SB Pro PE performance with various grahics cards

[Ssnake]

Graphics card recommendations for Steel Beasts Professional


Polling our beta testers for their recommendations and experiences with the performance of Steel Beasts Professional, we came up with the following list.
To make things a bit easier, we have defined four categories, Not recommended
These graphics card chips will not necessarily crash when starting up SB Pro, but do not expect enjoyable performance at even the most frugal settings. SVGA suitable
These graphics card chips are expected to perform reasonably well at the lowest screen resolution, 800x600. Occasional frame rate drops may occur especially when looking with high magnification settings into deep forests. XGA suitable
These graphics card chips are expected to perform adequately at a screen resolution of 1024x768 (XGA). You may still need to disable antialiasing, but overall the performance will be good. SXGA+
These graphics card chips are expected to perform very well, even at screen resolutions exceeding XGA, and usually with antialiasing and other functions enabled which improve the image quality even further.

These recommendations are rather conservative, and they are exclusively based on subjective gut feeling. Notice also that the style of play as well as scenario design and the terrain of a scenario's map may have an influence. People playing primarily from the map view and external view will probably not suffer from frame rate dips at all, while those who love the gunner's places and look into deep forests often will probably want to err on the high side.



ATi Radeon

Radeon 9250
Radeon 9200
Radeon 9200 SE
Radeon 9500
Radeon 9550
Radeon 9500 Pro
Radeon 9600
Radeon 9600 XT
Radeon 9600 Pro
Radeon 9700
Radeon 9700 Pro
Radeon 9800
Radeon 9800 XT
Radeon 9800 Pro
Radeon 9850 Pro
Radeon X300
Radeon X550
Radeon X600
Radeon X700
Radeon X800
Radeon X850
Radeon X1300
Radeon X1600
Radeon X1800

Mobility Radeon 9000
Mobility Radeon 9200
Mobility Radeon 9600
Mobility Radeon 9700
Mobility Radeon 9800
Mobility Radeon X300
Mobility Radeon X600
Mobility Radeon X700
Mobility Radeon X800



NVidia GeForce

GeForce 3 Ti
GeForce 4 MX
GeForce 4 Ti4200
GeForce 4 Ti4400
GeForce 4 Ti4600
GeForce FX 5200
GeForce PCX 5300
GeForce FX 5600
GeForce FX 5900 XT
GeForce FX 5900
GeForce FX 5900 Ultra
GeForce 6100
GeForce 6150
GeForce 6200
GeForce 6200 TC
GeForce 6500
GeForce 6600 LE
GeForce 6600
GeForce 6600 GT
GeForce 6800 XT
GeForce 6800
GeForce 6800 GT
GeForce 6800 Ultra
GeForce 7800 GT
GeForce 7800 GTX

GeForce4 4200 Go
GeForce FX Go5200
GeForce FX Go5600
GeForce FX Go6800
GeForce FX Go7800 GTX
GeForce 8600M GT

[Froggy]

Will run fine on my GO6800...or my 6600GT.

[Ssnake]

The point that is quite sad IMO, is that I did bought a laptop last year, one of the main reasons was SB PPE. The "nearly best" was ATI Radeon Mobility 9700, and I see that I will barely be able to run the sim at medium detail with a poor resolution (800x600 is a poor resolution, as I run most games at least at 1024x768).
I, too, have a notebook with a Radeon mobility 9700 to show Steel Beasts Pro to prospective customers (and for occasional LAN tests at friends' places), and I'm satisfied with the performance. The catch is, everybody has slightly different expectations about what is considered "acceptable". I think that SB Pro PE runs adequately well at XGA resolution here, although this still is kinda sad since the notebook has a 1450x1024 display, so one would actually want to use its native resolution - but that's just the way it is.
I also think that it is a question of mission design. Some scenario designers do not accept this, but it's standard practice with every game to tailor the level to the desired performance. If today's graphics cards don't handle overdraw scenes well, we need to adapt, and either pick maps or predefine battle positions where the player doesn't have to scan into flat plains filled with millions of trees. That's the killer scene. There are so many triangles overlapping each other that all graphics cards can be bogged down.

A performance conscious scenario designer will therefore place the player in regions where deep forests are combined with hills that break the LOS to all the other trees behind the foreground, thus allowing the engine to cut off the calculations at that point and perform better.
Other games simply don't ship with maps that contain many trees - like BoF, for example. Neither the Half-life 2 nor the Doom 3 engine would perform better under the circumstances under which we have to operate. It is therefore imperative that scenario design helps a bit to keep performance high. Fortunately, SB Pro is not an egoshooter, so lower frame rates are not necessarily a killer.

[Storm91]

So was Pe actually tested on all the above video cards or were they just listed by what's hottest and newest.Find it hard the 9200se series is in red when i can run any game on it made today including Hl2 on high.....and she is Directx 9.0C.

I was going to buy a new system but i'll wait til i see performance reviews for dual core processors,sata raid drives&dual video cards.

[Ssnake]

Not all of these performance estimates are based on personal experiences. It could be that you find yourself being able to run it, and even finding it an enjoyable experience. The estimate is a conservative one.

The following graphics chips have been tested by our beta testers:

Radeon 9600, XT, Pro
Radeon 9700, Pro
Radeon 9800 Pro
Radeon X800

Mobility Radeon 9000
Mobility Radeon 9700


GeForce 3Ti
GeForce 4MX,
GeForce 4200Ti
GeForce 4400Ti
GeForce 4600Ti
GeForce FX 5600
GeForce FX 5900, XT, Ultra
GeForce 6600, GT
GeForce 6800, Ultra
GeForce 7800 GTX

[Newbie-Olle]

Two issues:

1) SLI-support?
Does SB Pro support SLI, so that you get a performance increase when adding a second graphics card?

