Beta , Melle Arena.

[Hajo]

Folks, you are missing a great opportunity if you're not in  Beta.  For those of you that have been here a good while when the various Betas became available,
the best fights were occurring in those venues.  Yep, there is no score.  Can you take bases?  Yes.  Can you bomb factories?  Yes.  Can you run pickup missions?
Yes..just like in AH2 Main arena.  Staged missions?  Yes. There are also mission arenas if you so desire.

The game effects are spectacular if you like something different.  I switched to front left view in my Jug, low and behold the faint reflection of the "No Hand Hold"
and the chin rest showed up as a reflection on my canopy.  Flak towers.  Yes!  Modeled so well that when flying over the radar factory to strafe I saw an overhead
Crane installed in the flak tower to hoist ammo and machinery.  Flak sounds, awesome.  Rumbled poof sounds, realistic.  Far different then AHII.



This is a great opportunity for fantastic fights.  No points, just fight, bomb, Jabo and even stage pickup missions.  Remember nothing is perfect yet.  But it will be.

Here is the opportunity to see what the future holds and your input on the future of this game.  Its great fun.  It's all up to you.  Don't be slammed in the face all at
once with issues when it becomes reality.  If you like this game, you owe it to yourself to see what is ahead, and to help improve the Beta, which will benefit all of us who
wish to continue playing Aces High.

[oakranger]

Tried it and FR 0 to 1 - and that is at the lowest possible settings.   sigh, sigh.

[Bizman]

For those who are new to the Beta and haven't read the 4028 posts on the Beta BBS, not to mention the 5573 posts on the private Alpha forum before the open testing:

Both of the previous posters are right. The Beta is beautiful, you can fly all planes and do all things just like in AH2 plus much more as Hajo said.

However, unlike AH2, the Beta doesn't run well on an office computer. It's a graphically rich game which means a gaming level graphics card is required in order to get playable frame rates.

Having read numerous questions about poor performance I've noticed that many people simply don't know that PC gaming usually requires a gaming PC. Having read the minimum requirements on the Home Page not to mention comparing those to what they have is a rare feature. The ultra optimistic hype in PC/video card advertising doesn't help, even the cheapest entry level gear seem to "enhance your games to a new graphical level".

Fortunately neither the current AH2 nor the Beta require the highest end gaming computers. My current one has served me for almost eight years now with a couple of second hand upgrades and it plays the Beta reasonably fast.

[bozon]

Though it is difficult to compare the two versions due to different graphic effects and options, the new AHIII runs just as well as AHII on my machine. I can squeeze very high graphic settings out of it and keep FPS at the 40s. Mine is a 2 years old medium range NVIDIA card.

I so wish I had more gaming time to properly test the alpha/beta... But alas.

[Hajo]

If you look in the Beta Forums you will learn what you can do to enhance the video on your machine to play the game.

I have what is considered to be a mid range card at this time and it does very very well!

I have the GeForce GTX 750Ti.  I think now they are around 100 to 150 dollars not expensive. All assets enabled in game.

[Max]

The Geforce GTX 750Ti sells for $123 on Amazon. An extra $27 buys you a Geforce GTX 760, which I have and runs AH3 in the mid 50's FR.

The scuttlebutt being bandied about in Late War, as to "having to spend two thousand bucks for an AH3 compatible system" is simply horsepucky.

[puller]

The Geforce GTX 750Ti sells for $123 on Amazon. An extra $27 buys you a Geforce GTX 760, which I have and runs AH3 in the mid 50's FR.

The scuttlebutt being bandied about in Late War, as to "having to spend two thousand bucks for an AH3 compatible system" is simply horsepucky.

Now Max...don't start a fuss on the boards    You will have to spend $2000 on a new rig...especially if you don't have sense enough to read through the beta/alpha thread on how to set up your stuff to run it right...

Now back to reality....my AH rig is over 10 years old...the power supply fan has been out for over a year now and I have a desk fan pinned in-between the wall and the psu fan housing...it has a Intel Pentium 4 processor, I have 4 gig of ram with my windows XP that hasn't had any type of update since '08, in the spring of last year I bought a HD6450 1gb video card....I run the beta at 30fps and its playable....im going to buy a 2gig video card here real soon...but...im not posting on the boards telling HTC that I'm gonna quit the game because when I downloaded the Beta I only got 2fps...

I keep reading these posts...one after the other..."I bought a laptop with 16gig of ram with windows 8.1 and I cant play the beta...so if you don't fix it I'm leaving..."  "I have a desktop I bought 2 years ago with 16 gig of ram with windows 10 with intel integrated graphics...the beta is unplayable so I'll be quitting when it goes live..."

Bizman said that an office computer isn't going to run the beta or AH3 without a dedicated GAMING video card...It doesn't matter how many gig of ram you have...if you don't have a video card its not gonna work...I see 2gb video cards on ebay everyday (and that's where im getting mine) for 50 bucks...ive seen them on walmart.com for 80 bucks...ive seen them on officedepot.com and bestbuy...

Bottom line of this rant is...I am by far a computer guru...but I have enough sense to read the threads about the alpha/beta and messed with my computer enough to be able to play the alpha and the beta without crying to HTC that I'm quitting because I cant get 60fps outta my machine...and I WILL make my old computer run AH3 at 60fps...and I WILL NOT SPEND more than about 100 bucks to do it....

Oh and by the way did I tell you I'm not a computer guru...I don't even have sense enough to replace my power supply...and I've read how to do it...

