Public Beta - I finally got it downloaded!

[Brock Sherwood]

I'm one of the few that got a key for this game and it is a lot of fun. i can play fairly smooth on low settings and it still looks great. many players have been having stability issues and at times i have issues as well.

heres a few screen shots from the game:

[Brock Sherwood]

Re: Public Beta - I finally got it downloaded!

those first screen shots were of my assassin Liquor

heres some screen shots of my necromancer Anastasiya and her pet in the last screen...lol...evil isnt he?


character customization is indepth which is great - you can really tweak it to get what you really want out of it

[Brock Sherwood]

Re: Public Beta - I finally got it downloaded!

heres a screen shot of Anastasiya without her clothing...lol

[Brock Sherwood]

Re: Public Beta - I finally got it downloaded!

this game is a lot of fun to play and the graphics and sounds are very immersive

i had a bit of trouble getting it to run smoothly but now im not having any problems

playing on Anastasiya is very challenging - atm im in the SP area on my own and maybe i could use some help on this quest im working on - but its nice to see that theres the MMO part along with the chance to take some time out and solo some of the quests and content

Liquor is my Rouge Assassin and has no trouble doing his quests solo - he deals out huge damage quick but very small health....lol

[Brock Sherwood]

Re: Public Beta - I finally got it downloaded!

first off heres my system specs:

CPU: AMD FX-60 (OC via ASUS bios at 10%)
RAM: Corsair XMS 4 gig
GPU: 8800 GTS 320 - Latest Xtreme-G Driver (not beta)
Audio: X-Fi Elite Pro - Latest Creative Driver
OS: Vista Ultimate 64 Bit
HDD: Vista on 1 36 gig Raptor, AoC on a 2nd 36 gig Raptor (never got around to raid 0 on these)
Page File: Located on the 2nd Raptor (4gig-7gig in size)
Connection: Verizon Chocolate Cell Phone (1Meg connection and im seriuos here...lol - its better than 56k - if you know me from SWG Chilly server you know this...lol)

i had some teething problems early on till i went to Vista Tuning and it helped tons

the teething problems were logging in and BSD crash, fixed that then had the stuttering ingame, tweaked desktop video settings and for the most part this is gone except in town it is hit and miss but not game breaking (basically i kept everything maxed but AA and AF are application controled while v-sync is off)

sound is like a box of rice krispies (known X-Fi and 64-Bit driver issues from XP and Vista) - though after a while the snap, crackle, and pop goes away

i set affinity to 1 CPU, i set priority to high, tweaked some bios settings (OC) and the game runs around 65 frames a sec but can drop to 20 during high graphic intence areas (towns and water)

game video settings on low and i turned off shadows to improve the frame rate

resolution is set at 1680x1050 at 60 Hz

heres a screen shot of what these settings look like in game for me SCREENY WARNING: 1680x1050

it still looks great and runs smooth for my system for hours on end - it seems ive fixed my lock ups and freezes - at times an area will take a min or 2 to load completely and my frame rates come back up...i go and have a smoke then come back to comtinue on - lol

this game runs better than SWG, LOTRO, Crysis (and i got it running pretty good too), and R6 Vegas (a piss poor 360 port)

some may notice my connection...yes its a cell phone with a 1meg and sometimes 2 or 3 meg connection. at 5 bucks a month beats out what cable and dsl can offer - it will use my plan minutes so i usually get online after 7pm or on the weekends but i have enough to where i can log on after work as well (just keep an eye on them - lol) - SWG Chilly players will know this works fairly well for me cause ive been doing this since december - just cant fly in space much cause the lag is noticable then

some may see my page file is quite large and on a different drive than my OS - i cant stress this enough - This is the best thing ive done to improve system performance. 1 the page file is off the same drive as your OS so if it used it has quick access. 2 its larger than the recommended OS settings at 4-7 gig. so if its used at all theres plenty of it (page file is used when your ram is maxed out which with vista eating up 1 gig and AoC using 1.5-2 gigs this can happen to a few of us)

if you only have 2 gigs of ram try it and youll notice a difference in how things open up quicker and gaming performance will increase just by moving your pagefile to a 2nd HDD

i also defrag weekly and alway after i download/install something to keep my drives unfragged as much as possible - this helps to improve performance

i use diskeeper to handle my defraging needs

also keep you HDDs free. atm my drives are pretty full but ive always tried to only use 1/3 of the space on a HDD. the more you put on an HDD the longer it will take to find files and use them


i hope posting my system specs and how they performed with AoC will help someone in our growing community

