Hello all,
I was recently given a MS Force Feedback 2 joystick... not being a gamer,
the only program I had that could actually use it was MS FS2000. It runs
just fine, and the graphics do not disappoint me at all (not expecting
much), my screens are quite smooth and quick even at the highest detail
settings, i.e. I have tons of fun doing aerobatics in the Extra, and doing
sightseeing flights in all the big cities.
Now here's my problem... I decided that to really try out the FF features
of the joystick it would be good to get a combat sim, having heard good
things about IL2... I bought a copy of the original (7 bucks, not bad) ...
however, after installing it, no matter what I do, the best I can get is a
HORRIBLE... 5 seconds per screen slideshow. Even moving the mouse in the
game's menu is ridiculously slow and choppy. Soooo, here's my setup...
before you attack me... please note... I know as a FACT that my PC is
nowhere near where it should be for serious gaming of any sort... but I hope
you can understand that I'm just trying to determine if anything can be done
short of plunking a bunch of cash on hardware just to see if I get bit by
the simming bug.
P3-800, 800mb +/-, 120gb, Win2kPro, DirectX 9.0... and here's the killer:
some cheapo NVidia (Vanta??) 2x AGP card with 8mb of ram. Now I know some
of you guys have video cards with RAM that approaches my whole box's
memory... but I'm a bit baffled as to why FS2000 runs soooo well, yet IL2 is
soooo horrible. Reminds me of my old XT with the first FS I ever had.
Actually... no, that was usable now that I recall.
If I try setting IL2 to DirectX, I get the first splash screen then it
kicks me back to the desktop and that's it, nothing else, no matter what
resolution I pick. When I set it to OpenGL, that's when it actually comes
up, and does the slideshow. No matter how low I set the texture, resolution,
etc... EVERYTHING is set to a minimum and the behavior is identical to it
being maxed out at the highest settings. I tried shutting off sound too. By
the way, this specific video driver is not in the pulldown menu (big
surprise huh), I've been selecting default, safe, maximum, plus the NVidia
offerings... but they ALL behave the same way. This kind of gives me hope
that there's something I can do to get this thing going. Maybe a patch of
some sorts. But UbiSoft site says they don't support Win2K with this
version, yet I've read posts from people that say it works for them.
So, anybody have any ideas as to what I can do to fix this? Is it really
just because my card's so bad? Any explanation as to why FS2000 works well?
If it is because of the card, then I guess these games have totally
different graphics requirements??? I don't know... that's why I'm asking you
guys... I just wanna have some fun with the FF2... and I'm broke... Help!
Thanks a million!!!
Jesse