Video Card Question

[guitarman68]

This is aimed at our very gifted IT dept. I have a ATI X700 is there any way i can get a few more frames out of it, i have the ATI Tray tools but im not sure on what to tick and fiddle with.I have a 3000+ AMD Athlon 64 and 1.50GB ram.

Any help or idiots guide would be great.

cheers chaps.

[delta7]

here is a good guide to setting up ATI cards

http://www.tweakguides.com/ATICAT_1.html

dont know what level of improvements you are looking for mate but faster fps usually depends on processor.

if you lower your graphical settings both for the card and in the game hardware section this will help but it will be up to personal preference on what you trade off in image quality for fps

Your sound settings can also have an effect, if you have a seperate soundcard with its own processor like the soundblaster audigy 2 zx this might help.

here is some info on settings

http://www.airwarfare.com/tech/system.htm#002

and my review on soundcard

http://www.airwarfare.com/AWX/features/ ... review.htm

post your results for FPS at the end of the black death track and your dxdiag and we might be able to help more

[guitarman68]

I run the BD track, the lowest i saw was 10fps highest was 54 i think the average would be mid twenty's. I tried to post myDxDiag but got this error message.

The following error or errors occurred while posting this message:

The message exceeds the maximum allowed length (20000 characters).

Which bits do you need and i'll post them, or do you need it all.

[delta7]

would be best if you could post it all - could you please try splittting it in 2 by copying and pasting into 2 posts mate

in a 3rd post could you also please post what your graphic settings are for your video card - AA , AF, resolution

and copy and past the

[Render_OpenGL]

section of your conf file in your main il2fb folder

your conf file will open with notepad so just copy and paste the section here

thanks

[B16Enk]

Post size fixed, will now allow 350000 characters....should be enough!!

[guitarman68]

Try this mate, cheers roger.

-----------------

System Information

------------------

Time of this report: 10/7/2006, 13:42:29

[guitarman68]

Hope this helps.

AA=0 AF=0 resolution 1024x768

[Render_OpenGL]

TexQual=3

TexMipFilter=1

TexCompress=0

TexFlags.UseDither=1

TexFlags.UseAlpha=0

TexFlags.UseIndex=0

TexFlags.PolygonStipple=1

TexFlags.UseClampedSprites=0

TexFlags.DrawLandByTriangles=1

TexFlags.UseVertexArrays=1

TexFlags.DisableAPIExtensions=0

TexFlags.ARBMultitextureExt=1

TexFlags.TexEnvCombineExt=1

TexFlags.SecondaryColorExt=1

TexFlags.VertexArrayExt=1

TexFlags.ClipHintExt=0

TexFlags.UsePaletteExt=0

TexFlags.TexAnisotropicExt=1

TexFlags.TexCompressARBExt=1

TexFlags.TexEnvCombine4NV=1

TexFlags.TexEnvCombineDot3=1

TexFlags.DepthClampNV=1

TexFlags.SeparateSpecular=1

TexFlags.TextureShaderNV=1

HardwareShaders=0

Shadows=1

Specular=2

SpecularLight=2

DiffuseLight=2

DynamicalLights=1

MeshDetail=2

VisibilityDistance=2

Sky=2

Forest=1

LandShading=2

LandDetails=2

LandGeom=2

TexLarge=0

TexLandQual=3

TexLandLarge=0

VideoSetupId=17

Water=1

Effects=1

ForceShaders1x=0

PolygonOffsetFactor=-0.15

PolygonOffsetUnits=-3.0

[DeviceLink]

port=21100

host=127.0.0.1

[delta7]

Im not the best with chipset ( motherboard ) drivers but I dont think that you have your installed or some are missing for example under display devices

AGP Status: Not Available

is listed which suggests that your card isnt being read properly. You will need to find out what drivers to download from your motherboard manual. Your machine states it is nvidea so you will be able to find and download the correct type from their website. http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp under Platform/nforce drivers.

It will probably be the nforce1/2 or 3 or 4

Hopefully Rog will check this to confirm my suspicions

Once that is fixed lower your sound acceleration by running dxdiag, click sound tab, move slider to left until it says basic, exit.

Also you are running your monitor at 60hz. If its a CRT then you should raise this to 85Hz in display properties , if it if a TFT flat screen then this is OK leave as it is.

I am at work so cant check your video drivers but you should download the latest from ATI - just download the driver set and not the full catalyst set if you are happy with ATI tray tools.

I would raise AA and AF to 2 as this will improve your images, then try 4 to see if this is ok or hits your frame rate too much.

I would expect you to be able to play in the low to mid 30s av in black death with your system

IF I have time tomorrow I will check your specs more closely but if not then pm rog and quazi to have a look as Im on holiday so cant follow this up as quickly as I would like to

good luck

Dave

[guitarman68]

Thankyou for your help Dave i will have alook at what you have pointed out, your help is much appreciated.

[BBloke]

Yep.

[B16Enk]

CPU-Z will help identify your board.

Suspect it is nForce 3, but confirm.

Before re-instaling chipset drivers from nVidia you must un-install all nVidia drivers from add/remove programs and reboot, I would use Driver Cleaner in safe mode to remove all trace of nvidia. Then allow system to search for and fail to load drivers at next boot before installing new drivers.

[guitarman68]

Right chaps, i ran cpuz and i have a nvidia 3, i got driver cleaner and ran that process.I downloaded the platform nforce drivers and installed them, did the sound tweak and the il2 setup change and it seems to run alot smoother.I then run a dxdiag again but that still says AGP Status: Not Available. I unchecked the IDE like you said chris in the list of what to install but i couldn't see anything relating to graphics there.Do i have to enable anything else.

Thankyou for all your help lads im not out to get a super fast system its just when taking off in the game my frame rate was low and its tricky at the best of times.

[BBloke]

Ok.

[B16Enk]

VNC might be the answer here too

[BBloke]

Just spotted something else.

[guitarman68]

Latest dxdiag.

------------------

System Information

------------------

Time of this report: 10/8/2006, 14:12:42

[B16Enk]

Looking much better.

AGP status may correct itself if you un-install and re-install ATI drivers.

[delta7]

It might also work if you remove the video card from windows device manager and reboot, it will say new hardware found do you want to install drivers, etc

cancel this and reinstall latest ATI drivers from downloaded installer.

[guitarman68]

Thankyou for all your help gentleman, its running nice and smooth now.

[BBloke]

Glad to hear it Guitarman

[delta7]

woo-hoo , just out of interest what average fps do you get on the black death track now-

start at 10 secs and end at 2mins 30 secs

[guitarman68]

At 10 seconds i had 38fps at 2.30mins i had 42fps, the highest was 57fps and i reckon the average is low-mid 30's.

[BBloke]

You could always download fraps and use that prog to see what happens. www.fraps.com

Or you could do it in game.

Start the BD mission and press P to pause.

Hold SHIFT and Press TAB to enter the console.

Type fps START SHOW (case is sensitive) This puts the fps at the top.

Hold SHIFT and Press TAB to get back to the track

Press P to unpause

Watch BD til you hit the stop time and press P again to pause and read off the FPS from the top.

This should include min max and avg.