Frame Rate

[Aspen]

Most players I have heard from aren't insisting they dumb down the hardware specs.  They understand its on them to upgrade or not.

[flatiron1]

Sorry, Dot just stating a fact for me. The topic was frame rates.

[Chilli]

Flatiron,

In your case, I believe the topic should be Operating System.  From what I have heard about Vista, it seems to be a bottle neck.  Especially when, it doesn't even read all the RAM that your system has installed.  In any case, those using laptops, I am not sure of what upgrades are possible.  But I have to go with Skuzzy's recommendation of Windows 7 64 bit.  As the 32 bit Vista and those with XP seem to suffer the most with frame rates, even with capable video cards.

I began AH2 on a laptop and on dial up 15 years ago.  I understand the honest practical value in putting almost everything ahead of buying gaming equipment.  Through the years, some of you very good folks have donated bits and pieces, as well as sold me their hand me downs, at steep losses.    Thank you.

Flatiron, much of the entire system that you may desire, can be found used, at nearly the cost of a middle ground video card.  I would look into that only, because the cost of the Operating System could be just as much as the used system with the OS included.  Fortunately, for you I have seen both go at very low costs.  And remember this is not a finished product.

[Yankee67]

I'm going to go the equipment upgrade route.  I knew I needed to at some point.  Plus my daughter needs a better laptop, so she'll get my 2013 hand me down.  I've picked all the components out, will be building it myself.  I'll spend the weekend trying to see if I can get the price down, but so far the total is only about $1200 via Amazon for some good (not super great) components.  That fits my budget well, and leaves me room to get a cheap laptop for word processing.

(Anyone think I'm crazy for buying a 4GB GTX970 card vs a GTX980ti?  Forking over an extra $350 isn't worth it in my eyes, unless someone tells me different.  Same with the ic5 vs ic7, although that price difference is smaller.)

I'll move my build questions over to the other forum, btw.   

[ink]

I am running XP with a old card MSI  4830 1 gig...everything off I get 60 FPS...although that is without a lot of people

CPU is a 2.9 GHZ duel core

[bustr]

In the Steal the Flag arena I was getting stutters even with everything disabled in graphics in 2048 mode flying over towns and feilds. I have a 1G video card. I changed my mode to 1024 and was able to click on the default button in the graphics setup and play at that level with no more stutters.

Other than a small degree of shininess on many things that was a tad brighter in 2048, everything looked the same in 1024 as it did in 2048. 4096 sitting still looks really kowabunga...I don't have the video memory, video card bandwidth, and data paths to support it flying or driving.

In the Steal the Sheep arena, when we had about 8 players furballing close together, in 2048 mode my screen began to stutter.

Offline will give you a distorted sense of what your video card can support. I can chase drones all day in 4096 with no problems offline.

[Grin]

I managed to get 24 frames with everything nerfed, but I can't get mouse look to work in flight, so I can't fly. Can't see my gauges. I'll have to wait until tax time and build a rig for this game; by then it should be better.

In the non-Alpha, I can pull 48-59 frames with great detail settings on my laptop and 30-40 people in flight around me.

[Yankee67]

I found a kid on craigslist heading to college and needing to sell a rig.  $1000 for an ic5 machine, GTX970 card, with a 24" monitor, keyboard, mouse, OS, etc.  Another guy laid off, selling ic7 machine, GTX970, for $1200.  Can probably get them down, but also there's risk involved.

[ink]

last night I was getting a good frame rate...staying between 48-55 looking up it gave me 60....didn't fall below 45 I believe....

so definitely not getting solid 60...but it is very playable even with the 7 year old card I have.

[kvuo75]

60 fps in the current game, 7fps in alpha with everything off

i know this pc is garbage but didn't expect that much of a drop off.


ime of this report: 4/30/2013, 18:31:58
       Machine name: DESKTOP2013
   Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.130104-1431)
           Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
       System Model: XPS 8500 
               BIOS: BIOS Date: 10/19/12 13:44:12 Ver: 04.06.05
          Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3350P CPU @ 3.10GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.1GHz
             Memory: 8192MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 8152MB RAM
          Page File: 1480MB used, 14823MB available
        Windows Dir: C:\Windows
    DirectX Version: DirectX 11
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
   User DPI Setting: Using System DPI
 System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
    DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled
     DxDiag Version: 6.01.7601.17514 32bit Unicode

        Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GT 620
       Manufacturer: NVIDIA
          Chip type: GeForce GT 620
           DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
         Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_1049&SUBSYS_097710DE&REV_A1
     Display Memory: 4050 MB
   Dedicated Memory: 978 MB
      Shared Memory: 3071 MB
       Current Mode: 1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (60Hz)

[Skuzzy]

Check all the "Disable" boxes in the Graphics Options panel.

Also make sure to set the texture size to 1024 in the game "Video Settings".

The 620 is a pretty low end video card.  I think it is the slowest one NVidia makes.


Just remember, it is still an Alpha.

[Chilli]

The alpha is unplayable for me, but it's on my end I think.  I have to look into buying a new machine, which was what I was going to do anyway, and give this one to my daughter going into HS.  I'm currently on a 64-bit Dell, 2.40GHz, 6 GB RAM, Intel HD Graphics 3000, which works fine for AH 2.0.  Arrgh.

Yankee,

I think you could do almost as good buying a budget priced computer for less than half that price and spending some of those savings on a video card, and other performance enhancing components.  I would take that discussion to the Hardware forum of the BBS and ask there before you make any decision.  Looking at the list of things needed for a build, you surely can set the sky as the limit, but at the rate that improvements are made in technology, you won't be on top for long.  I would try and settle for practical and upgradable (unless, you feel this is the time to reach for the sky = in that case go for it, but listen to sound advice along the way).

[bustr]

Our performance tests with the high clocked mainstream version of the HD Graphics 3000 in quad-core processors showed a performance level on par with older entry level generations from NVIDIA (e.g. GeForce 310M) and AMD (HD 5450). In comparison with AMD's APU models, the HD 3000 can only compete against the C-and E-series, but not the faster Llano and Trinity models. The quality of the Intel drivers has been improved over the years, so most games are flawlessly playable (if the minimum requirements are fullfilled).

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-HD-Graphics-3000.37948.0.html

[Scca]

IMHO, people at some point need to stop insisting that game devs quit trying to make their game better, just because some people have older and under-powered hardware. If it takes a hardware upgrade to run the newest version, then so be it. I'd rather see progress and updates.

QTF

[bustr]

The last few open betas for AH2 resulted in many thinking they didn't have the hardware to play the game to their liking. When the finished product was released, most of those complaining could run the new patch or major game upgrade.

This code is in a state that it runs our PC's hard. Makes things blow up sooner than later so Hitech has some idea what to fix.

Every time in the past the testing was opened to the players, it was at a point of being in play mode that needed testing. And every time people "Played" and forgot this is testing to find bugs. Then they came back to the forum and beat up Hitech like it was the finished product. No one gave a ratz hairy kester when he and Skuzzy repeated it was not the finished product. Every one just beat him up if they had "Play" problems.

We are supposed to play in the online arenas then report back what happens if we find anything.

Your PC not able to run the code so your FPS is high enough to be playable is a reportable problem for Hitech to put on the work list.