Video hardware

[Froglips]

I am just getting going on Warthog (learning to fly, building pit, etc.). I am wondering if I will need to upgrade my video card. It is the only really old kit in my hardware.

 

ASUS M4A77D

AMD Phenon II X3 720 Black Edition four cores unlocked

ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 64 Pro

G Skill 4 x 4GB DDR2 1066

ASUS EN8800GTS/HTDP/640M GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB Video Card

 

Does A-10C require a lot of video horsepower on max settings? Is there any increase in hardware requires in multiplayer vs. single? I know in Falcon, because of the peer to peer nature of the online campaign, that one really needed a maxed out PC.

 

Froggie

[Para_Bellum]

That card will struggle with the sim.

 

If you want get a new NVIDIA card, I'd recommend a GTX 460/560+. I recently upgraded my GTX 260 (which is already faster than the 8800GTS) to a GTX 470 and am very happy with its performance. If you want to get a new NVIDIA card, I'd recommend a GTX 460+/560+.

[egorter]

For what its worth I went from two nvidia 8600s in SLI( total 512MB vram) to one 450gts (1GB vRam) and saw a huge difference in frame rates.

[MTFDarkEagle]

If I might give a recommendation for an nvidia card: the GTX560ti . It's great value for money. A friend of mine has it, and he is very pleased :)

[skouras]

i have the Asus Nvidia GTX 580

Amazing performance.....

[Malefic Rage]

If you're conserving cash (I know the feeling) then I'd suggest giving your 8800GTS a go before trading, depending on your requirements. If you want to run at max settings, an upgrade will be required. Something like a Radeon 6850 would probably do the trick in the sub $200 price point (I'm saving for a 6950 myself). I am currently running the sim on a Radeon 4850 on fairly high detail settings quite nicely at 1680x1050 with 8xMSAA. Comparisons put the 8800 about 20% slower than the 4850 in real-life performance so I say give it a shot. The most significant performance limiter I've come across with my rig is texture sizes due to my use of Vista 32-bit with a 512MB video card. High quality shadows and water eat the cycles, reducing those doesn't compromise much and I sometimes disable Mirrors and TSAA to keep things smooth.

 

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/177?vs=178

 

*edit* A very significant factor is whether you are using a 32 or 64 bit OS. From your specs, I assume 64?

Edited March 7, 2011 by Malefic Rage

[Sinky]

I don't know which is better the 8800GT or the GTS. As you can see from my signature I'm running an 8800GT 512MB and having a very bad time with it, going back to black shark for the moment.

 

If you take a look at this thread you can see suggestions on how 512MB video memory may not be enough.

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=69151&page=2

 

@Malefic: My 8800GT would die if I tried 8xMSAA on 1680x1050.

Edited March 7, 2011 by Sinky

[Malefic Rage]

@Sinky: I noticed in that thread you mentioned high texture detail. Are you still using this because that by far is the limiting factor. Switch to medium and you should notice a huge performance improvement. Also, what resolution do you render your displays at? Anything more than 256 is not really needed unless you have either a large display at a high resolution or dedicated MFD displays.

 

Just some thoughts, admittedly the 8800 is getting a bit long in the tooth.

[Sinky]

@Malefic: I've thought about it, I will give it a try when I next launch the game and let you know. I've always ran 256 on the displays and I usually run 1280x800 in windowed mode, gives me enough leeway to use some anti-aliasing at that resolution.

 

@Froglips: I would say if you have the money to spare then by all means upgrade your GPU.

[Sinky]

@Sinky: I noticed in that thread you mentioned high texture detail. Are you still using this because that by far is the limiting factor. Switch to medium and you should notice a huge performance improvement. Also, what resolution do you render your displays at? Anything more than 256 is not really needed unless you have either a large display at a high resolution or dedicated MFD displays.

 

Just some thoughts, admittedly the 8800 is getting a bit long in the tooth.

 

It actually worked. I tested in the same scene using active pause, with textures on high and low. The stutter whilst looking left and right was completely gone using low textures. See the thread I linked for details of the problem I was having. Ground textures do not seem to change in resolution which is good, they still look brilliant. I was getting around 40 fps average with these settings.

 

Everything on low except scenes were on high, visibility medium and tree distance of 6000 with a resolution of 1280x800 ( windowed ) + 2xAA & 8xAF.

 

Thanks Malefic, rep inbound.

