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[Frankiek]

Yes I have two free HDD connectors, this offer was excellent but unfortunately the owner is not ready to ship internationally (even to italy) I will PM you

[Frankiek]

Just finished to install and test my "new" GPU RADEON HD 4670. Thanks for the support i am sure i will be back for the ccc and conf.ini tweaking.

[Kelso]

Here you have the recipe for the maximum video settings that can be set in the game.
https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,9756.msg185327.html#msg185327

[Frankiek]

Hi Kelso,

thank you for the suggestion that page is on my favorites (as they were called at the time) since inception.

Unfortunately the specs of my legacy PC (XPsp3,Pentium4 3.06, 2GBRAM, Radeon HD4670 AGP) won't allow to max out the conf.ini so I am now looking for some indication from AMD users on mid-range settings for CCC and conf.ini.

In the mean time I am going through a trial and error exercise using the "Black death" track as benchmark.

[Frankiek]

Just to let you know that after a few weeks spent on searching the net for the best possible information (including tens of pages on this forum), followed by a very painful mining for the appropriate ATI/AMD "AGP Hotfix" drivers, (I can't believe that AMD didn't bother to keep an archive for their legacy products). So after navigating from the most obvious to the most obscure sites downloading copies (or their interpretation of the originals). Then a trial and error hazardous process of install, test, tweak uninstall started and ending for a good number of times in CTDs and/or the dreaded BSD (not counting the risk of inserting malware or other doubtful features in your system.

Finally I came to the same conclusion that I found on a Mike post more than ten year old: while there is no doubt on the quality of the AMD graphics and also the excellent quality/cost relation of AMD GPUs, for IL-2 Nvidia cards are much easier to handle, to configure and to provide good results. If Mike had pointed me to his very old post I should have thought three times before embarking in this errand.

Luckily I am an old man with time to waste and able to enjoy this type of research. Just not to completely give up on the subject I can say that the card is actually nice and works well for plenty of other activities than IL-2. In my humble view the best drivers  that sort out the "infamous perfect mode problem" are the ones between Catalyst 11.1 and 12.3 (the last semiofficial release for an AGP card on XP system) even though with jester tricks you can install up 13.4 and even 14.5 however as to be expected the higher you go the most resources will be demanded from your system and just forget about a miserable P4 3.06Ghz and 2Gb RAM.
The beautiful graphic will be delivered at trickle FPS and punctuated by "the memory at 0x00000019 can't be read" or similar sudden freeze at the time of landing after bagging two veterans and one ace and followed by a frantic Ctrl+Alt+Del to avoid system reboot.

There are black magician arts invoking the miraculous effects of atioglxx.dll that unfortunately never worked for my system even though i tried one by one in all possible positions and conf.ini tweak.

Finally I am slightly better off now that when I started:  the system works reasonably, I have acquired a reasonable knowledge of vintage ATI GPUs, appreciate again the easiness of working with XP and maybe still with the energy to now follow Kelso  (and Mike 12 year younger) advice.

Cheers and thank you for your support It has been an intense three weeks of fun             

[Frankiek]

So now i managed to get more consistent response from catalyst 10.5 AGP hotfix that allow for the use of the shaders and perfect mode settings. But just not to stay in peace i am facing now a memory problem. At the end of the missions when everything should be easier and frame rate more stable with less plane, no gunfire, and no sudden change of landscape i suffer from increased stuttering normally culminating in a mission freeze and after a little lull a memory error message with final ctd.
I wonder if this could be a memory leak? Or faulty memory modules (but i tested them with my dell hardware testing utilities). Maybe it is too much for my Pentium 4 3ghz?

Just to clarify i am testing everything with stock 10.1 and using  the standard B239 finland missions.

Nothing special in the log just a confirmation of the stuttering

Not sure what to think, any hint?

Thank you

[SAS~Storebror]

My bet would be a messed up driver install, probably caused by rolling back and forth several driver versions and adding arbitrary AGP hotfixes and/or atioglxx.dll to the mix.
Mind you: There's a sweet spot of compatibility between driver version, AGP hotfix and atioglxx.dll.
This post...
https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,2497.msg142286.html#msg142286
...was using XP, same AGP GPU like yours, and probably same P4.
Stick to the very same versions: Catalyst+AGP Hotfix Versions 11.1
No atioglxx.dll trick needed (I would have told so if I used it back then).

You might want to use a dedicated uninstaller to get rid of old driver artifacts, something like this (untested):
http://www.uninstallapp.com/article/How-to-uninstall-ATI-Catalyst-Display-Driver-Windows-XP-32-bit-9.11.html


Mike

[Frankiek]

That is exactly what I wiped everything clean with DDU in safe mode then reinstalled from scratch this time using only compatible AGP versions of ATI drivers installing one by one, testing, ensuring that everything worked, checking the settings and then moving one notch up (not too bad with monthly releases)  repeating the process. In my system for the time being the best and more stable results are with Catalyst 10.7 in the AGP hotfix version.

It is really unfortunate that AMD/ATI didn't establish a very simple archive for their drivers.  A big tech company like this one making saving on storage space seems ridiculous. I lost hours of searching the web for the most appropriate versions and in any case I ended up with incomplete downloads not signed and far from being Windows certified. The last think that happened is that many drivers set have incomplete content missing parts of CCC packs or other components so you can end up very easily with faulty installs.

When searching for a copy of the original drivers for my GT550M (some 13 year old) it took me 30 seconds to find the official copy from Nvidia site. For the HD 2400pro at the AMD site I could find only one version available (non AGP) that didn't recognized my card and after the failed install caused a BSD followed by a reboot, black screen and fried card. 

[SAS~Storebror]

Yes, welcome to the ATI/AMD driver hell.
It's known to be troublesome, but eventually there always is a good and reliable combo.
That's why I'd suggest not to give up but keep trying.

Not least because Nvidia isn't really an alternative for an AGP system.
Which is because there is no 1GB AGP GPU available from Nvidia (512MB is max), performance is significantly lower than that of your HD 4670, and the worst part is availability: The 7950GT would be the fastest Nvidia AGP card, but it's not available on planet earth right now (I've checked). 2nd fastest would be the 7900GS - you can get 3 of these on this planet, for 200 bucks onward. For a card that delivers 1/3rd of your HD 4670's FPS. It's a no-go.


Mike

[Frankiek]

Sure and as mentioned is always fun a little like solving puzzles or preparing a nice Java class or improving a 3d so I am quite happy with the results and FPS obtained. It is really a pity that the ATI drivers and IL2core.dll they don't talk well to each other as the overall quality delivered by ATI cards is really great and the quality of the AA and AF delivered is superior to Ndivia particulary at the low level of 2x or 4x. 

[SAS~Storebror]

Oh yes, I still remember how I looked at the first images of that ATI card back in the days, when I thought to myself (knowing just the Nvidia picture quality before) "holy sh*t now that's what I call a great show!".


Mike

[Frankiek]

So it is really coming together now I am on 10.9 and can definitely get perfect mode and max out settings at 1280x1024 with 2xAA and 4-8xAF. However FPS are a little low (between 20-25). If I tone down the shading and some graph detail a notch i am stable above the 30. I also installed UP3.4 that works nicely with the 4/3 support.