Any advice for a guy with a very inadequate system

[ske]

Aside from spending any money, am I up the creek to be able to run CFS3? My computer just restarted with no events showing up in the Event Logs. And I was just in one of the option menus!

I have a Pentium 4 3.0ghz processor with a Pentium 910GL integrated chipset. 1 gig of RAM. XP Pro SP3. 300 watt power source.

Or do I just bag it, and hope a future graphics board, and power source do the trick (when I can afford it)?

 

[Squiffy]

With a 3G processor you should be ok. What video are you running and what video port is on the Motherboard? I run 2.4G P4, with 512M on video but through a 4X AGP slot on the motherboard. It's not bad but I do have to trim the settings a little. Overall, without too much clutter on screen, I get really good rendering and performance. It's quite beautiful actually. Check out some of my recent screenies on the Cripes/Preddy thread. Best suggestion would be to add another G of RAM.

 

[hairyspin]

I had, until very recently, a P4 1.6GHz, 768MB memory system, with an 4x AGP 128MB video card and would have tried to pinch your machine when you weren't looking! I ran CFS3 at 1680x1050 with no anti-aliasing and the colour turned down to 16-bit.

In CFS3config, Custom Settings, I had aircraft detail at 5, clouds at 1 and everything else at 2. On the Overrides window of CFS3config I had dual-pass render disabled and high resolution z-buffer enabled. Frames per second was around 25 unless there was a really complex scene to display.

I'd recommend more system memory as a definite, but you don't need a hardcore video card to enjoy the game, my card was an old nVidia FX5200. If your machine has a PCIe slot, you could also start saving up!

 

[Tailwind]

Couple of things to try

To pop performance a bit go to properties on my computer. Go to advanced. Click on settings in the performance tab. Click on "adjust for best performance" Click apply. This will unload a bunch of the eye candy that XP uses and frees up some resources.

Make sure you run a full scan on your hard drive. Go to properties on your C drive then tools then error checking. Check both boxes and then start. It will prompt you to reboot. Do so. It will run a full scan. After that run a defrag on your drive.

To see the error that is causing the reboot, go to properties on my computer. Go to advanced and click on settings in the start up and recovery section. Uncheck automatically restart in the system failure section. This will give you a blue screen instead of just restarting your machine. The blue screen will have info as to why your system rebooted.

Cheers

TW

 

[ske]

Thanks for the replies. I have a PCI E x16 slot available, but no money.
I have also adjusted for best performance, and set myself up to see the BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH.
I'll need that, because the CFS3 will cause a reboot, even if I am merely choosing options.
I'm giving IL-2 Sturmovik another go, as I've updated drivers, and it seems stable so far. And CFS2 always works.
I really have liked "going to war" in CFS3 in the past, I'm not sure IL-2 or CFS2 can be that immersive. It's been awhile...

 

[Z-PurpleBubble]

Ske,

You rig should run CFS3 and the ETO expansion without any problem, IF you go for an addon vid card.

Most sims don't really like integrated vid cards because they use your RAM and CPU.

For only a few €'s or $'s you can buy yourself a low end card which will help your gaming immensely!!!

Over here in Belgium, you can get a card like that for less than 70€'s. A small investment that will deliver BIG TIME!

Good luck with your gaming!

PB

 

[Lightman]

Hello ske

Thanks for the replies. I have a PCI E x16 slot available, but no money.
I have also adjusted for best performance, and set myself up to see the BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH.
I'll need that, because the CFS3 will cause a reboot, even if I am merely choosing options.
I'm giving IL-2 Sturmovik another go, as I've updated drivers, and it seems stable so far. And CFS2 always works.
I really have liked "going to war" in CFS3 in the past, I'm not sure IL-2 or CFS2 can be that immersive. It's been awhile...

Was just wandering if maybe you over looked setting up a permanent swap file

Here is the link, Number 5 on the list

http://www.microsoft.com/games/combatfs3/config_tweaks.aspx


If you have already done this and all else has failed (disk clean up, disk defragmenter ,deleting programs that you rarely use) and you still have very limited space on your hard drive) not to say that this is what your problem is, Could be a corrupt install, bad disk or something
You might want to consider doing a reformat of your computer so that you end up with a basically new computer ,( If you have the OS disk that came with your computer) Is what i had to do a few months ago due to a virus i could not get rid of any other way


Just in case you think you might have a virus of some sort check out this
link these guys really helped me.

http://aumha.net/viewforum.php?f=30

 

[lewis11777]

Aside from spending any money, am I up the creek to be able to run CFS3? My computer just restarted with no events showing up in the Event Logs. And I was just in one of the option menus!

I have a Pentium 4 3.0ghz processor with a Pentium 910GL integrated chipset. 1 gig of RAM. XP Pro SP3. 300 watt power source.

Or do I just bag it, and hope a future graphics board, and power source do the trick (when I can afford it)?

You know you can get a rig for under $1000.00 that will blow yours away!

 

[ske]

I just got a "0x00000050: PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA" blue screen in IL-2 Sturmovik, CFS3 also causes restarts. And I don't have a dime to spare, so I guess this will have to wait until times get better.
Thanks though...