2) The effects of high vs low screen resolution?
Is the graphic elements designed to always be shown with the same number of pixels or at the same percentage of screen resolution? I think this is an important issue (very important for SB2) since it can have a great impact on the "battlefield performance".
If the number of pixels used is constant then a higher resolution will result in a wider field of view and thereby increased situational awareness. At the same time all items will be smaller on the screen, so you'll need a larger screen to actually see what's there and read the texts. This rewards those that can afford a large monitor and a hefty graphics card to go with it in a way that's out of proportion.
For the military users I don't think it's a problem since all users (within the class) can be assumed to have equivalent hardware, but for multiplayer in the civilian community it can make a huge difference.

Better then to make sure that all users get the same amount of info (see the same amount of map/terrain) in any given view. At higher resolution it just looks "prettier", with small details visible at longer range and such and diagonal lines look less edgy.

Cheers
Olle

[Sean]

1) I dont know - no one has tried it. However, if you want to buy me a SLI setup I will report back ;-) I will say this about it - from the reading i've done, the performance boost from SLI is not that good in all cases (15-20%?), and in some cases it cuts the performance. If the game developer must do something special to support it, then i'm sure that SB Pro will not support it right now. If its something implemented at the driver level automatically, then maybe.

[Ssnake]

...and No, there's no SLI support.

[OilBucket]

Just wondering anyone....would you think it would be worthwhile for me to replace my Athlon 2500XP for a 3000XP to run Pro PE?...I can get a brand new 3000 for 100 bucks. My 2500 is locked and I would hate to take the chance of screwing it up to unlock it. Suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[Ssnake]

No, 2.5 GHz will do just nicely. 20% nominal processor speed increase are hardly noticeable in practice. I would seriously consider a CPU upgrade only if at least a factor of 2 or 3 could be achieved.

[Scrapper_511]

My CPU upgrade path is largely governed by the fastest CPU my current motherboard can take. I think I started out with an Athlon XP1800+ on my Asus mobo and subsequently upgraded to a 2400+ and now a 3000+. The performance improvements are not great, but they are there. Best of all, CPU prices always decrease in time so by the time I upgrade they are very cheap.

On another note, I recently upgraded my ATI R9700Pro to a nVidia GeForce6800GT and got a huge performance boost!

[Wicked]

Did all Leo2A5 tutorials this afternoon and SB Pro PE runs smooth and without any problems. Running everything full screen 1600x1200 4xAA 8xAF. Excellent piece of software!! :D

AMD Athlon 64 4000+
2 GB (2x 1 GB) DDR400 Mem
Ati X1900XTX with ver 6.2 drivers
Windows XP SP2

Cheers!

[PaleRider]

AMD Athlon 64 4000+
2 GB (2x 1 GB) DDR400 Mem
Ati X1900XTX with ver 6.2 drivers
Windows XP SP2

I have something close to what you have:

AMD Athlon 64 4000+ Clawhammer
2 GB (2x 1 GB) DDR400 Mem
Nvidea 7800GT
Maxtor Sata HD with 16 MB cache

SB Pro PE runs as smooth as silk. 8)

[RecceDG]

Another data point:

HP ZD7280 laptop, P4 3.2Ghz, GeForce 5700 Go, 1600 X 1300 (ish), no AA (I think), 1Gb RAM, Windows XP SP2 (bleah - wish SB Pro PE ran in Linux...)

Framerates reported between 50 and 19 (Leo1 reports slower framerates for some reason)

But the subjective experience is fine. I have yet to see anything that I would call slowdown, stutter, or other misbehaviour, including in large scenarios. Perfectly playable; nice and smooth.

DG

[RecceDG]

Amendment to my last:

It seems if there is a lot of grass around, that'll bog my system down. Playing "instant action" with Leo1 got framerates as low a 6 FPS, and at that point, the slowdown was enough to affect gunnery.

Switching to TIS brought the frame rate back though.

DG

[PS-SCUD]

I had a 2.0 ghz (3000+) Athlon, 512mb RAM, and a GF4 Ti4200 (128mb) 8x AGP card.

I was able to play the game at playable framerates (800 * 600 x 16bit) though on occasions it became very choppy when viewing long distances. (8-10 FPS)

I beat the instant action mission with this setup, so I guess the framerates couldn't have been too poor.

[Ssnake]

I'm running a Dell XPS laptop 3.4 GHZ P4 1GB RAM and a ATI 9700 Radeon Mobility chip. I have read that I can expect to run it at 800x600 with possible slowdowns.
I have a similar notebook, and run our software with 1024x768 when showing off to customers. I think that the performance of the 9700 mobility is sufficient for that resolution (no antialiasing activated, though).

[Ssnake]

Typical framerates are 25-35, occasionally dipping into the 15s or so. If you want constantly high frame rates, 800x600 would be the way to go.
As far as widescreen resolutions are concerned, SB works with whatever your graphics card driver can come up with. But for a 1920x1200 resolution one would probably want a GeForce 7800 GTX or Radeon X1800. But if you have other resolutions with a similar aspect ratio, you could use them to fill the screen, yes.

