Old PC needs all the help it can get

[JDski]

I have an old Pent 4 3.2 with a ATI 1650 and 2 gigs of ram.

It seems I must be the only one trying to run this sim on such an old system.

 

I can get acceptable framerates flying if there's not too many enemies. But most missions at the start really hurt and bring me down to 5-10 fps.

I do the best I can to utilize my wingmen to reduce the enemies at the begining of missions before I start to engage them. Which has kept me going through the campaigns.

 

I've tried diffent configurations, but it really seems to be my CPU is the bottleneck, and not the GPU as changing graphic options has only minimal impact.

 

I've edited the files to turn off water textures and effects. Turning off effects helped alot, and was really noticable when hovering low and kicking up dust.

 

I do notice that vehicles still kick up dust though. So I was wondering if it is possible to turn that off as well? Being it helped my fps so much having it off when I kick up dust, and being having many enemies around is the main killer of fps for me, I thought this might have some benifit.

 

Any other suggestions would be very much appreciated.

Edited February 21, 2009 by JDski

[CAT_101st]

A up grade to your video card will help. But you realy need a new rig. When the next game engin comes out it will be a must have, a multy core 64bit PC

[JDski]

I'm may possibly be getting a new machine in the future depending on my situation. Maybe a month or so. That might be another topic all together because I have no clue what to get or build. I kinda gave up on following new hardware when multicores come out. So I got alot of research to catch up on.

But I was hoping in the meantime there was something I could do to boost frames. Some missions I get in the low 20's and others like the "Battle" mission it's like 7 because there's so much going on around me.

I want to try some multiplayer, but if I get into a busy mission, it would be hopeless.

[tusler]

I'm may possibly be getting a new machine in the future depending on my situation. Maybe a month or so. That might be another topic all together because I have no clue what to get or build. I kinda gave up on following new hardware when multicores come out. So I got alot of research to catch up on.

But I was hoping in the meantime there was something I could do to boost frames. Some missions I get in the low 20's and others like the "Battle" mission it's like 7 because there's so much going on around me.

I want to try some multiplayer, but if I get into a busy mission, it would be hopeless.

 

Hi,

Well I'll tell you what i got and it runs Black Shark and FSX well enough, will not run FSX with everything maxed but It was cheap to build and runs stuff set to about 70% of max.

Mainboard: Asus P5N-D

CPU: E6600 dual core

Ram: 4 gig ddr2 pc 6400

Video: Nvidia GF 8800gt 512 ram

Dual layer DVD/RW

You can always do a search for Dell refurbished and they have some really great deals on scratch and dent stuff on their site. Back when I built my system it cost about $900, you could probably build it now for 5 or 6.

Hope it helps