Author Topic: Video card and performance tweaks for AHII (Read 1728 times)

Mister Fork · « **on:** May 19, 2004, 11:28:22 AM »

Video and performance tips:[list=1]

Leave VSync on. It has no real performance gains other than pseudo-increased fps.
Turning off AA and AF in your video card settings will increase FPS and but reduce graphical quality.
Run Enditall before starting AHII to ensure no unnecessary appications are running in the background. You can find it here:http://safsquad.com/Files/EndItAll2.zip
In game video settings, click Setup->Video->Video. Try changing the ‘Max Texture Size’ option from ‘unlimited’ to a lower setting. If your video card has 64megs or less, try setting it to 256 or lower.
In the same panel, if you game looks ‘dark’, bump up the gamma slider .25 increments to lighten the screen.
In the same panel, try unchecking bump mapping to see if it improves performance.
In the Graphic detail panel, click Setup>Video>Graphic detail, there are three sliders to improve performance. Level of detail and Displayed Object Size can be adjusted to improve game graphic quality or adjusted to improve FPS. Ground Detail Range is the distance to which objects come into video in full detail. Reducing the range will improve performance at a cost of when distance ground objects appear.
ATI - download Omega's version of the ATI driver: http://www.omegacorner.com/index.html). Lots of great tips on other tweaks can be found in the readme file.
NVIDIA - download the latest from http://www.nvidia.com
Upgrade your OS to at least XP Home or Professional edition. It’s capable of handling more memory than 98/ME.
Best stability upgrade (not faster but smoother) performance is to add more memory. For XP – 1.0Gb. 98/ME – see previous point.
Upgrade your video card to at least the performance of an ATI 9600 or NVIDIA equivalent. http://www.tomshardware.com is a good start for researching a video card to buy.
Reinstalling the latest version of DX9 may resolve some weird graphical glitches. Run the DX test to ensure all is working well.
Ensure your bios and motherboard drivers are fully updated (VIA/ALI/INTEL).
Ensure your sound card drivers are fully updated.
If upgrading your workstation, research integrated devices such as video, NIC and sound cards. Sure, they may save you money, but at what performance cost? Computer devices integrated into the motherboard may reduce computer performance.
Above all, ensure your OS is fully updated and patched from http://www.microsoft.com.[/list=1]Acronyms:
FPS - frames per second
AA - anti-aliasing
AF - anisotropic filtering
OS - Operating System

MOSQ · « **Reply #1 on:** May 19, 2004, 12:42:11 PM »

In another thread it was stated that AF has no effect on AHI or AHII, but would degrade performance if enabled.

Perhaps HTC could answer this one, does AF have an effect on AH?

A good article on AF:Extremetech AF article 2002

Blammo · « **Reply #2 on:** May 19, 2004, 03:28:25 PM »

Good post...thanks, Fork!

Max · « **Reply #3 on:** May 20, 2004, 08:33:08 AM »

WTG Fork!

That post needs to be pinned.

DmdMax

214thCavalier · « **Reply #4 on:** May 20, 2004, 01:12:37 PM »

The claim that AF has no effect was from an Nvidia user.

For Radeon users (9800Pro here) it definitely improves the look of the ground detail with minimal if any effect on frame rates.

GtoRA2 · « **Reply #5 on:** May 20, 2004, 01:56:56 PM »

Mister Fork
How much difference do the omega drivers make for your ATI card?

Mister Fork · « **Reply #6 on:** May 20, 2004, 01:58:21 PM »

For me, 3DMark went up around 900.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #7 on:** May 20, 2004, 02:02:36 PM »

The only downside to forcing AF is it does blur the text in the game. Just FYI.

FOGOLD · « **Reply #8 on:** May 20, 2004, 03:41:12 PM »

Good tips.

Only thing is DON'T upgrade your BIOS unless you have good reason. You could screw your board and it WILL NOT increase the performance of your machine one iota if it is working fine just now.

All the other things are reversable if they go wrong.

daddog · « **Reply #9 on:** May 20, 2004, 04:59:32 PM »

Thanks fork!

------------------------
CO, CM daddog
332nd Flying Mongrels
Roster
Noses in the wind since 1997.

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's much too dark to read. Groucho Marx

hinter · « **Reply #10 on:** May 20, 2004, 06:27:51 PM »

...bump...

great post - HiTech please make this a sticky

DipStick · « **Reply #11 on:** May 21, 2004, 03:31:50 AM »

FYI>>>

Might want to add that Omega drivers could screwup your computer (unable to run ANY 3D games including of course AH), even if installed correctly per instructions on the site.

You might not be able to fix said problems by reverting to old drivers.

You might have to do a complete reinstall.

PS... Just got everything reinstalled and working fine in AHI and II on old drivers.

Degas · « **Reply #12 on:** May 21, 2004, 07:26:35 AM »

Someone has posted elsewhere that the upgrade to the newest Omega absolutely requires that you completely uninstall the old drivers first.

Specifically, you must remove the ATI control panel in order to install Omega drivers.

You probably knew this

VWE · « **Reply #13 on:** May 21, 2004, 09:03:20 AM »

Quote

The only downside to forcing AF is it does blur the text in the game.

Skuzzy... most of these old farts can't see straight to begin with.

Degas · « **Reply #14 on:** May 21, 2004, 07:32:23 PM »

I'm going to bump this, because it's very helpful.

Also casting my vote to make it sticky

Author Topic: Video card and performance tweaks for AHII (Read 1728 times)

VWE