Sorry....Rant off 

(edit) wow...after reading this I sound a lot like bustr 

[JunkyII]

Everytime I go in Beta there is only a "Can count them on your fingers" amount of people and most are testing bugs...think the frame rate issue is keeping a lot of people in Aces high 2 ATM...I did take advice from Skuzzy...because unlike a lot of the testers saying "Oh you need to get a new computer your computer is from 2012" (Even though many of those computers can run ANY new game out right now...and mine does) Turn down some settings and got 59 frames holding....

Problem now is that Aces High 2 looks like better graphics then Aces High 3 for me because I used higher settings in 2 and down in the dirt settings in 3 

[popeye]

A high frame rate is much more important to me than the reflection of "No Hand Hold" on the canopy.  I'll be enjoying AH2 while I can.


kong

[rpm]

I think this game just doesn't like nVidia cards. I used to have lousy framerates so I switched from a GeForce to a Radeon and now everything runs smooth as silk. It's a 7710 that's several years old but handles everything I've thrown at it.

[Skuzzy]

I think this game just doesn't like nVidia cards. I used to have lousy framerates so I switched from a GeForce to a Radeon and now everything runs smooth as silk. It's a 7710 that's several years old but handles everything I've thrown at it.

Uh, HiTech's development system has an NVidia GTX660 video card in it.  Pretty sure NVidia cards will run pretty well.

[Shuffler]

Uh, HiTech's development system has an NVidia GTX660 video card in it.  Pretty sure NVidia cards will run pretty well.

AHHHhhhh what do you know....  snicker

STEP OVER THE CORDS

[rpm]

Uh, HiTech's development system has an NVidia GTX660 video card in it.  Pretty sure NVidia cards will run pretty well.

Just speaking from personal experience.

[bustr]

GPU-Z is free and will tell you everything you need to know about the graphics card in your PC\Laptop.

http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

At Wikipedia there are in-depth product specifications in easy to read charts for all PCI-E 2.0 and 3.0 video cards AMD and Nvidia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_HD_6000_Series
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_HD_7000_Series
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_HD_8000_series
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Radeon_Rx_200_series

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_9_series
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_500_series
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_600_series
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_700_series
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_900_series

a.) - GDDR5 video RAM is 2x faster than DDR3\GDDR3.
b.) - PCI-E 3.0 graphics cards can run in PCI-E 2.0 slots. Make sure your power supply is 550W or higher.

The Geforce GTX 9800 is unique in that a 256bit data bus was used to get 70.4Gbyte band width out of GDDR3 ram and only 128 shader processors. That is why the GTX 9800 is the minimum graphic card specification for the game. Other wise a data path below 128bit and band width below about 80 Gbyte\sec will require you to play the game pretty much in 512 mode with everything turned off. If you do not have the band width, more memory means zilch.

I've tested with a GTX 9800 on my wifes PC and a Radeon HD 6770 on my PC since August 2014. This Christmas I received a GTX 760 and play the beta with the defaults in 4096 mode with FPS 40 - 60 depending on the environment. Half the time with the 6770 playing 1024 mode, in very large 60 bomber missions I had to turn off post lighting to raise my FPS from 7-14 to 30-60.

Data Paths at 64 bit will not cut it, PC or laptop graphics cards. Some laptops with GTX 900 family graphics chips are only 64bit and 128bit with band width 14.4Gbyte\sec to 80 Gbyte\sec. If your hot performance laptop runs the beta badly, check the Wikipedia specs to see what your chip's specs are. There will be separate charts for laptop chip versions of the Graphic Card charts. They are often lesser powered than the PC card specifications. This game is different than most other games, so how your graphics card runs other games may not be a valid benchmark for your outcomes with the beta.

Here is what matters in your graphics card for this game on average to play in 1024 mode knowing in some instances you will have to turn of post lighting effects.

Video RAM - GDDR5
Data Paths - 128bit
Band Width - 80 Gbyte
Shader processors - 800
---------------------------------------

Minimum Graphics Card:

GeForce GTX 9800
GDDR3 - 512M
Data Path - 256bit <----this data path made the band width possible.
Band Width - 70.4 Gbyte\sec
Shaders - 128

Including the above, the other two I've tested the alpha\beta with:

Radeon HD 6770 SC
GDDR5 - 1G
Data Paths - 128bit
Band Width - 80 Gbyte\sec
Shaders - 800

GeForce GTX 760
GDDR5 - 2G
Data Paths - 256bit
Band Width - 192 Gbyte\sec
Shaders - 1152

Hitech's Development PC Graphics Card:

GeForce GTX 660
GDDR5 - 2G\3G
Data Paths - 192bit
Band Width - 144.2 Gbyte\sec
Shaders - 960

[puller]

A high frame rate is much more important to me than the reflection of "No Hand Hold" on the canopy.  I'll be enjoying AH2 while I can.

kong

So....instead of adjusting your settings (maybe you have) or posting a DXDiag in the hardware and software forum or the Beta forum (haven't seen one) your just gonna give up too...

Like I said my AH rig was new in 2004!!!! its a HP....its junk!!!!  But the 25 to 30 fps I get in the Beta (got the same in the Alpha) is very playable...it took some messing with things I know nothing about...but it worked...once I get a 2gb video card...I assume that I will get my 60fps just like I do in AH2 with everything or nothing turned on...

Remember....the Beta IS NOT THE FINAL PRODUCT!!!!