franx

OK, some good news. I spent some time last night tweaking all the variables on my computer. As I said at the beginning of this thread, I'm running an AMD Athlon 64 3800 +, 1 gig RAM, nVidia 8800 GTX, Windows Home XP, SP3; 1280x1024, 32 bit. I know I need more RAM, but even with everything set at low, I was getting barely 18 FPS over towns and the low 30s over open terrain, with lots of hiccups and brief freezes. Now I'm getting in the low 30s over towns and as high as the low 50s over open terrain; I still get the occasional glitch or microfreeze, but much less frequently. Here's what I've done: I turn off sound acceleration. I set all in-game graphics options to low. I edit my options lua file to set water and haze at "0." I terminate all unnecessary processes and turn off anti-virus. Then, in my nVidia control panel, I set the following values: Anistropic filtering = OFF AA - Gamma correction = OFF AA - Mode = OFF AA - Setting = NONE AA - Transparency = OFF Conformant texture clamp = USE HARDWARE Extension limit = OFF Force mipmaps = NONE Maximum pre-rendered frames = 1 Multi-display/ mixed GPU acceleration = SINGLE DISPLAY PERFORMANCE Texture filtering - anistropic sample optimization = ON Texture filtering - negative LOD bias = ALLOW Texture filtering - Quality = HIGH PERFORMANCE Texture filtering - trilinear optimization = ON Triple buffering = ON Texture filtering - anistropic mip filter optimization = ON Vertical sync = USE THE 3D APPLICATION SETIING I'm still not sure whether a high or low pre-rendered frames setting is better for my (low end) CPU, but "1" seems to do better than "5" or "7" in minimizing the hiccups. Anyway, these settings really do seem to improve the game experience on my machine. Just FYI for fellow sufferers.

Thanks Esac, I'll give this a try. The size of the key set is a bit intimidating!

GregP, I'm away from my gaming computer until tonight, but try fiddling in your nVidia control panel with the number of pre-rendered frames. I haven't tried this yet, but it will probably be set at 3 by default. Check out your performance when you set it at 2, and compare that when you set it at 4 or 5. I read somewhere that higher end systems may run better at 2, whereas low end users (like me) might benefit from tweaking the number upward.

Thanks Groove, and I'll reset Haze to 1 Legolaslindar and see what it does to FPS.

Thanks V1Rotate. That's my next priority purchase. Any idea what the "effects" do or mean in the lua file?

Fellas, I wonder if anyone can suggest any additional ways to improve FPS. My setup is an AMD Athlon 64 3800+, 1 gig RAM, nVidia GeForce 8800 GTX, Windows XP Home SP 3. I do the usual precautionary things: page-defrag and defrag the drive every startup; end unneeded processes; turn off anti-virus. I run at 32 bit, 1280x1024, full screen. I have all graphics settings on low. I've also edited my options lua file to put "water" and "haze" at 0. I'm also experimenting with dropping "effects" from 3, to 1 or 2. In my nVidia control panel, I've forced off v-sync, anti-aliasing and anistropic, and turned on bilinear and "high performance" for quality. After I edited my lua file, I got a 6 to 8 FPS improvement. Over open ground, I now average in the low 40s. Over cities, it drops into the low 20s. But I continue to get irritating gameplay hesitations or hiccuping, including a very brief freeze just before a crash. I know that part of my problem is CPU speed. Can't do much about that. I'll add another gig of RAM sometime next month. But in the meantime, would running at 1024x768 and 16 bit make any real difference? (I tried briefly -- it doesn't seem to.) Has anyone else tried reducing the quality number on "effects" in his options lua file? Any advice from your experiences would be helpful.

If anyone out there has one, please share it with me as well!

MATrasher, be sure to get that key number. It is not part of the DL. You can't run the sim without it. It should be included in the Cyrillic text just above the green buttons.

