Recommend a version to install on a restored XP machine.

new reply
lektoraj
Airman
Posts: 20
Joined: 16 Mar 2017, 05:22

Recommend a version to install on a restored XP machine.

Post by lektoraj »

I have cleared up an old XP machine to use in my office to control a welcome/display screen for people coming in to see me ....

... at least during the week. During the weekend I'm hoping this could be a good machine to run BOB2 (if you remember my earlier thread, I have managed a strategy-only campaign on Win 10 and lots of single missions, but too many CTDs to play both elements of the game together).

Specs are as follows
Win XP SP3
Intel Pentium 4 3.00 GHz
1.25 GB of physical RAM (of which 574 MB is being used with just Task Manager open)
ATI Radeon HD 4600 series graphics card with 1024 MB of RAM. 400 MHz convertor.

My understanding is that 2.13 won't run on a machine like this, roughly what version should I go for?

My main priority is "integrity" in the sense I don't want my campaign getting what the Americans would call an asterix next to it because so many missions were replayed several times after CTDs - so we're mostly going for stability. On the other hand I don't want another kind of asterix e.g. from playing one of the very early versions like 2.00 where the Stuka gunners don't fire.

Might 2.11 be doable or is that a bit ambitious?

User avatar
PV
BDG
Posts: 5188
Joined: 13 Nov 2004, 08:21
Location: Lost in the tundra, Canada

Re: Recommend a version to install on a restored XP machine.

Post by PV »

With XP and 1.25GB RAM, you would be advised to steer clear
of anything much beyond v2.08 or .09; if it is XP-32 you could
pad the RAM out to a full 3+ (I forget how this works now, I
think you load 4GB and set the same /3GB switch used for Win7-32
mentioned in the v2.12/2.13 release notes, and it will be able
to use 3.25GB on one app; otherwise it defaults to a max of 2)
which should let you run up v2.10 or so, though you may need
to limit the eye-candy settings. The same applies to the XP-64,
if that's what you have, except that there is no need to tweak
the addressing to use 4 or more GB to run one program, and
performance will generally be somewhat better. The 4600 I assume
is the vintage 2008 card, which also matches the 2.08-09 patch
level, and will struggle with 2.10-11.

The older patch versions are hard to find these days, but I have
a link for each of patch 2.06 and 2.09 up on google drive, here:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1Rn6 ... XV6YWZydUk

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jJrue ... i5UGZxmTgu

So, at the moment, I guess you may be stuck with those two to try.
If you find you'd like to try another patch, it may be a couple of months
before I have my machines running in my future location, but I may be
able to dig up another patch to post.

I don't know of any place to find the others short of 2.12 and 2.13, which I
assume are still being hosted by A2A (well, I haven't tried d/ling them in a while,
and you never know...)
You'll need a base version of BoB2, to patch onto; it may already be v2.06,
which was the last vendor version released.

Hope that helps.

lektoraj
Airman
Posts: 20
Joined: 16 Mar 2017, 05:22

Re: Recommend a version to install on a restored XP machine.

Post by lektoraj »

The graphics card would be roughly that age - the machine was originally bought in 2007 and when the first graphics card packed in a couple of years later I bought another one cheap (so if it was made in 2008 it would have been sold cheap in 2009-2010).

I have the original CD - part of getting the XP machine up and running again was getting an external CD drive as the built-in one is jammed shut :) I also have the 2.06 patch and I will download the 2.09 to try too to see how it goes. Looking at the release notes for different versions, I would like to get the 2.07 if someone has it. Apparently it has a lot of CTD bug fixes and I am also keen on the ability to turn off getting sacked in the convoy phase - I previously tried a campaign in 2.00 under Win10 where about 60 Stukas attacked a convoy of fishing boats off the coast of Lincolnshire, outside their fighter escort range - we caught up with them and knocked out 30 of them (rear gunner not firing in 2.00) with 60 aircrew killed or captured - and I got fired due to the damage to a couple of fishing boats. You can imagine the conversation:
"But what about the Stukas Mr Churchill?"
"I'm very sorry, but Mrs Churchill was hoping for haddock for dinner on Friday and those fish are completely ruined now. I have to let you go."

