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********************************************************************** AIR WARRIOR III Direct 3D Hardware Accelerated Mode 3D Development, Team Air Warrior ********************************************************************** Last Updated: August 14, 1998 SECTION I. INTRODUCTION SECTION II. GETTING THINGS SET UP SECTION III. PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS SECTION IV. TEST RESULTS ********************************************************************** SECTION I. INTRODUCTION ********************************************************************** This document contains helpful information for the new and experienced player alike on setting up, playing, and basically getting the most from hardware accelerated Air Warrior. We will start by explaining a little about Air Warrior III's support for 3D hardware acceleration, some tricks and settings that are available in the game, and then list some of the 3D cards and drivers that we have tested here in the studios. The quality of the rendering you see and the performance you get while flying Air Warrior III with Direct3D will depend on many factors. The speed of the 3D acceleration hardware in your system, the features and effects that your 3D card supports, how well the drivers were written, and even the speed of your computer all play a role in the final look, feel, and overall experience of the game. 3D HARDWARE: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The primary factor in your 3D experience is the speed of the 3D hardware that you have installed in your machine. Remember that not all 3D accelerators are created equal. Some early chipsets, like many that come preinstalled on the motherboard of computers, may not even be usable with Air Warrior III. Some OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) say their computer "...Comes Complete With Built In 3D Acceleration!". Unfortunately, many of these early chipsets end up being hardware "decelerators" in that they are actually slower at rendering than the host processor running optimized 3D rasterization (drawing) code. The good news is that there are now some very fast cards on the market and even if you have an older, slower accelerator, you can just drop in one of these faster cards and you're in business. PROCESSOR SPEED ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Another very important factor, as mentioned above, in the resulting frame rate is the speed of your processor. For example, even the fastest 3D accelerators may have poor performance running on a Pentium 90, where comparatively slow cards will often do quite well on a Pentium II 266 or faster computer. It is a common misconception that the processor speed doesn't matter now that you're using 3D hardware acceleration. This is far from the truth in practice, however. The reasons for this are pretty simple--there are a lot of objects and triangles in a 3D rendered scene, this is a lot of data that the computer must manipulate before the 3D card even starts drawing. The objects have to be moved, rotated, sorted, then turned into triangles, lit, assigned textures, and finally the resulting data is sent to the driver which in turn sends the data to the 3D card for drawing using the puny 33Mhz PCI bus. All of these things take time and can drive a slower processor to its knees. DIRECTX DRIVERS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The driver for your 3D card is a small program that takes the data about the 3D scene from the program and converts it into the format that the card understands, then it sends that data through the PCI or AGP bus to the 3D card where the rendering takes place. You should check your 3D card manufacturer's web site regularly for driver updates. Often newer drivers can increase framerate and add support for missing functionality and effects in the game. ********************************************************************** SECTION II. GETTING THINGS SET UP ********************************************************************** When you first run Air Warrior III and a 3D card is detected, you will be asked to select the desired 3D Accelerator. Air Warrior III recognizes up to 4 such 3D Accelerators in your system at one time. However, you can only select and fly with one at a time. If you select a 3D Accelerator as your 3D renderer, a note will appear to the right of the selector with information about your driver, such as whether it directly supports DirectX 5.0. You will also notice the section of the "Advanced" tab on the "User Preferences" dialog called View Mode Customization. (If you loose the dialog box, right-click anywhere on the screen and select "Setup..." then "User Preferences" then select the Advanced tab.) Here you can make changes that effect the performance as well as what you see while flying. VIEW MODE CUSTOMIZATION