[Hub]

Surprisingly, the sim works guite well on my Dell Inspiron 710m, which only has 512 mb of RAM, and uses the Intel Extreme Graphics chipset with 64 mb of shared memory. I run it with "Details" set to "Low" (still looks very good to me), in it's native resolution of 1280 x 800. As long as the terrain isn't too cluttered , there are no pauses or slowdowns, even in zoomed views - the demo scenario that Ssnake created, recon with the HMMVW's, is an example of one that works well on the notebook. I had thought I would use the notebook mainly for the 2D things like map and scenario creation, but was pleased to find I could do much more...(I have a regular desktop as well, for "real" play).

[OilBucket]

After first impressions, I thought I was being a little ham-strung with my 2500XP and 9800PRO. I have my resolution at 1024x768, low detail, downloaded latest video driver with no AA or Antisotropic and all seems quite well. Smooth!

[RecceDG]

Another update:

Changing screen res down from 1600X1000 (ish) to 1400 X 900 restored framerate to the point to where the Instant Action missons were playable through the daysight.

Detail is on "medium" I think.

This is on a GeForce 5700 Go widescreen laptop.

DG

[Blackmuzzle]

On topic: GeForce 6800GT and 2GHz Athlon64. Runs 60fps+ smoothly at 1280x1024x32 without AA.

Off topic: I disagree with you there, Bluewings. I had so many headaches with ATI's forsaken windows drivers that I cannot count the number of times I've slammed my fist on my keyboard in agony. We're talking about outright bugs and levels of incompetence that you would not expect from a gfx company. Like earlier versions of their drivers hard-crashing Windows on mipmap generation under certain circumstances. Turns out that what they implemented was "something similar" to OpenGL, but not quite exactly the same.

As for NVidia drivers, I am a little irritated at their latest "artificial incompatibilities" that lock out older/mobile chipsets from their unified drivers, when in fact those drivers work *perfectly* after you do some .inf file modifications to force the install. Other than that, they are immensely superior to what ATI releases to customers. Let's not forget which company outright cheated in the Quake3 benchmarks... and still cheats by using less precision throughout a wide range of operations. At least NVidia had the common courtesy to put up a slider where you can select whether you want such "optimisations" or not from the very beginning.

[Ravenn]

Ssnake, please tell me how will work this configuration:
Athlon XP 2500+ (1,8GHz)
512 RAM
Radeon 800GT (not GTO)
or
RADEON 1600
?

[Speedy]

Pentium M 2.13
2 Gig Ram
Geforce Go 7800 GTX

She purrs mate.

[Ssnake]

Ravenn, I think that both cards will be fine for SB Pro PE; the X1600 obviously faster than the X800 of course. It might depend a bit on your desired screen resolution and antialiasing settings.

[mbv]

Very smooth gameplay so far with an AMD 64 3200+, 2 gig RAM, nvidia 6600GT 128 mb on 77.77 drivers, 1280x1024 resolution, Audigy 2 ZS, Saitek X52 Hotas. 2xAA and 2xAF and no stutter. Might up the AA to 4x to see if it still plays well.

I thought I was going to have trouble playing SB with this system and expected everything to look pretty ugly with the settings turned down, but I have been pleasantly surprised at just how well this runs on a mid range system. Congrats to the devs on some excellent optimized coding :thumbup:

[Ssnake]

The 6600GT isn't a shabby card. May not be top of the line, but still better than 80% of the "gaming suitable" 3D accelerator cards on the market.

[Double_L]

intel duo core 2ghz
1gb ddr2
geforce go 7800


40-50 fps with 1440 res

[mapman]

After a few days of tutorials and my first online game last night, so far everything has been smooth with FPS of 20-30.

I have an AMD 3000+ (2.1Ghz) with 1 Gig of Ram and an eVGA Nvidia GEForce FX 5500 with 256K Ram (AGP). I have been running it at 32 bit, 1024 x 768 res on a 19" Samsung 955DF flat screen.

By the way, my Nvidia driver is 6.14.0010.8198 dated 12/10/2005.

However, I would like to offer a request.

The following items get smaller or bigger with resolution settings, making them very hard to read at the higher resolutions (which make reading the terrain easier at the same time):

Main Menu and all Submenu Text
Briefing Text
Top Menu (File, Triggers etc)
Map (F5) Control Panel
Co-ordinate/Elevation Windows (by the way, as any web designer will tell you, Red Text on a Black Background is very hard to read. These should be Black Text on a White Background for legibility)
Message Text (Also, should be black on white)
Tank Clock
Unit and Unit Control Icons in lower right hand corner
Damage / Ammo Text in upper right hand corner
Time Remainning in Upper Left hand corner.

Note of interest, the Range Read out at the bottom of the Gunner's site, remains large and readable regardless of resolution.

Off topic question:

Do the military maps normally leave out elevation numbers on their maps? I was not in the service, but I used to go back packing off the trails all the time and was very good using a Topo Map, which had elevation numbers every 50 feet or so.

While I understand the reason for not color coding the maps for elevation, is their any reason not to have some kind of height reference in the topo lines on these maps so differentiating between a ridge and a valley would be a bit easier?

So far, very impressed. Back to the tutorials now.

Thanks eSim!!