- so I think turning that one off will increase the "integrity" of the campaign rather than decrease it. :)

lektoraj
Airman
Posts: 20
Joined: 16 Mar 2017, 05:22

Re: Recommend a version to install on a restored XP machine.

Post by lektoraj »

Just a note to let people know that the above spec seems to run 2.09 fine with the default graphics setting . Have tried a few missions from campaigns and also the 9 Sep London mission for a lot of planes in the air and also the Instant action random dogfight over portland harbour - which is a frequent midgame crash with Win 10 in v2.06, all were fine.

The only CTD I have got was when I pressed the Windows key accidentally (now disabled). I also had strange behaviour when I clicked "photo" in the campaign to see a site. It didn't show but the window stayed open on its loading screen. Was able to drag it off to the right and still save the game however.

I don't have speakers set up so can't comment on the sound. The framerate seems fine but then I was a child in the 1980s so anything over 10 fps seems fine to me :) The game seems to be running in real time rather than slowed down though not sure how well I'd be able to judge that without sound.

I've also seen I can get a GB card of DDR2 memory for under 10 euros, so I might upgrade to 2 GB (I currently have 1 GB and 256 MB cards but no free slot) if we think it would make any difference.

The pilot's view seems quite "zoomed in" on my resolution (something like 1320x768) but that's just the wide screen shape I think. Maybe I need to play with the "field of view" options.

lektoraj
Airman
Posts: 20
Joined: 16 Mar 2017, 05:22

Re: Recommend a version to install on a restored XP machine.

Post by lektoraj »

So I've worked out how to get the frame rate. It's mostly 30 FPS down to about 14 FPS when you have a panoramic view of the whole battle (100+ planes in view) during the Sep 9th Mission, but 25 FPS even for most of that mission. This is with full weather, full water but no mirror, min ground objects, medium particle density. It does occasionally "stick" for a fraction of a second (not sure why, you get a min FPS of about 3) but it's fine generally.

User avatar
PV
BDG
Posts: 5188
Joined: 13 Nov 2004, 08:21
Location: Lost in the tundra, Canada

Re: Recommend a version to install on a restored XP machine.

Post by PV »

Good to hear your system can cope with 2.09. The pauses, as I recall,
often seem to occur when your plane travels across a seam in the
tiling of the terrain. The "photo" function was buggy, and resistant to
fixes, so was eventually removed in a later patch. I would expect
the machine, and bob2, would appreciate the extra meg of RAM. How
much it would improve the experience I am not expert enough to say.
I have certainly seen much less painful performance with other machines
and applications after this addition.

Regarding the initial view and zoom, there are settings both in the Options
screen and bdg.txt which can between them set a very wide variety of
view possibilities... but I can't remember to what degree they were implemented
by 2.09. We added some more explicit control to external zoom around 2.08
which should be in the manual (as with just about everything).

lektoraj
Airman
Posts: 20
Joined: 16 Mar 2017, 05:22

Re: Recommend a version to install on a restored XP machine.

Post by lektoraj »

I didn't get much chance to play on the above setup, but inherited an XP machine recently, that runs 2.09 fine. Have done several campaigns now. If the extra data point helps then here's what the specs are:

Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3 (2600.xpsp_sp3_qfe.130704-0421)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Hewlett-Packard
System Model: HP Compaq dx2200 MT
BIOS: Phoenix - Award BIOS v6.00PG
Processor: Intel(R) Celeron(R) D CPU 3.33GHz
Memory: 2046MB RAM
Page File: 1152MB used, 2788MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
DxDiag Version: 5.03.2600.5512 32bit Unicode




---------------
Display Devices
---------------
Card name: Radeon X1300 Series
Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
Chip type: Radeon X1300 Series (0x7146)
DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
Display Memory: 256.0 MB

User avatar
PV
BDG
Posts: 5188
Joined: 13 Nov 2004, 08:21
Location: Lost in the tundra, Canada

Re: Recommend a version to install on a restored XP machine.

Post by PV »

Do you still have the other machine? The specs on it all-round, and particularly
the gfx, are better than this one, except for the RAM size. You should be able to
mixnmatch for one optimized machine from the two.

new reply

Return to “BOB2 Technical Support”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 11 guests