[celticcoho]

Try adjusting your Graphics with your eyes, turn off FPS counter!!! The sim will come alive for you. Any Real Problem will show itself, otherwise you are just enjoying the Sim. Not trying to counter what FPS is wanting you to believe, Cheers

:book:

[Sinky]

Try adjusting your Graphics with your eyes, turn off FPS counter!!! The sim will come alive for you. Any Real Problem will show itself, otherwise you are just enjoying the Sim. Not trying to counter what FPS is wanting you to believe, Cheers

:book:

 

I only enabled the fps counter when I noticed the game was running like :music_whistling:... I don't sit and fly with it constantly and have a seizure when I get 29 fps. I'd rather look at the Strela trying to ruin my day :spam_laser:.

[Froglips]

Thanks all. Ordered a 560Ti.

[MTFDarkEagle]

You won't be dissapointed.

[DTWD]

...and I usually run 1280x800 in windowed mode

 

Why do you run in windowed mode?

[MTFDarkEagle]

Why do you run in windowed mode?

Could be he's using multimonitor?

[Steel Jaw]

Thanks all. Ordered a 560Ti.

 

Good decision. :thumbup:

[DTWD]

I considered that, but he's running at 1280x800, which isn't double screen resolution.

[celticcoho]

I only enabled the fps counter when I noticed the game was running like :music_whistling:... I don't sit and fly with it constantly and have a seizure when I get 29 fps. I'd rather look at the Strela trying to ruin my day :spam_laser:.

cheers, Funny how it is most enjoyable looking at the sim and not the FPS Counter!!!And as you say, Any real problem shows it self in the Sim...Happy Flying:thumbup:

[Sinky]

Why do you run in windowed mode?

 

22" wide screen with a lower resolution than native makes it stretched and pixelated, to get around this I use windowed mode. Only bad side to this is I can't seem to use vsync.

 

@Celticcoho: :thumbup:

Edited March 9, 2011 by Sinky

[DTWD]

Looking at your sig your running an NVidia GPU. Always make sure you switch the NVidia control panel scaling mode to "Use NVidia scaling with fixed-aspect ratio". This will stop your monitor having to do the upscaling and thus gives you a much smoother picture.

 

Be aware this setting seems to get reset randomly back to "Use my display's built-in scaling" - or monitor upscaling for short.

 

Anyway that should allow you to run in full screen mode without too many upscaling artifacts and thus then get a FPS boost.

 

I am slightly worried though, your machine is not too disimilar to mine and I was hoping I could run A10. BS runs fine on mine at 1920x1200 and virtually everything on max, with 8xAA and 4xAF (I think it's 4).

[Sinky]

Looking at your sig your running an NVidia GPU. Always make sure you switch the NVidia control panel scaling mode to "Use NVidia scaling with fixed-aspect ratio". This will stop your monitor having to do the upscaling and thus gives you a much smoother picture.

 

Be aware this setting seems to get reset randomly back to "Use my display's built-in scaling" - or monitor upscaling for short.

 

Anyway that should allow you to run in full screen mode without too many upscaling artifacts and thus then get a FPS boost.

 

I am slightly worried though, your machine is not too disimilar to mine and I was hoping I could run A10. BS runs fine on mine at 1920x1200 and virtually everything on max, with 8xAA and 4xAF (I think it's 4).

 

Could you tell me where this setting is? Never seen it before and I can't find it at the moment. I'm running driver 266.58, was the latest 2 days ago.

 

My monitor puts the black bars down the side for 4:3 resolutions but it still stretches them height wise. Would be great if I could find the setting your on about so that it will put the bars at the top and the sides for my widesceen resolutions also.

 

Your 8800GT might perform better than mine ( if that's what you've got ). I'm convinced mine runs worse than anyone elses on even the lowest of control panel settings. Tested with multiple games with people who have the same specs and they run it better, might be the age of the GPU or the make, it's a Palit 8800GT.

 

For instance I can run BS 1680x1050 on max with water at the lowest and 4xAA 8xAF but as soon as I turn the shkval on it gets really choppy. For comparison's sake my core clock is 600, shader 1500 and memory 900.

 

Edit: Found the setting and it's already on "use NVIDIA scaling with fixed-aspect ratio". Going to try setting it to "Do not scale".

Edited March 9, 2011 by Sinky

[DTWD]

Then you shouldn't be getting that much pixelation, the onboard upscaling smoothes out the picture. Obviously your going to get something as a lower res. Have you tried increasing your res but removing the aa/af?

[Froglips]

Hi folks,

Bought a Palit 560Ti with 2GB RAM. Seemed like the texture sizes in Warthog were pretty big and my Asus board only has one video slot so no dual cards for me.

Question: Anyone out there with a 560Ti? Rest of my system specs are in my sig. I seem to get an occasional pause with video settings all on max including 1024 every frame textures, 16x AA, TSAA on, etc.

[WarriorX]

Hey Kurt, I noticed in your sig there, your wish...

 

Have you seen this? http://combathelo.blogspot.com/