[Ssnake]

First of all, all those with frame rates between 20 and 30 should consider using the "medium Details" setting in the Options menu. It doesn't take away much of the looks but helps to improve the overall framerate for most systems into the "above 40" range.
The following items get smaller or bigger with resolution settings, making them very hard to read at the higher resolutions (which make reading the terrain easier at the same time):
Yes, because they're defined by a fixed pixel size, or are textures that won't get scaled (because it would make them appear smeared/washed out).
Note of interest, the Range Read out at the bottom of the Gunner's site, remains large and readable regardless of resolution.
Yes, because it's defined as a fixed portion of the screen. It's a texture that we can scale well will the screen resolution.
Do the military maps normally leave out elevation numbers on their maps?
No, but then again there is an elevation display in the map screen that will always show the data under your mouse cursor. This helps to "declutter" the map.
While I understand the reason for not color coding the maps for elevation, is their any reason not to have some kind of height reference in the topo lines on these maps so differentiating between a ridge and a valley would be a bit easier?
I fully agree with you, and wish we had it, but given the fact that we need to set priorities: Would you rather have annoying bugs fixed (like the infamous MG kills of tanks), or a convenience item that doesn't add new functionality but just makes it a bit easier to extract information that is there already?
We think that bug squashing is more important. Or the addition of shadows. Or making our computer controlled crews smarter. In other words, it's desirable, but not of highest priority right now. Eventually we'll address it as well, but just not now.

[mbv]

Just jacked my nvidia 6600GT 128mb up to 4x AA and the sim is still smooth as butter even in busy scenarios with lots of foliage, amazing for my 1 yr + old system and quite a relief that I don't need to spend more money on vid card upgrades as my options are pretty limited now with an AGP 8X socket (AGP 7800 GS OC is my last upgrade option before a new pci-e mobo is required).

[mapman]

After a few days of tutorials and my first online game last night, so far everything has been smooth with FPS of 20-30.

I have an AMD 3000+ (2.1Ghz) with 1 Gig of Ram and an eVGA Nvidia GEForce FX 5500 with 256K Ram (AGP). I have been running it at 32 bit, 1024 x 768 res on a 19" Samsung 955DF flat screen.

By the way, my Nvidia driver is 6.14.0010.8198 dated 12/10/2005.

Correction. When it gets busy and there are woods nearby, my FPS drop below 10. Time to start saving for a new Graphics card.

[congo]

Just finished building a new system. Intel Pentium 4 clocked at 3.2 Ghz running on an Intel mobo. 1 Gig of OCZ memory at 667 Mhz. Installed a Egeforce 6800 GS in the PCI express slot. Put everything in an Antec Sonata II case for a super quiet system. With everything maxed out I still get frame rates between 30 and 40 fps. Needless to say I,m extremely pleased

[mapman]

Well, I only have an AGP. But I do have $75 worth of Rewards Credits from Best Buy and this card is going for $169 and it is Blue (first post)...

ATI - RADEON X1300 PRO Graphics Card 100-437602
256MB memory; AGP interface; S-video output; 400MHz clock speed; CrossFire-ready

[Trekker]

First of all, all those with frame rates between 20 and 30 should consider using the "medium Details" setting in the Options menu. It doesn't take away much of the looks but helps to improve the overall framerate for most systems into the "above 40" range.


Iw got a XT850PE, it dosn't seem to make any difference if i set details on High or Medium, i always get a FPS of about 25-45. That is in windows mode. But when i change to fullscreen i get 55-60.

Is this normal, that windowsmode is making so lousy FPS, and is there anything i can do about it, my PC tends to crasch when i alt+tab. So windows mode is a blessing.

Above 40? IMO everything above 20 is making the game run normal (atleast looks like it).

[Tankerace]

Does using SLI Technology cause slowdowns?

Reason I ask is I see all of these great performance of other people, but mine lags occasionally. Nothing bad mind you, but I don't see why it is.

My System:

P4 3.0 Ghz 833mhz FSB
2 (yes 2) Nvidia PCI-E GeForce 7800 GT cards each with 256mb memory (using SLI)
2 Gigs of DDR2 533mhz RAM.

I typically get 40 FPS at the High Detail Settings and only 1024 X 768 resolution. However, when a lot of smoke is on the screen, or I'm traversing and there are a lot of trees, it will dip briefly to 27. It stays smooth, but it is a little noticeable. Just wondering as I can run more graphically intense games than this with the same or higher FPS (For instance COD2 with everything turned up, 4X AA and 4X AF.)

THe game is still smooth and no slowdowns, but I think it could be a wee bit smoother :lol:

Also, where do I turn on Anti Aliasing in the game, or is that something I have to do through the Nvidia control panel.

Thanks!

[EiZei]

Getting 20-25 fps with AMD 3000+/1024MB/R9800 Pro (128MB) on medium settings with 1024x768 32bit mode :|

[mapman]

Getting 20-30 fps with AMD 3000+/1 Gig/ GeForce FX 5500 (256mb / AGP) on low detail 800x600 with dips down to 5-10 fps when in the woods.

Going to have to save up for a high end card. Maybe by summer.

[plummerx]

Zero need too.
When talking about pro, I think it's perfectly ok to redefine what a good framerate is.
I'm playing it on an xp2400 with a gf6800 with 8xs AA and 16 tap anisio, and the only time I drop below 24fps in looking through the gunners primary, tis on standby at high mag. Then I'm into 14fps, but it's still very smooth, no stutter when traversing etc. This is in a very busy, vehical heavy sce I'm working on. Otherwise I'm around 40fps, but again, this is with maximum eye candy my card, drivers and game settings can generate at 1024x768.

Considering the number of 3d objects and all the stress on the cpu, I find this quite good performance on a somewhat obsolete system. I hate the paying for the hardware arms race and i'm glad Esim didn't make me play that game. I'd rather buy software than hardware any day.

