2%) for the three ranges.
Also, make these ranges proportional with your current altitude over the ground, decreasing automatically as you get lower and increasing as you fly higher, being the minimum range that set by the player at ground level.
Of course, the best way to make the game as playable as possible would consist on an automatic level of detail management, so it keeps adjusting dinamically the level of detail to achieve a minimum FPS set by the player.
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So I take it the no rocket selection for the P-38 is going to be fixed with the 2.05 release?
ack-ack
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Some ground textures are invisible. Mostly the small hills, but some mountains also.
I've sent a message with full size screen shots to Skuzzy. If I posted them here, it'd take forever for the page to load. And, the full size was needed so you could actually see the missing textures.
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I experienced the same effect as rshubert testing OPTEST4 online.
Not sure if I was missing most of the time or most hit flashes are gone in this version. I was aiming and firing as always but with far less vissible hits and inflicted damage. In some cases I got kills with no vissible flashes at all, while debris and fragments where clearly vissible.
I tested OPTEST4 online with VSYNC ON, Mindanao Map, all the time firing 190s guns and mgs.
BTW, somewhat I managed to keep the system using only 270MB (Win98SE here), this way I got an average 25% more FPSs (OPTEST op objects and op terrain ON) than normal AH.
On my last flight, during a low level dogfight I kept sending check six messages to friendly planes in front of me. To my surprise, the messages where all the time sent to players not visible nearby. I suppose these players were in GVs near and in front of my plane, but their icons where not visible for me.
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Collision model seems weird now. I was firing against a B17 from 600 yards, dead six high, suddenly I got 4 or 5 white messages indicating that me have collided with me. No other enemies were nearby but the B17 formation flying level.
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Hi Skuzzy, running Optest4 now online.
Still getting 30/60 secs game freezes.
Put Nvidia drivers back to 61.77 as you suggested, all appeared ok at first.
Just started last couple of nights.
Cel 1.8, 512mb, GeForce2 Ti200 64mb (24mb of gfx mem used), 1024x768, 16 bit, Textures 256, all sliders on perf., ground detail slider set to under the 0 in 0.5 miles.
Frame rates excellent.
Any ideas?
Smiggs.
:)
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I get frame rate improvement in game but crash when I try to up a goon .... or if in fighter .... attempt to close on a b17 or b24 to attack it.
nf3250ultra
amd3400+
dfilanparty
geforce 6800gt
1gig ocz pc3200 mem
also, I get a strafing town bug crash all the time when I try to strafe buildings in a GE fighter ... has happened in 110s and a8s. Seems like it even happened in a Jug recently. This bug isnt optest specific.