SETTINGS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The number in the first column of the View Mode Customization section corresponds to the keys "1" through "5" on the keyboard when in flight. Pressing one of these keys while flying selects that mode and changes the detail level to what is selected here in the dialog box. There are three columns of settings: the first sets the maximum shape resolution that is used, the second sets the maximum distance that objects can be seen, the third allows you to selectively enable or disable specific features or effects. Unless you are getting very poor performance in the game, you will generally not need to adjust the first two settings in each row. The Detail Setting, however, can be very useful for optimizing performance, changing the look and feel of the game, and for turning off effects that your card doesn't support properly or you just don't want in the game. CUSTOM DETAIL SETTINGS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Air Warrior III sets the Detail Settings to default values that should work fine most of the time, however, if you want to customize the settings, click on the drop down menu and select the "Custom" option and a dialog box will appear. If a 3D accelerator is selected as the 3D Renderer, a 3D Custom Detail Settings dialog will appear with check boxes for all the effects and settings available in accelerated flight. One reason you may want to adjust the view settings is to make things easier to see. If all the "eye candy" in the game is too much for you, you may want to disable fog, textures, etc. Another reason might be if you are getting poor performance with you card, you may want to disable certain options or effects. One big problem with some chipsets is texturing, it can be very slow on some cards. If you find that the frame rate drops from 20fps to 3fps when you have several textured planes in your sights you know you have one of these cards. If this happens to you, open the Custom Detail dialog and uncheck Textured Planes for one or more of the view levels. Then, when you get into a furball, you can disable plane textures by selecting that view mode and your frame rate should jump back up. ADVANCED DIRECT3D SETTINGS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Under the "Performance" tab in the User Preferences dialog there are some settings that you may need to adjust if your 3D card is not drawing correctly. These controls only apply to 3D Hardware Accelerators and are only enabled when they apply to the currently selected renderer. In the lower section of the dialog there is a control labeled: "In-Flight Text Labels". This allows you to enable or disable transparent airfield and waypoint labels. If your card reports through Direct3D that it supports the proper effects, this will be enabled. If you find that the text labels during flight are not readable, you can disable this feature. Also, if it defaults to off, you can enable the feature, but there is no guarantee that text will display properly in the game. The next control, "Force Color-Keying for Animations", is only enabled when the driver for your 3D card was written for DirectX 3.0a and is not DirectX 5.0 aware. Differences in the way certain drivers handle color-keying and alpha-blending in DX3a and DX5 can cause problems like white squares around smoke trails and explosions. This problem is usually eliminated when the driver is updated to support DirectX 5.0 directly. Basically, checking this option forces Air Warrior III to use color- keying instead of alpha-blending for textured animations. An unfortunate side effect of this is that on a few cards, textured shapes like airplanes will become transparent when viewed up close. So, as a general rule, unless you are seeing white square explosions and smoke trails, do not check this option. Also, keep in mind that if your card does not support textures, checking this option will not help you. OTHER COOL SETTINGS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For those of you lucky enough to have fast machines, and even some that don't, here are a few additional suggestions: View Modes Allowed - Set this to "Allow All Modes", this will enable full screen mode. View Optimization - If you have the CD, or have downloaded the high resolution cockpit art (a26____2.art for example for the 1024x768 A-26), you should set this to "Optimize Full Screen Mode". This tells Air Warrior III to use the high resolution art for the full screen view instead of stretching the low resolution art which results in a blocky look. This along with the new full screen dashes and a fast machine make for quite an impressive visual experience. Once you've mastered full screen view, you might never go back! View Caching - If you have lots of memory, say 32MB or more, you should enable "View Caching". When enabled, once you look a certain