[Jimmybar]

I have a two and a half year old computer: Pentium 4 2.8 GHz, 1GB DDR 400, ATI Radeon 9800 PRO.

At the time of purchase I believed it was good enough for any games on the market.
Rumours about SB Pro PE said that it is not extremely demanding for graphics performance. The graphics card is now ranked into the highest SXGA+ class in the "Graphics card recommendations for steelbeasts Professional".

I was surprised when I got low frame rates ( 13 ... 25 FPS ) in one MP game "300 Spartans".
In plain grass test scenario with few vehicles the frame rates are constantly more than enough, 40 - 60 FPS, but any woods and ground cover decrease frame rates badly.

I can play with lowest settings, but it seems that the nice looking maps do not come free.

Here is one test I made:
I run scenario demo/refueling-forest.sce,
I look at the default F8 view of the default tank down the road so that barely no sky is visible and there is some woods and some road in the screen. I do not scan or otherwise move the view while measuring the frame rate.

Resolution is 1024 * 768

Test case 1: Highest graphics card settings in ATI Direct3D settings

Anti Aliasing max 6x
Anisotropic filtering max 16x
Performance vs qualityquality
texture preferences max
mipmap max

Detail high, medium, low, does not matter so much in this case.

Result:
F8 view 20 FPS
F8 view zoomed 9 FPS !, ( not good enough )


Test case 2: Lowest graphics card settings in Direct3D

Anti Aliasing min 2x
Anisotropic filtering min 2x
Performance vs quality performance
texture preferences min
mipmap min

Results:

Detail low
F8 view 27 FPS
F8 view zoomed 28 FPS

Detail medium
F8 view 23 FPS
F8 view zoomed 22 FPS

Detail high
F8 view 20 FPS
F8 view zoomed 22 FPS

[Rene]

I have AMD 64 3700 San Diego (2.2GHz overclocked at 2.8GHz),ATI X800XL 256mb pci-e card and 2 GB DDR400.

Without combat the framerates are somewhere between 50 and 70 (resolution 1280x1024 and 4AA). When scanning suroundings with binoculars, framerates drop briefly to 40 but after a second they jump back up. I guess the system is just loading textures and such.

In heavy combat framerates are somwhere around 30 and sometimes dropping to 20, but quite rarely below 20.

I'd love to see the framerates stay over 30, but it seems to be CPU issue in my case. Changing detail levels doesn't affect the framerates.

[leesee]

Have noticed no problems at all re: graphics, running @ 1920x1200 on a widescreen H.P L23335. Admittedly I am running a relatively high spec., machine a P4 3.2 ghz upped to 3.7 ghz and I have a nice GeForce 7800GS ExtremeEdition, everything maxed out, It looks wonderfull.
Cheers
leesee :wink:

[jrcar]

Dell Precision 360 (P4 3 GHZ 1 GB RAM) with Quadro FX 500 card. Poor frame rates when trees are around. Just tried a 6600GT which improved things a bit, but still often going below 20 FPS with binos or in combat. Not sure what to try, but it appears the latest versions of SB Pro are VERY graphics intensive, earlier versions were not so hard.

Cheers

Rob

[TopKick]

Don't change too much. After the update I'm getting 35 - 50 FPS and runs smooth as silk.

[jrcar]

Topkick what is your system?

Cheers

Rob

[TopKick]

Dell 8300
P4 3.0
Intel 875 mobo 800 FSB HT
1.5 GB Corsair DD 400 3200 Ram
ATI 9800 Pro

After a lot of testing, I think that a lot of FPS hits are caused by the themes used. I've made my own themes for summer, winter, etc., and load them into scenarios if I can. Some default and user created scenarios use themes with thick ground clutter and cover that they would choke down any computer. And even some trees selected for use cause FPS hits more than others. Carefully select the type of trees you use. Reducing ground clutter and cover to a density of 9 and size to 30 or less makes a vast improvement. Getting rid of the boulders and reducing visibility to 2000 - 2500 meters helps greatly. I guess I could up load my themes if anyone wants to use them.

[Hackworth]

Overall, my framerates increased slightly, and are much more stable than before the patch - almost steady unless I change views of course. 2.66Ghz P4 w/ 800Mhz fsb, 1.5 GB RAM (DDR 400), with an NVIDIA GForce 6600 @ 256 MB.

[Steel_WOF]

did some testing for ya...

i have an eMachines M6807. athlon64 mobility 3000+, ati 9600 mobility, 2GB RAM. it ran o.k. 30-40 fps until zoomed in gps (binos, etc would prolly be the same) view with a large forest in the background. then i got the jitters...16fps. i had to run at 1280x800 as that is my screen resolution and i need to figure out how to get it to resize to the entire screen instead of displaying in only part of the screen...

i tried windowed mode as well, and it was marginally better but i could not get fps (fraps only works in full screen mode apparently).

i then upgraded my notebook to an athlon64 mobility 4000+ (intended to do it this weekend anyway) and the fps in the zoomed/forest view was marginally better, about 20 fps. still got the jitters.

so it is quite apparent that it is limited by the gpu, and a faster cpu does not help much in this case. i hear the 9600 mobility pro can be overclocked quite well, and i will be trying that next...and last resort will be figuring out how to fill my screen with a less than native resolution. you may want to do the same.

it is a shame if you are dependant upon this laptop to decide to buy the sim or not. it is absolutely worth having! no other machine?

