SFP1Ace

Yeah, I've been considering it a lot lately, don't wanna disappoint my parents though

I've got both: SF Gold collects dust, SF2 doesn't

Welcome to our humble anonymous SF addicts group . I hope you'll spread the word around as well!

Yup, during my stay in UK I could never understand why, for the love of God, TV stations would subtitle foreigners speaking completely comprehensible English? Unless they'd assumed their viewers are retards...

Yup, GTX 460 or 470 will have more Video RAM than 8800 which can be handy, when using all these hires terrain repaints and skins

Nah, you'll be fine. Most modern games are still GPU limited rather than CPU. Unless you want to go SLI. Or unless you ment SF2, SF2 is ALWAYS CPU bottlenecked :D. My Q9650 at stock 3.0 GHz is more or less similar to your Q6600 @ 3.2 GHz performance wise, and I only overclock it to 4.4 GHz when benchmarking OR playing SF2 series. I think that says something ;)

Good to know!

No stupid questions, only stupid answers ;) ALchemy for X-Fi Supported Sound Blaster X-Fi audio device Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty Champion Series Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro Series Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio Notebook ALchemy for Audigy Supported Sound Blaster Audigy audio device Sound Blaster Audigy 4 Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Notebook Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Video Editor Sound Blaster Audigy 2 SE Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum EX Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Value Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum EX Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum Sound Blaster Audigy Sound Blaster Audigy LS However this list is lil' outdated since I have X-fi Titanium (not on the list) and it supports Alchemy very well. P.S. The thing is, that this whole "discovery" of mine might be only an anomaly related to my PC. That's why I'm curious if anybody else played with this and have noticed any differences in CPU usage?

Yup, nothing beats Geforce 6800 Ultra! . On a serious note Skatezilla's right. Up to recently, Nvidia geforce 460GTX was probably best bang for the buck. Now it seems that ATi 6850/6870 seem to be at least as good deal. Then again, Nvidia will respond with GF110, it's a neverending circle. There's always some better hardware on the horizon . Performance (and price) wise GTX 460 1GB is comparable do ATI 6850 which in turn places iself (performance wise only) between older Ati 5830 and 5850. Ati 6850 offers lower power consumption, but GTX 460 1Gb overclocks better and seems to run cooler. Difficult choice indeed! EDIT: Oops I've noticed that these two are probably beyond your price range...

I admit, i'm little undereducated in gaming audio department, that was EAX Doppler, right?

I'm not sure if ALchemy can enable EAX for games that never supported it in the first place (like SF series), however I'm pretty convinced that a side effect of enabling ALchemy with SF2 is hardware sound through OpenAL rather than software via DirectSound. I'm curious how does it work for others though. Meself, I'm too busy dodging SAMs to notice whether EAX is being deployed

OK, let me post some screenshots to better illustrate what I'm on about. First one is with ALchemy disabled, notice the CPU usage by the audio processs: Second one is with ALchemy enabled. Lower CPU usage might help ppl with single core or slow dual core processors:

First - my specs are C2Q 9650 @ 4.4 GHz, SB XFI Titanium, Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit. While playing SF2E (modded with NF4+ and Stary's terrain repaint) I noticed (by alt-tabbing to the task manager during gameplay) that SF2E.exe is using 25% of my cpu ( which is exactly an equivalent of 1 out of 4 Cores of my quad) while the audiodg.exe process was consuming about 11% of the CPU cycles. Now that makes sense since TK mentioned before that currently SF2 series is already somewhat multithreaded and that audio is running in a separate thread. Now straight to the point - I enabled SF2 in Creative ALchemy and voila! Now, during the gameplay, the audiodg.exe uses no more than 2% of CPu cycles! 2% sounds much better that 11%, won't you agree? ;) To be sure I enabled and disabled ALchemy 5 times over and I was able to repeat the results EVERY time! Funny thing is that it had ZERO effect on my performance - I guess it's because of me running this on quad core CPU. However I think this might benefit those who are still running single core or slow/non-overclocked dual core CPUs. How to enable SF2 series in ALchemy: 1. Install and run Creative ALchemy ( u must have SB Audigy/XFi soundcard AND Windows Vista or 7!!!!); 2. Click the "Add" button on the ALchemy interface; 3. Type whatever name u want in the "Game Title" field," Strike Fighters 2" or "SF2" makes sense; 4. Select "Use Game Path" and then type the patch to the folder where you've installed your SF2 game (C:\Program Files\ThirdWire\Strike Fighters 2 in my case), then click "OK" button; 5. Now your SF2 game should've appeared in "Installed Games" section. Select it and click the ">>" button to enable ALchemy! 6. Done! Your SF2 game should now appear in the "Alchemy-enabled Games" section. Why does ALchemy decreases CPu usage? Well SF2 series uses DirectSound for audio and in Vista/7 DirectSound is NOT hardware accelerated - it's done entirely in "software" on the CPU. ALchemy translates the DirectSound calls so that they can be processed by the Audigy/XFi souncard in hardware - hence lower CPU usage. But i'm not sure I got it right ;). Anyways , please let me know if this tweak made any difference to your performance! Good luck!

