CFS3 can run on low spec PC's

[delta754]

I have been running CFS3 since november on the following ancient PC:

XP-PRO SP-1
Athlon 600Mhz(!)
640Mb RAM
GeForce 2 Ultra (30.87 DX9)
62Gb HDD (CFS3 on separate partition)
27Gb HDD (Swap File)

settings 5 4 4 5 1 1024x768x32

After considerable fiddling (I am a systems engineer) the game runs fairly smoothly, or as smooth as 2k2 at any rate. So it would seem that the game can be played on old hardware, as long as you have 2 or 3 weeks to tune it! My problem with the game is its cold and rather uninvolving, so I won't be buying new hardware specifically for this product.

[zoynyne]

I do not believe you.

[jackhall]

What gives you the right to call anyone a liar?? You may have that opinion; others may share that opinion. The fact remains that your comment is inexcusable!

Jack Hall

[cecil9]

Exactly what frame rates are you getting, because I to find it
hard to believe that you are getting good results when you have
your settings set at 4 or 5 with your specs.

If you are, I apologize and wish you would send your settings
to Microsoft so they can somehow include them with the
installation setup


Cecil

[delta754]

I found that 1024x768x16 was not any faster than 1024x768x32 , similarly when the settings are set to their lowest there seems to be little benefit. The frame rates are around the 15 mark, not great but playable. When I first installed this game however, it barely ran at all, even on 800x600x16. Much fiddling, using data from this and other discussion threads has left this game playable. From the comments I have seen much more powerful PC's do not seem to add enormously to the performance. It seems to me that problems experienced are software related. When FS2000 was released a common belief was that when more powerful hardware became available performance would improve. Didn't happen did it.

[zoynyne]

When FS2000 was released
>a common belief was that
>when more powerful hardware became
>available performance would improve. Didn't
>happen did it.
======================
Some may interpret this as a flame war - I see it as simple discussion of facts.

When I built my newest machine about a year ago I tried FS2000 just for kicks.

The result was glass smooth performance at around 70fps.

If I could just stand the graphics I'd still have it installed, but I can run FS2002 at heavily compromised graphics settings, achieve those framerates and beyond, and it still looks better than FS2000.

About your "fairly smooth" CFS3 though - at 15fps I could believe that - but... how can one consider a COMBAT sim to be playable at 15fps?

Regular flight sim, yes, no problem.

But a combat sim?!

Most games that involve any form of "aiming and shooting" are nearly unplayable at anything less than 30fps - 50 is where things start to get truly smooth.

Flight simulators are totally different; even at 10fps a flight sim can still be plenty "playable", as long as it's a consistent 10fps (which FS2002 can do far better than FS2000 btw) but a combat sim really is closer to the shooter games in terms of fps required for the ability to move, look around quickly, aim, and shoot without low fps interfering with the "gameplay".

So anyway - now that you've defined "fairly smooth" as being 15fps I'll retract my earlier statement - but now I question your definition...

I find it very hard to believe a combat sim can be "playable" at 15fps... at least CFS3 anyway.

Maybe in a small minority of potential circumstances within the possibilities offered by the sim - maybe...