[Miller]

Just upgraded to a 7900GT from a 7600 GT and noticed 50% improvement in framerate using my one test where I was looking in the gunner's F3 view into a patch of trees.

Now it's sitting rock steady at 60 fps in this test, probably because the sim caps framerate at 60.

Simply amazing card. SEAN-1, you might want to recheck all your settings, you were getting like 44 fps in this test, you should be getting over 50+ easily with your 7800GT.

[BlackDeath]

what are your configurations for SBpro Ssnake? (with your card) (i dont know whats the best config for mine, i have a nvidia 7900GTX)

[Ssnake]

what are your configurations for SBpro Ssnake? (with your card) (i dont know whats the best config for mine, i have a nvidia 7900GTX)

Well, I use 4X FSAA and little to no Anisotropic filtering, and I have Vsync enabled; usually I run it in windowed mode at about 1400 x 1000 size. Then again, I'm more interested in nice-looking screenshots than ultimate frame rates. I could run it without problems at 1600x1200 with 4xFSAA, but I often have stuff running in the background that I need while testing the software, and a smaller window that one can drag around on the desktop is more convenient than Alt+Tabbing.

So, I'm not sure if this is helpful - but these are my settings.

[Armored_Fist_Player]

Hey Fellas,

I did a search but couldn't find the ATI MOBILITY RADEON X200M graphics card discussed anywhere.

Think it'll work for SB PRO PE? For example in a laptop such as this?

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5192501

I haven't been keeping up with the latest changes in graphics. Thanks.
-- AF '94 Player

[Ssnake]

I think it'll work, but don't expect wonders. Anything with "200" in the series name by ATi represents the low end of their products. I tend to rather buy last season's top performer than this season's "El Cheapo" variant, even if they cost the same.

But that's just me, your mileage may vary.

[deees]

Does anyone own a GeForce 8800 and what kind of FPS can do you get?

I just put a new system with a 8800GTX together. I played around in SBPE to see what difference it makes, (too bad we don’t have a “time demo” for measuring system performance like the old ID titles.)

Using the “Prep defense (Leo 2A5)” scenario as a benchmark; starting in the woods and moving to the first vehicle emplacement off the left branch of the road, (1384,1674), the F8 view runs mid 50’s to 60 FPS @1280x1024x16 on my E6700/PC6400/8800GTX. In comparison, my old 3.4 Northwood/PC3200/6800Ultra runs high 20’s to low 40’s for the same route. Both systems were using the default details settings, no virus or firewall running at the time of the test.

I played the “Fulda Gap v7 BundesPE” scenario, and in the thick of it, (the main attack in through the river valley), my FPS were in the 40’s with the new system.

Of course, with so many components changed in this upgrade, it would be hard to determine exactly what portion of the increase is attributable to the 8800 alone. Perhaps someone upgrading a newer system with just a video card could be more informative.

[Froggy]

the 7500LE card offer less performence than a 7300GS. (I could link some hardware topics, but they are in french)

[deees]

Ok let me be more specific, I like the forest maps, and I typically design missions with lots of AI, Blue and red forces. I'm a going to build a desktop prob with a 2.66 AMD 5000+ 64 X2 cpu, nvidia 7950 GT 512, and a gig of 667mhz ram, should that be sufficient?

It sounds similar to my system: http://www.steelbeasts.com/sbforums/showpost.php?p=127093&postcount=155

If you like building maps like Fulda, then you should get frame-rates in the 40-50 like I have been. In this sim that feel pretty smooth. I only notice them at all if I'm panning in the F8 view. From the gunner's position, where I spend most of my time, I can't tell if it's 40 or maxed out a 62.5 FPS.

(And if you are building maps like Fulda, please post them.)

If that's not a good comparison, specific the name of a map that’s similar to what you’re thinking of and I'll run it and tell you what I get. (Or hopefully, someone with the same hardware as your planned system will beat me to it.)

P.S. I'm sleeving my PSU right now, so I may take a day or two get back to you with my report.

[stalintc]

I have a Geforce 8800 GTX 768Mb and I'd like to know if this card will run the program OK. I had to wait for a patch before I could run Falcon 4. I've ordered the sim and I'm eagerly awaiting delivery.

Boomer, if it is of any help to you, I know that RogueSnake has been running SB on an 8800GTS without any issue apart from a vastly improved framerate hehe.

So I think you will be just fine.. my new comp contains an 8800GTX which should with any luck be going live tomorrow or Friday. When I get some results I will give you a firm reply to this one. ;)

[jlh]

Screen resolution is 1280x960, AA is 2x, AF is 4x, VSync on, mipmap detail set to performance. I usually use the "Flank Attack, autumn" scenario as my bench mark and take measurements as the scenario begins in the F8 view with the Leopard where the scenario starts. With all sliders to zero I get about 35-38 fps. With the "General" slider at 100 and the other two at 50 I get around 20 fps. With all sliders at 100 I get about 13 fps.

I realize that the cpu is limiting things a bit in this large scenario, hence the 35-38 with sliders at zero. But it would be nice to run SB with everything cranked up all the way. Thanks for any advice you can give me.

[Porphyr]

Hi

I run SBPro Pe with a 8800gts 640mb card and a conroe E6600 on a samsung LCD monitor. I tried your graphic settings on that benchmark scenario of yours.