If your going ATI/AMD I'd wait a little bit for the new series of 67XX/68XX graphic cards :). Even if you won't buy them, then at least prices prices of 57XX will drop then :)

In SF2, using ATI card (Radeon 4890) I suffered noticable drops in FPS when using EO guided weapons and/or turning radar on (but the latter only in avionics60.dll aircrafts like F-4). Also I couldn't switch the Vsync off, no matter what I tried in options.ini or in catalyst control panel, my FPS were limited to 60. I have none of the aformentioned issues with my new Nvidia GTX 460 SLI :)

Dave, turn your cockpit lighting on, dammit!

I recall that in SF1 series fiddling with Skycolor and/or Ambientcolor, Horizoncolor, Fogcolor values in environmentsystem.ini would usally do the trick. [Night] SunHeight=-0.170 SunBrightness=0.00 SunLightLevel=0.00 SunRadiance=0.0 TwilightLensFlare=0.0 //SunColor=0.0000,0.000,0.000 //AmbientColor=0.100,0.080,0.120 //SkyColor=0.062,0.080,0.164 //HorizonColor=0.120,0.140,0.238 //FogColor=0.024,0.016,0.062 //SunSpecularColor=0.0000,0.000,0.000 SunColor=1.0,1.0,1.0 AmbientColor=0.167,0.171,0.240 <----- Try adjusting these values SkyColor=0.051,0.058,0.102 <----- HorizonColor=0.106,0.122,0.155 <----- FogColor=0.106,0.122,0.155 <----- SunSpecularColor=0.000,0.000,0.000 HDRSunColor=0.0000,0.000,0.000 LightSrcModifier=4.0

What he said. :) Recently I upgraded my oveclocked ATi Radeon HD 4890 1GB to a pair of Nvidia GTX 460 SLI. The SF2 runs about the same on GTX 460 as on 4890 (Radeon 4890 was apparently powerful enough to deal with DX10 shaders, effects & textures) with one noticable difference! While I had the ATi card, I was plagued with the noticable FPS drop (like 20-30% drop - measured with FRAPS, very noticable :D) when using TV/EO guided weapons and turning the radar on in planes using avionics60.dll. It's a known issue, I think, and it's been mentioned here at CA and over at TW forums. The great thing is that with my new cards the fps dips no more than 2-3 FPS when using EO and I can't notice any FPS drop at all when turning on radar in phantom F-4! I'm friggin' happy now! Addendum - if you're going to upgrade PSU as well, I'd advise you to stick to branded ones. Antec, Seasonic, Corsair (esp. HX and AX series), PC Power & Cooling make first grade PSUs. I've swapped my old 600W PSU for a Corsair HX750W just to power them 2 GTX 460 SLI - all voltages are rock stable under load This guide should be helpful: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=108088

Thanks for the info! I sure could use the picture for future reference :). About them H50 or H70, after reading online test I don't think these would be a significant improvement over my TRUE 120. I think that IF I ever go water, it will be a full blown setup ;)