direction out of the cockpit, cockpit art for that view will be kept in memory instead of being reloaded each time you look that way, this makes looking in different directions much faster. You can allow up to 13 view directions to be cached. If you enable view caching, the first thing you want to do when you get into a plane is look in directions you will want to look while flying. This will load and decompress the art into buffers so the next time you look that direction, the views will change quickly. ********************************************************************** SECTION III. PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS ********************************************************************** Defragmenting your Virtual Memory Swap File ------------------------------------------- Because Air Warrior III uses a lot of RAM while you are flying in 3D hardware accelerated mode, between 32 and 64 MB in some cases, the Windows swap file will be used or "hit" periodically in flight. This can result in pauses or loss of framerate. To lessen this effect we have found that defragmenting your hard drive and swap file can help significantly. For those more computer savvy, the best thing to do is set up a partition on your hard drive about 3 times the size of the installed RAM on your machine. For example, if you have 32MB RAM installed, create a partition about 96MB in size and set the entire partition as the swap file in the Virtual Memory settings. Once this is done you won't have to touch the swap file again until maybe when you add more RAM to your system. If formatting hard drives and creating partitions are not for you, you can still improve performance by defragmenting your boot drive. Just follow the steps below. You will need to repeat this procedure every once in a while since, as you continue to use your computer, the hard drive will once again become fragmented. This is the process for Windows 95, later versions of Windows should work very similarly. Getting things ready -------------------- 1.) The first thing you should always do when making changes to your system is BACK UP YOUR HARD DRIVE! 2.) After you are sure you have a safe backup of important files, you should clean your boot drive(Usually C:) of any excess files like internet browser cache files, any TEMP directories, uninstall unused programs, and then empty the trash. Disable the Windows swap file ----------------------------- 1.) Right-click on My Computer and select Properties, then click on the Performance tab. Click the button at the bottom labeled "Virtual Memory...". The Virtual Memory Settings dialog should now be displayed on the screen. 2.) Click on "Let me specify my own virtual memory settings" and check box at the bottom labeled "Disable virtual memory". 3.) Exit Windows and reboot your computer. Do NOT attempt to run any programs at this point until you have finished this process and enabled virtual memory again. Defragment your boot drive(After Reboot) ---------------------------------------- 1.) From the Start menu select "Programs->Accessories->System Tools" and click on the Disk Defragment option. You can also use a 3rd party defragmenting utility if you have one. 2.) Select your boot drive, or for that matter you should select "All Hard Drives" as defragmenting is always good, just keep in mind that this process takes a while. When this process is finished, select exit. Enable the Windows swap file ---------------------------- 1.) Right-click on My Computer and select Properties, then click on the Performance tab. Click the button at the bottom labeled "Virtual Memory...". The Virtual Memory Settings dialog should now be displayed on the screen. 2.) If you want Windows to configure your Virtual Memory, select that option, but keep in mind that you must have at LEAST 100MB of free space on that drive or Windows may crash or Air Warrior III may dump you out of flight unexpectedly when it runs out of memory. If you want to set the value yourself, set it three times the current installed RAM on your machine to play Air Warrior. On a machine that has 64MB or more, you can set it less, but no less than 96MB. Be sure to uncheck the "Disable virtual memory" checkbox at the bottom of the dialog box. 3.) Exit Windows and reboot your computer one more time and you're done! ********************************************************************** SECTION IV. TEST RESULTS ********************************************************************** THE TESTING ENVIRONMENT ====================================================================== The performance tests where conducted with the online only version of Air Warrior III, v3.08 with Hardware Expansion Pack installed on the following machine: Pentium 233MMX 32MB RAM Windows 95, Build 950B(OSR2) DirectX 5.2a Dedicated, Defragmented 96MB Swap File on <C:\> Drive Test Film: <PERFTEST.CAM> in the <AIRWAR3D\FILM> directory Rendering settings were left as default except that the default display mode was set to "Optimize Normal Mode" so that the framerate and timer are visible by during the playback of the film. NOTES ON TESTING ====================================================================== In all but one case, we tested only one of the many 3D cards based on each chipset. We found that performance was almost identical for the other cards of each type, and since this document is meant to give comparisons between different chipsets and not whether one 3Dfx card is better than another, there was no need to list out all the numerous combinations of cards and drivers. The card that is actually tested was picked at random and was readily available at the time of testing and in no way should imply that it is either better or worse than any of the others using the same chipset. The one case where we found a significant difference between two cards using the same chipset was the Diamond Viper V330 and the STB Velocity 128. The differences are described in detail in the RIVA 128 section of the test results below. The version of the drivers tested in each case were current at the time of testing, but do not necessarily represent the latest or best driver for that card. You should always check the web site of your respective card's manufacturer for updates and use the latest version available. READING THE TEST RESULTS ====================================================================== Chipset: The 3D chip that the test card is based on. Card Tested: The actual 3D card the test results listed were obtained from. Similar Cards: Sometimes this section lists a couple other cards based on the same chipset that should have similar performance. Current Driver: This was the current version of the driver for the test card at the time of testing. Driver Version Tested: If the currently available driver for the test card did was not compatible with Air Warrior III or a better driver version was available, this was the actual driver version that was tested. Results of Test Film Playback: Lists the instant framerate value displayed in the upper left corner of the film playback screen at 30, 60, and 90 seconds into the test film. Framerate at 0:30: Gives open air framerate. This shows how well the card renders with a low polygon count and a few planes in the air. This is what you might expect to find in a dogfight. Framerate at 1:00: Gives heavy load framerate. This shows how well the card deals with many objects on the screen as well as a few effects. It also shows how well the card renders effects. If alpha blending is poor, some or all explosion and smoke trail effects might have white squares or black halos around them. A good renderer should display smooth textured smoke and fire that is almost photo quality. Framerate at 1:30: Gives the overload minimum framerate. This gives you an idea of the lower limit of the framerate. At this point the PCI bus of a Pentium machine is at it's limit and more data is being sent to the card than it can process. On Pentium machines this is usually in the single digits. On fast Pentium II machines this can be in the 10's or 20's or higher, especially with AGP cards. Load Time First Flight: Time in seconds to load the test film from the time you press OK in the load dialog until the film begins playing. Lower values are better. This value also gives you some idea of the performance of texturing. A faster load time means fewer and less severe freeze frames while textures are swapped out during flight. Load Time Successive Flights: Time to load the same test film a second or third time. Air Warrior III caches some data so this load time is usually much less. Comments: Basic subjective comments about the quality of the card's output, as well as mention of any issues relating to testing or installation of the card. Known Problems and Issues: Any know problems or compatibility issues with the card, or any special settings that might improve performance. DATA ====================================================================== Chipset: ATI Rage Pro Card Tested: ATI XPert@Work PCI Current Driver: 5.0 (MACXW4.DRV #4.10.01.2312) (Broken) Driver Version Tested: 5.11-C9C (#4.10.01.2330) (Fixes color Problem) Results of Test Film Playback: Framerate at 0:30: 31 Framerate at 1:00: 13 Framerate at 1:30: 6 Load Time First Flight: 20s Load Time Successive Flights: 6s Comments: With the new "Turbo" drivers, the performance of this card is quite acceptable. The rendering quality is good and all effects, fog, and alpha modes are supported. The ATI 5.0 "Turbo" drivers have a bug that causes the colors to be all messed up. See below for a work- around. Known Problems and Issues: 1.) The currently shipping drivers for the ATI Rage Pro have a bug related the texture palettes that makes the 3D view render in strange