[Brock Sherwood]

Re: Public Beta - I finally got it downloaded!

heres a couple more of those low setting screen shots

Screen 1

Screen 2

im really impressed in how well it runs and how great it looks on low settings

[Brock Sherwood]

Re: Public Beta - I finally got it downloaded!

testing the attachments again - think i got it set-up so they will be defualt size when you click on them

[Brock Sherwood]

Re: Public Beta - I finally got it downloaded!

that vista tuning link isnt working atm...heres the info that link takes you too

This tuning guide will help you in making Vista "almost" like XP, but with a nicer UI and dx10 support!



Step 1: Turning off Vista's NAP Control

A) Goto Start and click on “Run.

B) Next, type in “services.msc”,without the "", and hit OK. The services applet should open in a windows box. It should show you ALL the current services running on your computer.
C) Scroll down until you find "Network Access Protection Agent", right click on this service and hit "stop". Then, Right click again, and goto properties and disable activation on startup.

D) Lastely, restart your computer and NAP is now disabled!

What NAP does: It stop any and ALL executables from running that "might", note the "might", be a viral agent. If you run antivirus software theres no reason whatsoever to have this running. In most cases, it actually is a waste and EXTREMELY annoying to have this running.

Disabling Vista UAC

A) Open Administrative Tools in Control Panel

B) Double-click on System Configuration

C) Click Continue to accept the UAC prompt

D) Select the Tools tab

E) Scroll down and select Disable UAC

F) Click Launch

G) Reboot your machine

Microsoft Services you don't need...


A) Goto start.
B) search/goto run.
C) Type "services.msc” into the run prompt without the "".
D) Turn off the services below using the same method as in the NAP instructions above:

-Base Filtering Engine (if you don't use the basic windows firewall at all)

-Group Policy Client (if you don't use the different group functions like admin, and multiple user stuff)

-IKE and AuthIP IPSec Keying Modules (Disable to improve network performance and decrease RAM usage, disabling will have a negative impact on network security unless you are doing VPN type things, normal gamers/computer users have little use for VPN services.)

-Infrared monitor service (again, home users/gamers have little use for this unless your using IR wireless technology in your home, doubtful.)

-Internet Connection Sharing (Disable if you don't share your internet connection with another computer, this is different from being on a network or router, basically another computer is connecting to the internet THROUGH your computer. Home users/gamers have little use for this.)

-Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider (Disable if you don't use MS Shadow Copy.)

-Remote Access Connection Manager (Disable if you don't use dial-up connections or VPN-networks.)

-Remote Registry (It Enables remote users to modify registry settings on this computer. If this service is stopped, only users on this computer can modify the registry. In other words, no one can hack into your computer and change your registry if this is turned off. Used by network administrators in businesses. Disable this at your digression. )

-Secondary Logon (Disable if you don't want to login two users at the same time.)

-Security Center (Disable this if your tired of that damn microsoft shield constantly blabbing at you about security problems because you turned off Vista's crappy anti-virus and firewall systems.)

-Server (Disable if you don't share files or printers via LAN as a server for another. If your printer stops working, re-enable this!)

-Telephony (Disable if you don't use dial-up.)

-Terminal Services (Disable if you don't use Remote Desktop. Turning this off permanently will increase system security!!)

-Volume Shadow Copy (Disable if you don't use MS Shadow Copy.)

-Windows Defender (Disable if you don't want to use it.)

-Windows Firewall (Disable if you don't want to use the crappy windows firewall.)

[UPDATE
-SuperFetch (Disable this, It's one of those "helpful" services that caches all your ram for programs the OS thinks your going to use. So if you also use your PC for other things (word processing, surfing) you will find that the OS thinks you might do some word processing today for example and caches some ram and assigns it to that program just in case your run it), Ferain from the AoC forums reminded me about this, completely forgot !