All sliders 0 gives fps pretty much maxed out at 59-60. (my monitor sync and vsync will put a cap at 59-60. Anyway, even with the Crt monitor I used before I think the game fps is capped at 62 (?))
Sliders to default gives fps 48-58 and in TIS 38-55
All slider as at max gives 21-26 fps and in TIS 17-25
All sliders max except ground cover (at 10) gives 44-55
All sliders max and ground cover to 50 gives 34-40 and TIS 28-38.

The 8800gts is a powerfull card, that is if you can feed it. Without enough cpu power it wouldn't perform at its best, so perhaps a 8600 is right for your 3.4 cpu. A bit of warning concerning the Nvidia graphics drivers though, they have been less then potimal for the 8000 series of cards. Some features still don't work with the latset drivers.

Also consider low resolution, low AA nad AF settings wasted on the 8800 gts and gtx cards. They were built to handle plenty AA and AF at high resolutions, so you could get away with a cheaper card at the same settings. But when you crank upp resolution and quality settings one sees the power in action.

Of course SB Pro can bring even this card and cpu down to its knees, but I must say it all looks very good at 1680x 1050 with sliders at default settings, which usally is smooth enough playing!

Cheers Porphyr

[Boomer]

With my 8800 GTX, all the sliders maxed and a resolution of 1280x1048 I'm getting 60+ fps.

[RecceDG]

With VSYNC on (which SB seems to turn on, at least on my machine) game frame rate must be an integer multiple of the monitor refresh rate, as the card is only allowed to change the frame when the scanline is reset back to the 0,0 position.

Assuming a 60 Hz monitor refresh rate, you can only have 60 FPS (frame updates each monitor refresh) 30 FPS (frame updates every second monitor refresh) 20 FPS (frame updates every 3rd monitor refresh) 15 FPS (frame updates every 4th monitor refresh) 12 FPS (every 5th) 10 FPS (every 6th) etc etc.

60 FPS is thus "perfect" and 30 FPS is "almost perfect"

My m9700 laptop (dual 7800gs go SLI) gets 30-60 FPS at 1920 X 1200 with the sliders all the way up.

Of course, the downside to the sliders all the way up is that the AI plays with the sliders "all the way down" so ground clutter doesn't block LOS for the AI and it will happily nail you through the grass.

DG

[tankenator]

i use a 7800gs on agp works wonderfully even at 1600 x 1200 in most stiuations, (never below 20 or so even with tons of vehicles in restrictive environment, usually averages high 20s to mid 30s at that resolution, 1024x768 at 4xFSAA runs around 25 (with details at 30/30/30) should run fine for you as well...

[[]_--__[]KITT]

I have the following system:
Pentium core two duo 2GHz, 2Gb DDR 2 RAM, Nividia 8600GT 256Mb. I play at 1440x900 resolution.

I can play at max setting but sometimes the fps bog down to lower 20 even reaching a lowest point of 14 especially when viewing heavily wooded area in wide perspective.

Then there is this setting trouble. After setting everything to max sometimes after playing, the graphics option sliders are lowered a bit without me setting them to lower values like from being set at 100 to 96 instead. Is anyone able to give me insight on this?

I take it that my system is unable to play at max setting? But the fps in most scenarios are fine even relatively high to 50s or even lower 60s. Only when there's plenty smoke belching and with dense forest scenery in wide perspective it would bog to 14 or more. Average I would say about 30+ to lower 40s.

[gunnyhighway]

:drink:Ouch. Well, you should try to go back to 24 bit after subsequent driver updates. No current graphics card should require a restriction to 16 bit depth resolution.

:clap:
OK, here is the scoop! ....Finally got it!....:drink:
In the NVidea control panel for 8800 Ultra mounted in SLI config there is a chapter called SLI PREFORMANCE MODE (I wish there would be such access panel for my head) with 4 choices:
- Force Split Frame Rendering
- Force Alternate Frame Rendering 1
- Force // // // Rendering 2
- Single - GPU
The trees stand at attention without blinking in all the performance modes except in the "Force Alternate Frame Rendering 2 :gen004:
I haden't tried everything!...Due!...
GHWY

[Froggy]

GTX works fine on 1920*1200 with a 24".

[LarryHookins]

Any idea how a GeForce 8800GT would work on Pro?


I got the 8800 GT overclocked by eVGA to 650MHz, I think. I set all the sliders to max and ran a few scenarios. Screen resolution was full screen, 1024x768x32.

In one test I was driving around some very complex terrain in a Hummer, no other action going on. Frame rates were around 15, not really bad.

Playing the M2 multi units scenario, frame rates were 15 to 30+ depending on what was going on. At one point the frame rate dropped to 8 momentarily, but I was looking close-up at smoke with lots of terrain around me.

M1 gunnery tutorial D ran at 50+ frames per second.

I wasn't using anti-aliasing, so I don't know what effect that would have. Would be nice if that was controlled in the game. :D

Larry

[Ssnake]

The frame rates will depend much on the density of ground cover objects, and I think that a setting of 20 to 40 is "good enough" for my tastes anyway which will certainly boost the frame rate to maximum with such a card. I'd rather have a higher screen resolution (which the 8800 could certainly handle with no performance loss) and give up a bit on the ground clutter. By and large it's nonfunctional eye candy (as long as you don't use the cursed boulders), anyway.

[TankHunter]

The 8800GT is quite compatible with Pro PE
Even when playing a large sce with graphics set to 100 on all bars.
SB Pro PE never looked so good before... :D

[jlh]

Just bought a new nvidia 9600gt (had a ATI X800XT). Put a single M1 on the map so that my CPU wouldn't have to calculate line of sight between units (I've got a pentium 4, 3.4Ghz). Moved all sliders to the right. When looking at a forest with a city behind it with mosques showing above the trees from the F8 view, I get frame rates of 21! Only about 25% better than my x800xt.

