Aces High II Benchmark

[Gman]

After reading and posting in the "can anyone run max settings in AH2" thread in the hardware section, I spent a lot of time with my systems, tweaking them and such trying to get the most out of them, specifically for AH2.  Of course, like every person out there with a new gaming PC, I ran my boxes through the usual 3dMark benchmarks multiple times after changing or tweaking some little thing.

What I was thinking would be a good addition to AH2 in general would be a 60 second or so "benchmark" type of graphics test that users of this game could use in order to see what kind of performance they are getting with their systems, and to verify that the tweaks and such are having the desired affect, specifically for AH2.

I also think that it could be a bit of a marketing tool.  A really good benchmark that would be designed primarily for gamers obviously, but not just that, a game that REALLY pushes any hardware out there, would be very popular I'll bet with the rank and file gamer out there.  As has been established per the hardware thread mentioned, very high end newer systems can still struggle to maintain max FPS with AH2 maxed right out, and this is what would make it an excellent "benchmark lite" so to speak IMO - a quick, 1 or 2 minute benchmark that would really push a system hard, and give current pilots something to work with, as well as maybe hook a few new customers once it became known in the general gaming world as a good tool to push your high end gaming hardware with.

I have absolutely ZERO idea on how much work something like that would take, but if HTC was able to knock something like that out easily, I'll bet anyone that it would have a positive affect on subscriber numbers eventually, and in the meantime would be a cool and useful feature to add for the existing populace to test their systems specifically for AH2, new or old.

[Greebo]

I'd like to see this too. If it could suggest to a player which are the best settings to turn off/down to get a decent framerate it might reduce Skuzzy's workload too.

I'd also like to see it give some indication of whether a system was being held back by its CPU or its video card. That would save some players buying a new video card and finding it makes no difference because their CPU is the bottleneck (or vice versa).

[Chalenge]

Been there, tried that, got inconsistent results, which is probably always going to be the case.

[RngFndr]

I like that idea.. If it was simple, just step on the scales kind of thing..

Kind of like, "Can I get a Radio Check, test test 1234 4321..?"

[hellwolf]

Very good idea +1

[JimmyD3]

+1

Hey Hellwolf, been mising you on MW!!

[Noir]

totally +1

[Vinkman]

Been there, tried that, got inconsistent results, which is probably always going to be the case.

I'm with you. The problem is Windows. It's just makes up it's own mind about what it wants to run, when it wants to run it, and at what scheduling frequency. There is no way to get enough control over it to run just the game, and only what needed to run the game. "IT" has more important things to do than what you tell it. Processes are so intertwined that shutting down some uselss process that checks for media player updates, disables your sound card.

It's like the more harware you stuff in your machine, the more stupid stuff Window will try to do, and do more often.

[Gman]

Maybe you misunderstand what I'm asking for.  What I would like is a program like 3dMark, but just using Aces High 2 in game graphics as the "test" images.

Say what you will about windows doing this or that, but I can run 3dMark and get within far less than 1% variance in terms of the 3dmarks it gives me, and 3dmark does this on all 3 gaming machines I currently have.  So, obviously it is possible to have a program that accurately and consistently measures the performance of the hardware in a Win7 machine, as I've repeated the 3dmark tests dozens of times on different machines, and on each machine the result is virtually the same as the result before.  When hardware is changed, the 3dmark score changes accordingly, and that's what I would like to have, an AH2 tool to measure this performance and the changes that occur with different types of hardware.

I agree that there are tons of processes that Win7 does that aren't needed, and seem crazy, but once you get the system tweaked to how you want it, the results in testing are very consistent I've found.  I can post results from any of my boxes if you like, of doing 10+ 3dmark runs in a day, and as I've said, the results are extremely close in terms of the 3dmark score.  It doesn't wildly fluctuate or anything of the sort, unless I start playing around with things such as drivers etc.

[seano]

lol my graphics card doesnt even have a fan!!!