Hehe, I remember my first computer (well, actually it was my older brother's ;) ), commodorre 64 - I was like 7-8 yo back then and boy I sure had a lots of fun with it. Loading games from tapes took minutes, lol. And we've got one more thing in common Boostjunky - Antec 902 case! I just like the way it looks, how many fans it has etc. Now as far as watercooling goes, I've always been lil' afraid of it since I'm "plumbing inept" ;) and preferred to stick to high-end air cooling as a cheaper, simpler if less efficient cooling solution. Recently I've been thinking of upgrading my TRUE 120 to Noctua DH-14, however I've been also considering going water. Noctua costs circa 110 $ in Poland. What would be the cost if I went watercooling? What was the cost of your WC setup? Oh, and AFAIK SF2 series doesn't support SLI, so you wouldn't notice any FPS difference, but in other games I've noticed 50-90% FPS boost :D.

And you're already using watercooling and overclocking - that's the spirit . This track & rally cars part sounds like fun! I, on the other hand, am in the middle of driving licence courses for bike and car. I wish I'd done this 10 years ago, though...but better late than never!

Your welcome! In the future, if you'll feel the need you can easily add another GTX 280 to your setup provided your PSU can handle it. 2xGTX 280 would be a very powerful combination even by today's standards, you'd be missing out on DX11 though. Not that it makes a whooping difference, DX10 only recently became a standard.

Thanks to a small team of people dedicated to crack on Nvidia's corporate bullcrap and their SLI patch 0.9b allowing SLI on non-SLI certified mobos. Fcuk you Nvidia! Read this and enjoy mate! http://xdevs.com/eplugins/content/content.php?content.30

Same here! DX10, 1920x1080, everything Unlimited, detail mesh size upped to 8. Lowest FPS I saw was on runway, with a large flight (8 planes or so) lining up behind me - low 30's. Usually during game it's 50-60 fps (Vsync on). Drops to high 30's or 40's when mud moving, lots of explosions, flying over city, etc. I'm looking forward to EXP2, who knows, maybe I'll get constant 50-60 FPS no matter what situation? :D Yup, that's my good ol' P5Q Deluxe, pushing 490 fsb. Actually it's the best mobo I've ever had!

My E8500 was also C0 stepping, and to reach 4.4GHz i used 1.45 V! On air (TRUE 120 rulez! :D ). IMHO high voltage isn't as dangerous to your CPU as high tempratures. If you've got proper cooling (and watercooling definitely IS proper cooling) don't be afraid to push the voltage lil bit more. Don't worry, Intel CPUs CAN handle it. Most of the cases when CPU dies of overclocking are if it's not cooled properly AND/OR is stressed with PRIME95/LINPACK 24/7 - this is not normal CPU operating environment!. Right now I'm using Q9650 (E0) also running at 4.4 GHz at 1.4625V. On HOT summer day temps on each core will exceed 70 deg Celsius IF I'll torture it with PRIME 95. In games temps rarely exceed 60 deg Celsius. On normal, cool day they are 5-10 degs lower. Remember, for 45nm C2Q and C2D cpus deadly temps (CPU shuts down) start close 100 deg Celsius (Tjmax). As long as you're running much cooler than this - you're safe. True, the CPU maybe won't last 20 years, more like 5-10, but I bet you'll upgrade it before then ;). Bottom line: 1. Don't be afraid to apply some more voltage WITH good cooling solution. 2. I've been overclocking every CPU I had since my Celeron 400 Mhz back in 1999 and only ONE died on me ( and it was an Athlon64 2 Ghz, oc'ed to 2.2 GHz IIRC :P). 3. You have to be REALLY jinxed/unlucky to kill your CPU. IMHO yes, there is danger but it's acceptable (read - very low). 4. Even non oc'ed CPU can die! 5. If after increasing voltage your PC becomes unstable, decrease it!!! Many cases of dead CPU were because owners were ignoring instabilities - an obvious sign that something was wrong. 6. Make sure your PSU can handle it! 7. I don't take any responsibility for any damage to your PC that may result from running your hardware beyond manufacturer's specifications ;P. Sorry for an overtly long post, I hope it helps somewhat ;) P.S. When I wrote about not noticing FPS increase after upgrading to 2x460 GTX I meant SF2 series only. Other games run at least twice as fast ;)