IL2 Sturmovik FB's, not very playable, help!

[Ravens Nest]

One of my friends asked me if i'd come around a see if i could work out why his new pc was running his new game so slowly.

His PC is a Compaq Presario (Yuck!)

I was able to work out what some of it was made of..
P4 3.066 HT 533 FSB
intel i845GE motherboard
GF4 MX440 ( i replaced it with his older Ti4200 128mb AGP)
Realtek alc650 sound
Samsung 80GB HD 5400rpm
512MB DDR 2700 ram
Windows XP home edition

Only specs for IL2 sturmovik forgotten battles it says
Minimum 256 ram recommended 512
GF4 recommended

Have tried the game with higher and lower detail settings and resolutions, it becomes unplayable at 1024x768x32 with full detail but even at 800x600x16 with low detail it stutters like mad!!

Any suggestions?
Does the patch 1.1b help with this a lot?.

Thanks for any help

[Ravens Nest]

Here are the minium recommended specs for IL2 forgotten battles..

In order for IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles to run properly, your system must meet or exceed these minimum requirements:


Windows 98/ME/2000/XP
Yep XP
Pentium III 800 or AMD Athlon 700 or better
Much higher P4 3.066 HT
256 MB RAM (512 MB RAM recommended)
yep 512
32 MB DirectX 8.1 compatible 3D video card (64 MB recommended)
128mb GF4 ti4200
DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card
realtek alc650 with latest drivers
DirectX 8.1 or higher (included on disk)
DirectX 9.0a
Internet Connection (56kbps or better) or LAN for Multiplayer
Connectix 56K modem
4X CD-ROM or better (Not recommended for use with CD-RWs)
Havent a clue, obviously much higher than this though
1.1 GB free hard disk space
69GB free at moment

[TiG]

Originally posted by Ravens Nest
Have tried the game with higher and lower detail settings and resolutions, it becomes unplayable at 1024x768x32 with full detail but even at 800x600x16 with low detail it stutters like mad!!

A few things to try, PERFECT really does mean perfect, it is a really good test of all cards. IF your testing this online, don't - it makes a huge difference to how the game works, i can't play online at high res due to my 56k modem having to deal with the increased amount of stuff needing to be sent down to my machine.

Have you tried turning off the virus scanner for a sec to see if that helps?.

TiG

[Ravens Nest]

Originally posted by TiG
A few things to try, PERFECT really does mean perfect, it is a really good test of all cards. IF your testing this online, don't - it makes a huge difference to how the game works, i can't play online at high res due to my 56k modem having to deal with the increased amount of stuff needing to be sent down to my machine.

Have you tried turning off the virus scanner for a sec to see if that helps?.

TiG

Thanks for the reply TiG, i've tried perfect it changes between unplayably slow and not bad speed.(with the perfect setting) tried all settings lower than that and it still stutters constantly but isnt unplayably slow just unplayably stuttery

Didnt have pc online at all while testing it.

Dont think he has a virus scanner on his pc, couldnt find one anyway, there wasnt one in the bios either.
(But those pesky Compaq's have half of the BIOS options hidden so you cant mess with them)

Wanted to change AGP aperture size, it's nowhere in the BIOS!! i know that made quite a difference to my brothers and cousins PC's with ti4200's changed AGP from 128 to 64 games stuttered less some games it eliminated the stuttering.

[TiG]

Do other games play alright or is it just FB?, maybe run something like 3dmark2001 and see what that comes back with?.

TiG

[Ravens Nest]

Originally posted by TiG
Do other games play alright or is it just FB?, maybe run something like 3dmark2001 and see what that comes back with?.

TiG

Well he lives a little far away but i'll be going around there later this week sometime.

Tried Project IGI 2, took a lot longer to load than on my machine and when i had a game there was a strange lag while playing like the machine was half a second behind what i was doing.

I went into the settings for video and turned vsync on, this alleviated it quite a bit but there was still a little lag and it also takes a long time to quit the game and also il2 as well.

3DMark2001 yeah i could install it on there then post the benchmark score on here and see what you and anyone else thinks

Thought if i could find out exactly who made the MB i could get all the latest drivers for it including IDE,AGP and see if this helps.

[Stoo]

Yeah, a driver update is about the only thing left to try it would seem..

Oh yeah, have you made sure the bios settings are optimal? stuff like the agp settings and memory timings etc?

[RoGuE|SaBeR]

Format.

Get all the crap that is installed OEM of that machine and get a clean install of XP on with all the associated drivers afterwards.

Fresh XP install

Service Pack 1

Mobo Drivers (may not find these dueto oem pc)

Direct X 9

Gfx Card Drivers

Will do it wonders.

[TiG]

Format is the last resort surely Rogue?, it might be something really stupid like the direct-X or mb drivers, surely its better to check this than taking the rather extreme action of wiping and reinstalling?

TiG

[RoGuE|SaBeR]

IMO I prefer to know exactly what is on my computer. I'll admit it's an extreme move but in my previous experience with computers taht have been bought there seems to be that much rubbish on them and settings usually aren't optimal in any way.

Just reading through the post before and most of the obvious problems have been checked so if the last few turn out to be dead ends as well a format may do it.

(plus you get a shiny, slick and new copy of windows for a while before it bogs down as usual )

[Ravens Nest]

Originally posted by RoGuE|SaBeR
Format.

Get all the crap that is installed OEM of that machine and get a clean install of XP on with all the associated drivers afterwards.

Fresh XP install

Service Pack 1

Mobo Drivers (may not find these dueto oem pc)

Direct X 9

Gfx Card Drivers

Will do it wonders.

If the worst comes to the worst i'll do that, will have to ask my m8 if he has a copy of XP home as sometimes they dont supply them just install on HD.

He's not had it too long so wont be too painful formating the drive, Compaq seem to have put a lot of junk on there.

I deleted a lot of programs that were pre-installed on the pc, the problem i have is he do's not know anything about pc's and i ask him whats safe to delete and he just go's i dont know and i have to do some detective work to decide whats safe to remove.

He has ordered more memory for it another 512DDR so that will help a bit, just got this feeling theres something else wrong as well though

He is a bit of a mug though, as he bought a PC 2 years ago without asking my advice for 1,500 and 350 insurance(which wasnt worth the paper it was written on)
It was an awful pc, and continually had problems with instability, he phoned pc world (where he got it from) and they gave him the run-around for months.

I said next time you buy one let me know i will come with you and pick a half-decent one, or i will build you one he said o.k.

2 years later he go's back to pcworld again and buys another for 1,000 (with no monitor,printer or scanner )

Then moans it cant play the latest games very well, i reminded him he should have seen me and he agrees im right its too late now though hes stuck with it..

But i'll help him as much as i can though, thats what friends are for i suppose.