colors. If you see this, then you have these drivers. ATI has fixed this problem and will release the fix in a future driver update. Until then, you can obtain a pre-release version of the drivers from Microsoft by following the directions below: 1.) Go to www.microsoft.com/hwtest/hcl/ 2.) Search for "Display Adapter" and "ATI" 3.) Download the PC97 driver version 5.11-C9C filename "A19211.EXE" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Chipset: MGA-1164W, Matrox Card Tested: Matrox Mystique 220 Driver Version Tested: Matrox 3.82 MGAXDD.DRV #4.10.01.3820) Bios v3.20 Results of Test Film Playback: FOG OFF FOG ON Framerate at 0:30: 36 30 Framerate at 1:00: 15 13 Framerate at 1:30: 7 6 Load Time First Flight: 20s Load Time Successive Flights: 8s Comments: Although framerates are acceptable, the lack of hardware support for alpha blending means no sun flare or glare effects and no texture filtering means blocky textures. Blackouts and redouts are stippled, as is simulated fog if it is turned on. We don't recommend turning on simulated fog because it doesn't look very realistic, and as shown above, it adversely affects the framerate. If you do want to try it, here is how to turn fog on: 1.) Right-click on the desktop and select properties. 2.) Click on the Settings tab. 3.) Click the "PowerDesk..." Button 4.) Check the "Use fogging acceleration" checkbox. 5.) Restart Windows. Known Problems and Issues: 1.) No alpha blending 2.) No texture filtering 3.) No hardware fog support ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Chipset: Permedia 2, 3DLabs Card Tested: Diamond FireGL 1000 Pro Similar Cards: Hercules Dynamite 3D/GL Creative Labs Graphics Blaster Extreme Driver Version Tested: Diamond v2348 (GLINT.DRV #4.10.01.2348 ) Bios v1.54 Results of Test Film Playback: Framerate at 0:30: 38 Framerate at 1:00: 17 Framerate at 1:30: 8 Load Time First Flight: 19s Load Time Successive Flights: 4s Comments: Another fine choice for playing Air Warrior III, good framerates, solid texture mapping, and one of the fastest texture load times we've seen. Another good choice for low end machines. Fog and alpha effects are smoothly shaded and realistic. Known Problems and Issues: 1.) Some players have reported random polys or invisible smoke plumes, however we did not see any adverse artifacts during our testing. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Chipset: PowerVR PCX-2, NEC Card Tested: Matrox M3D NOTE: Test conducted with an STB Velocity 128 as the 2D Card. Driver Version Tested: Matrox 1.5 (#4.10.01.0018-4.1.1.5) Results of Test Film Playback: Framerate at 0:30: 27 Framerate at 1:00: 12 Framerate at 1:30: 7 Load Time First Flight: 24s Load Time Successive Flights: 11s Comments: Although framerate is decent, this chipset lacks hardware support for the type of fog and alpha blending used by Air Warrior III. The result is poor effect rendering and sometimes white squares around explosions and smoke trails. Fog is rendered in software and is banded, but it does the job fairly well. Known Problems and Issues: 1.) No support for the proper alpha modes for effects. 2.) Fog is emulated in the driver. 3.) Effects are sometimes rendered as white squares. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Chipset: RIVA 128, NVidia Card Tested: STB Velocity 128 Card Tested: Diamond Viper V330 Similar Card: Canopus Total3D 128v Driver Version Tested: Diamond 126P (VPRDRVLE.DRV #4.10.01.0126) Driver Version Tested: STB 1.80 (STBV128.DRV #4.10.01.0180) Results of Test Film Playback on STB Velocity 128: Framerate at 0:30: 42 Framerate at 1:00: 18 Framerate at 1:30: 8 Load Time First Flight: 26s Load Time Successive Flights: 13s Results of Test Film Playback on Diamond Viper V330: FIRST FLIGHT SUCCESSIVE FLIGHTS Framerate at 0:30: 38 30 Framerate at 1:00: 19 15 Framerate at 1:30: 7 7 Load Time First Flight: 36s Load Time Successive Flights: 23s Comments: Texture downloads and blits are especially slow on these cards, especially the Diamond Viper. Because Air Warrior III uses a significant amount of texture and overlay bitmaps, this is a real problem resulting in slow load times, freeze frames, and pauses during flight. Rendering and texturing are decent, but alpha blending effects are poor with blocks of pixels showing translucent around explosions and smoke where they should be completely transparent. We show two cards tested in this case because the performance of the two varied significantly. Known Problems and Issues: 1.) Slow load times, periodic freezes in flight accompanied by disk hits while texture data is swapped by the driver. 2.) If you see white squares around small explosions, try using one of several available RIVA 128 registry tweak programs to set the auto "Generated MIP Map Levels" to 0. In some cases this can also increase framerate slightly. You should not, however, increase the "Texture Memory" setting above 8MB unless you actually see increased performance. 