OH WOW

[hitech]

The new scenery looks beautiful, WTG HTC.

The only non-turnoffable extra feature I've seen so far is the decreased tile size of the terrain. PCs will have to draw a lot more triangles and this can't be turned off as all players have to see the same thing. Set against this though, the new version will use the Shader 3.0 feature of your video card, moving a lot of processing from your CPU on to a currently unused part of your video card. So it is even possible the new version might run better on lower PCs than this one....time will tell.

Actually it is less triangles over all if you were running detailed terrain.  The current engine draws 4 verts for every 1 elevation sample when running detailed terrain. The new engine has an elevation sample for each vert and LOD's them continually based on distance. The terrain only (i.e. no trees sky water excetra) runs a lot faster then the older engine.

HiTech

[Reaper90]

Basically the first 2006 or so Wal-Mart E-Machines I first tuned and slightly upgraded with a new graphics card and ram will still run the game looking about the same as it always has. I don't think anyone is going to be knocked out by new FX, they just won't get to see them.

The funny thing is all these folks whining about their old rig that supposedly "won't run this new stuff" (how do they even know that yet?) don't realize that all they likely need is a decent dedicated graphics card instead of relying on the on-board chipset, and a card capable of running the present AH at full max detail, hi-res, 60fps solid can be had used on ebay for less than $100.

[Lucifer]

Omg clouds are baaaaack !!!   

[nrshida]

Actually it is less triangles over all if you were running detailed terrain.  The current engine draws 4 verts for every 1 elevation sample when running detailed terrain. The new engine has an elevation sample for each vert and LOD's them continually based on distance. The terrain only (i.e. no trees sky water excetra) runs a lot faster then the older engine.

I'm interested to see how you handle the 'popping' involved in LOD with terrain as I know this was a persistent problem with commercial & military simulators, most especially on the horizon.

The funny thing is all these folks whining about their old rig that supposedly "won't run this new stuff" (how do they even know that yet?) don't realize that all they likely need is a decent dedicated graphics card instead of relying on the on-board chipset, and a card capable of running the present AH at full max detail, hi-res, 60fps solid can be had used on ebay for less than $100.

Do you just push those into the DVD drive of your laptop? 

[Sunka]

Im not blown away but it looks pretty good.
A year from now it will look less good,so lets see how long before its released.

[mechanic]

.


Do you just push those into the DVD drive of your laptop?  

Yeah but come on Shida, anyone who refuses to afford themselves an actual gaming rig can't really complain. PC gaming has always been about building a gaming rig. This situation with office based laptops and crappy Dell package PCs is akin to trying to play the latest Xbox game on your old Nintendo 64 and then expecting the developers to somehow make it workable.

This is a PC game. To play it a person needs a gaming PC. It's an expensive hobby, yes. We accept that from the start when we choose PC gaming.

[nrshida]

Well I have a decent laptop, but I'm a full time student again so a gaming rig is out of the question for the time being. 

[Slate]

   My W7 HP laptop runs the game quite well and my crappy Dell with the NVidia card installed by Dell has run the game for many years.
 
   Dell Haters Gonna Hate. 

[Volron]

Yeah but come on Shida, anyone who refuses to afford themselves an actual gaming rig can't really complain. PC gaming has always been about building a gaming rig. This situation with office based laptops and crappy Dell package PCs is akin to trying to play the latest Xbox game on your old Nintendo 64 and then expecting the developers to somehow make it workable.

This is a PC game. To play it a person needs a gaming PC. It's an expensive hobby, yes. We accept that from the start when we choose PC gaming.

Thank you.   That being said, their "target card" was introduced in 2008 if my Google-Fu is solid.  It's dirt cheap at this point, so few excuses.  Another thing to note, a well built gaming rig will last you a good while (my previous rig kept solid for 10 years), even with just minor upgrades.  But for what I call "a base model", you are looking at 1500 for just the machine, which comes with a video card (I subtracted a 2nd video card from this price.  I got two which pushed it to roughly 1700), sound card and your box standard DVD RW and HDD.  No monitor, mouse, keyboard, stick, pedals, OS, etc..  How much it cost me for mine a few years ago.  There was update a couple years ago that destroyed my 5770's ability to use AA in AH.  Before then, I could run AH at MAX EVERYTHING and get 85-90 FPS during FSO takeoff.  I am hoping that this new engine will be better optimized considering it's "target card" so that I can run at a bit higher settings.  I still have good looking planes though.


And for those of you who are barking about being a student *cough* nrshida *cough*, this is where you party less and save more.   Otherwise, you can't complain.   Truth of the matter is, if you REALLY want to save cash for a standard gaming machine, you can do it.  It's how far you are willing to push for it that is always the factor.

[jollyFE]

I  think its kinda selfish to limit what the game can be based on a low end machine.  The game needs to grow, not stagnate...That's what would happen if there weren't updates in planes, graphics and FM.  I can feel for folks who can't afford a cutting edge machine to play on, but I also feel that we shouldn't hold the game back tailoring it to low end computers.  As several have said, it would probably just take a graphics card upgrade to handle the improvements.  I know the daggers are gonna start flying but you have to evolve to survive.

[Max]

Agreed jolly 

[Reaper90]

I'm interested to see how you handle the 'popping' involved in LOD with terrain as I know this was a persistent problem with commercial & military simulators, most especially on the horizon.


Do you just push those into the DVD drive of your laptop? 

Why are you gaming on a laptop? 

Seriously, though, I understand in your situation the budget isn't there for a uber-$ gaming pc, but the reality is if you have any money to spare at all, a used desktop pc and if needed a used graphics card that will run this game balls-out could be had for less than $200, i'd bet.

[nrshida]

Why are you gaming on a laptop? 

Seriously, though, I understand in your situation the budget isn't there for a uber-$ gaming pc, but the reality is if you have any money to spare at all, a used desktop pc and if needed a used graphics card that will run this game balls-out could be had for less than $200, i'd bet.

This is the only game I play. I have no budget for anything at the moment but my studies. I did not request holding back the development of the game so I can play. I asked if it is likely if I can continue to play after this significant upgrade.

[BnZs]

This is a PC game. To play it a person needs a gaming PC. It's an expensive hobby, yes. We accept that from the start when we choose PC gaming.

But the fewer barriers erected the more customers. And AH needs more customers. And much of the audience who might be interested are crochety men 30+ like myself who take a dim view of disposing of income.

That said AH graphics have always been scalable to true dinosaur rigs and I don't see that changing.

[Greebo]

This is the only game I play. I have no budget for anything at the moment but my studies. I did not request holding back the development of the game so I can play. I asked if it is likely if I can continue to play after this significant upgrade.

What video chipset does your laptop have? Run dxdiag.exe if you don't know. If it supports Shader 3.0 there is a good chance you will still be able to play.