MAThrasher, OK, try this: Go to the Russian 1 C home website. Log in on your account. You should see the 300 rubles on your extreme top right in heavy black lettering. Now notice, across the center-top of the webpage, seven tabs with lettering. Click on the one that's the seventh from the left (i.e., the farthest right). You will see a bunch of blue hyperlinks pop down, vertically arranged. Click on the SEVENTH hyperlink from the top on the hyperlink list. This should show your address info. The Cyrillic for "USA" looks vaguely like CWA. You do not want that. Scroll the country list up a few notches, and you'll see "Russia." It starts a bit like "Pocc_," with letters that look like a reverse "n" and a reverse "r" at the end. Change your country to that and save. Now your rubles should be available to be applied. While you're still logged into your account, you can now click on the KA-50 Black Shark game. It should be fairly easy to navigate to the online store, apply your rubles, and then the two green download buttons do indeed show up (Don't forget to record your game key number!). I found it helpful to keep two browser windows open: one to navigate the Russian site, the other to use Google language tools to translate the Cyrillic labels on the 1C site. (I.e., I copied text from the 1C site, pasted it into Google, translated, then went back and selected the correct links off the 1C site, etc.). Tedious, but it does work. If you get confabulated, just post and I'll try to help later today. PS: Once you get the game installed, there's an easy trick to turn much (though not all) of the game's in-game lettering from Cyrillic to English. Drop me a note and I'll send it along.

MAThrasher, I'm heading for bed at the moment, so I'll send you instructions in the morning. It's actually pretty easy.

Can you see the 300 rubles under your account name on the top right hand of the 1C site? That means it got to your 1C account, the one that got created when you registered. If you can see it, I can walk you through adjusting your personal profile/home country designation.

PS: Just so I avoid screwing everything up, can someone tell me exactly what to do now that I have both the setup.exe and DATA1.cab files on my desktop? Do I create a BS folder in Program Files? And then what?

Not sure, because remember, I did things wrong: I originally listed my account country as the USA, which meant my 300 rubles showed up in my 1C account but were not applied to a purchase because BS is blocked outside the CIS. I could see my 300 rubles listed in bold black under my name in the upper right hand corner of the 1C home page when I logged in. Once I changed my account home country to Russia, then I had to use Google language prefs to find and translate the appropriate page where I could use my 1C rubles against a specific game -- in this case, BS. Once I did that, up popped the green buttons immediately.

MATrasher, Weird story, your experience with PayPal/Web Money. In my case, I had no real trouble at all -- the real challenge was using Google on the 1C site for translations. From starting the process to downloading the files took a total of 48 hours, and that includes interruptions from work and family, and mistakenly listing my account country as USA instead of Russia. But I suspect any financial transactions with former Soviet bloc countries have a heightened weirdness factor.

Update on my post of a day or two ago. When I changed my 1C account registration from a USA country address to Russia, no problem in paying for and downloading the two BS files. In progress now. Thanks for all the help here!

HellMutt, Oops, I registered as USA. Can I change that? This may be what's screwwing me up.

OK, here's an update. I have successfully created my Web Money purses, transferred cash from PayPal to my WMZ purse, then exchanged the dollars into rubles in my WMR purse. I have paid for the sim on the 1C site and received confirmation for the transaction. But now where the heck to I download the game?? From the email I received, it looks like 1C has 300 rubles in my account, but not necessarily assigned yet to any particular purchase -- anyone have a similar experience?

Fellas, so far so good. I got a message from Web Money that I needed to be "authorized" to transfer $$ from PayPal. So I requested that authorization. And I got it within 24 hours. Now on to the next step.

Excellent guys. This sounds promising. I'll report back on my luck. Thanks very much!

Thanks much, Peter22, got your PM. I called PayPal. No go. They have no relationship with Web Monkey and can't transfer the $$. Anyone have another way to get $$ into Web Monkey or acquire the Russian version?

Has anyone managed to pay for and DL the Russian version from the United States? If so, how? The web money route seems Europe specific. If someone has succeeded in using it from the States, please let me know how you did it.