3.) In the case of the Diamond Viper V330, the framerate is always significantly less on the second flight than on the first flight. This only happened on the Diamond card in our tests and has been reported by players. We are currently looking into the cause of this. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Chipset: Ticket to Ride, Number Nine Card Tested: Number Nine Revolution 3D Driver Version Tested: Number Nine 1.47P (REV3DP.DRV #1.10.9371) Results of Test Film Playback: Framerate at 0:30: 31 Framerate at 1:00: 17 Framerate at 1:30: 9 Film Load Time First Flight: 20s Film Load Time Successive Flights: 5s Comments: Although the framerate is acceptable, the rendering quality is quite poor. The card does not support some of the alpha blending modes used by Air Warrior III resulting in sub-par effects. There were also stray triangles appearing randomly on the scene. Known Problems and Issues: 1.) Stray triangles drawn over the scene at random points. 2.) Poor handling or no support for various alpha effects. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Chipset: Verite' V2100, Rendition Card Tested: Diamond Stealth II S220 Driver Version Tested: Diamond 106 (V2KSIILE.DRV #4.10.01.0106) Results of Test Film Playback: Framerate at 0:30: 42 Framerate at 1:00: 16 Framerate at 1:30: 8 Load Time First Flight: 21s Load Time Successive Flights: 8s Comments: This is an excellent, well-rounded card achieving good framerates. Rendering quality is good with solid texture mapping and few, if any, visible artifacts. Fog and alpha effects are smoothly shaded and realistic. Known Problems and Issues: None. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Chipset: Verite' V2200, Rendition Card Tested: Hercules Thriller 3D Similar Cards: Genoa V-Raptor 3D Jazz Multimedia Outlaw 3D Driver Version Tested: Hercules 0.81 (VERITE.DRV #4.10.01.3539) Bios Version 1.04.141 Results of Test Film Playback: Framerate at 0:30: 44 Framerate at 1:00: 15 Framerate at 1:30: 9 Load Time First Flight: 21s Load Time Successive Flights: 7s Comments: This is an excellent, well-rounded card achieving good framerates even on low end machines. Rendering quality is excellent with solid texture mapping and few, if any, visible artifacts. Fog and alpha effects are smoothly shaded and realistic. Known Problems and Issues: None. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Chipset: Voodoo Graphics, 3Dfx Card Tested: Diamond Monster 3D Similar Cards: Canopus Pure 3D Orchid Righteous 3D Driver Version Tested: Diamond 1.10 (MM3DFX.DRV #4.10.01.0013) Results of Test Film Playback: Framerate at 0:30: 43 Framerate at 1:00: 18 Framerate at 1:30: 9 Load Time First Playback: 18s Load Time Successive Playbacks: 6s Comments: This is an excellent, well-rounded card achieving good framerates even on low end machines. Rendering quality good with solid texture mapping and few, if any, visible artifacts. Fog and alpha effects are smoothly shaded and realistic. Known Problems and Issues: None. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Chipset: Voodoo II, 3Dfx Card Tested: Diamond Monster 3D II Similar Cards: Canopus Pure 3D II Orchid Righteous 3D II STB Blackmagic 3D Driver Version Tested: Diamond 2.01 (MNSTR2.DRV #4.10.01.0201) Results of Test Film Playback: Framerate at 0:30: 34 Framerate at 1:00: 16 Framerate at 1:30: 9 Load Time First Flight: 20s Load Time Successive Flights: 5s Comments: Performance is almost identical to that of the original Monster3D on a Pentium machine, however on Pentium II machine it performs much better. Because Air Warrior III is bandwidth limited on faster cards and not fillrate limited (PCI bus speed is the limiting factor, not the speed of the card), a second Monster3D II in SLI mode would not improve performance significantly, if at all. Known Problems and Issues: None. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Chipset: Voodoo RUSH, 3Dfx Card Tested: Intergraph Intense 3D Voodoo Similar Cards: Hercules Stingray 128/3D Jazz Multimedia Adrenaline Rush 3D Driver Version Tested: Intergraph 2072 (PROMTN.DRV #4.10.01.2072) Results of Test Film Playback: Framerate at 0:30: 33 Framerate at 1:00: 16 Framerate at 1:30: 9 Load Time First Flight: 20s Load Time Successive Flights: 6s Comments: This is an excellent, well-rounded card achieving good framerates even on low end machines. Rendering quality good with solid texture mapping and few, if any, visible artifacts. Fog and alpha effects are smoothly shaded and realistic. Known Problems and Issues: 1.) Some players report the loss of waypoint lines and crosshair on the overhead map when Enhanced Text Labels are turned on. Turn off Enhanced Text Labels in the User Preferences to get them back. This is a problem with the current RUSH drivers related to the alpha blending hardware and should be fixed in a future release.