With all sliders to the left I get 62.5 fps with the same view (of course the mosques don't show). I am very, very disappointed. I thought I would have frame rates above 50 in a case like this with all sliders to the right.

Is my cpu the bottle neck even though no other units are on the map? And if it was my cpu moving the sliders wouldn't make a difference would it?

[Sean]

21 sounds pretty decent to me. Your not mentioning all the other settings involved, like screen resolution, AA settings, etc, etc. It also depends on what map your talking about, the density of the buildings on the map, how many buildings are within that field of view, etc.

The CPU you have is old, but I wouldnt bother replacing it to improve the framerates when your minimum is 21. (NTSC television is 23 FPS, I think.)

[jlh]

I'm just a little disappointed. The 9600GT is suppose to be only slightly slower than the 8800GT.

The 21 fps reading was taken from the following view, with the slider from the graphics card control panel moved all the way to "performance" and the screen resolution at 1280 X 1024.

I know that the fps reading depends at times on the cpu speed, but I was under the impression (apparently incorrect) that for a given unchanging scene, with only one unit on the map, that any change in the fps count as the terrain sliders are moved right or left, would depend 100% on the quality of the graphics card.

I thought this 9600GT would at least double my frame rate up to the maximum at all times over my x800xt. Not even close. I've read many great reviews about this card.

Would someone with knowledge of how SBpe works please explain the above findings for me? Is it the fact that my cpu is too slow? Did I get a bad card? Is SBpe more dependant on the cpu for fps than the graphics card? Thanks

[Ssnake]

It would depend a lot on the scenery. In the worst case you have many triangles overlapping each other. The scene rendering must render from the rear to the front in order to determine which triangle blocks the view to some other, which means that up to 90% of all triangle calculations go to the bin. This is the worst case of inefficient rendering situations. The graphics chip is treating water in these situations. On top of it you force it with all sliders to the right that it does all this inefficiency with high precision out to the maximum range. Finally, it's the total number of entities in such a scene (every building, bushel of grass, or trees and bushes, are entities). Chances are that the sheer number of grass bushels will already bring the scene to a crawl since the number of them can be truly HIGH.

In short, putting all sliders to the right will only slow you down without significantly improving the rendering quality. With the ground clutter slider at 50% you will still have a nice-looking scene while enjoying high frame rates, I'm sure.

[YdnarB]

Got my pro PE running this weekend.

My system is 3 ghz dual core; 8800 GTS 512 mb; 4 gig ram; vista

Originally started in windowed mode.

Initial runs had settings at General: 35 Ground: 25 Ground Cover: 10. Everything looked fine, good frame rates, but then I jumped into a humvee to let loose with the BMG and frame rates dropped to 4 to 6. Took several seconds to recover. Eventually the game crashed.

I restarted and ran it in full screen at the largest resolution it shows (1680x1050x32) and I had the resolution values as above. I had one occasion in a short scenario where the frame rates dropped into the 20s but never did I see extreme unplayable frame rates. I even popped smoke, etc to try and work it in.

The scenario (Desert Ambush) has lots of rocks, no real trees and a small town. There is a helo in some variants (random units) and when a helo showed up, seems the frame rates took a hit.

Is it better from a performance perspective, to run in windowed mode or full screen mode? Which is better?

What are some other settings (either in the game or the video card) that affects performance?

I've got the latest Nvidea drivers, things seem to be ok there.

[Ssnake]

I don't think that I have obvious advice for you. You're right that the 8800 shouldn't have problems with any scenario in SB Pro PE (at least not with ground clutter settings below 30) and I don't have an explanation for the frame rate drop when switching to the cal .50; maybe there was a completely unrelated event on your computer (virus scan?) that occurred accidentally at the same time?

Even with all anti aliasing settings and whatnot SB pro should perform reasonably well on an 8800. Even my 7800 GTX can do 1920x1200 resolutions (maybe not with highest antialiasing settings, so I prefer windows of maybe 1400 x 900 size or so and 4x FSAA which is a nice compromise between high resolution, good image quality, and high frame rates).


Don't worry about the "beta" label, though. We called a regular update "beta" simply because we couldn't invest much time into internal testing. But I think it's about as stable as the official release version.

[YdnarB]

Ok, running 2.370, tried various machine / game settings.

I set the parameters for the video card to performance instead of quality. This seems to shut off alot of AA and other smoothing features. Also set vista to not have transparancy.

Running in windowed mode, I still saw noticable slowdown of the game, many times dipping to the teens in fairly unchallenging situations. It was still playable but you noticed the difference.

Running the same settings in full screen 1680x1050x32, same gpu scenarios, I get vastly different results. Frame rates rarely dip out of the 50s. Even popping smoke, looking through arty / trees / etc everything was smooth.

With the card values set to performance, in both modes I saw some screen re-write where you could see the screen not quite catching up with movement. Mostly saw this while rapidly scanning. Frame rates didn't dip then, though.

I have not had a lock up in several sessions, either. Perhaps a fluke? Who knows.

Anyone else experience the game running faster in full screen mode? Is that to be expected?

Other than I really suck after taking a year + off, it seems to be running well.

System specs: Vista Ultimate no sp1; 3.0 ghz; dual core; 8800 GTS 512 gpu; 4 gb ram.
SB: 2.370; full and windowed mode as mentioned above.