Before you purchase, will Your PC Run BOBII

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Buddye
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Posts: 12465
Joined: 30 Jul 2005, 12:59
Location: South East Texas, USA

Before you purchase, will Your PC Run BOBII

Post by Buddye »

We have had several customers trying to run BOBII on a laptop with on board chip set video graphics. The new Chip set graphic capabilities that Intel has produced in it late model desktop and laptop PC is much improve based on it being able to run BOBII at all but we are still seeing problems with it in either CTD or bad graphics.

We have not had "any" customers running on Intel's on board (internal) chip set video graphic to be able to run BOBII without graphic problems. We only recommend PC's with strong out board graphic cards for BOBII.

BOBII requires a strong gamers PC (video card and processor) with an outboard video graphic card that is Directx 9c compatable to run BOBII.

Please ask us on the Technical forum to evaluate your PC spec's before you buy BOBII if you have any questions concerning performance and problems. Just give us your PC spec's or provide us with a DxDiag of you PC.

I also strongly recommend you read the following thread before purchasing BOBII.

http://a2asimulations.com/forum/viewtop ... 17&t=10091

I also recommend you read the other sticky threads on the Technical Forum before installing and running BOBII as the information may save you time and effort.
Buddye

Intel I7 920 4 core processor (2.66GHz, 8MB cache), 6GB DDR3 Triple Channel @1333MHz, 1.8GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295, Sound Blaster X-Fi PCI Sound Card, Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit , CH Fighter Stick & Pedals ,TrackIR4 Pro

philip.ed
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Posts: 485
Joined: 20 Apr 2008, 11:55

Re: Will Your PC Run BOBII

Post by philip.ed »

Good advice, I've followed all of the above and received VERY helpful information from members of this forum.:D
I've been patient though, and I'm still looking for a desktop. Christmas is coming though... :wink:

NightPuma
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Posts: 2
Joined: 22 Dec 2016, 16:13

Re: Before you purchase, will Your PC Run BOBII

Post by NightPuma »

I'm thinking about purchasing BOBII but I want to know if my system is compatible?

Operating System: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (10.0, Build 14393) (14393.rs1_release_inmarket.161208-2252)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Hewlett-Packard
System Model: HP Z400 Workstation
BIOS: Default System BIOS
Processor: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU W3550 @ 3.07GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.1GHz
Memory: 6144MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 6128MB RAM
Page File: 3823MB used, 8447MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 12
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
User DPI Setting: Using System DPI
System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled
Miracast: Not Available
Microsoft Graphics Hybrid: Not Supported


NightPuma

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

Re: Before you purchase, will Your PC Run BOBII

Post by PV »

Sorry a reply has taken a while- it being chrismas I'm
not paying much attention to the forum, but I don't
know why no one else is around. Anyway, the big problem,
which i hope you deduced reading through the other
posts here, and I believe it is also noted on the A2A
order page for BoB2, is that we have not been able to
get it to work reliably for OS beyond win7, and being
a tiny blip in the world, with no significant system wizards
aboard (A2A has ceased official dev support of BoB2 from
patch 2.06, which is the one they sell on the website, so
it's just us BDG guys), we have not been able to get any
hint from µ$ as to what the problem might be, nor how to
fix it, and while the BDG has some coding skills, none of
us are greatly learned in either BoB2's graphics engine
(a Rowan creation), nor the inner mysteries of directX,
which is where the incompatibility seems to lie.

As BoB2 is essentially an offline sim, many folks have created a
dual boot to their old win7 OS to run BoB2, or like me, have simply
declined to upgrade to any newer OS.

Beyond that, it's difficult to say with your machine - the
mainboard hardware seems adequate, 6GB RAM is excellent,
but there's no note about the video, which is equally critical
for a flight sim, which puts a fair workload on the vidcard.

I haven't shopped for a card for a while, so my knowledge may
be dated, but I expect the general drift should still be valid.
Anyone reading can correct me:

Generally, you need a gamer level card of vintage 2012 or
younger - check the Tom's Hardware hierarchy chart, here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu ... ,4388.html

You will need something within about the top 12 tiers of the chart,
but anything above about the fifth is getting to be overkill, and
a bit expensive. Deciphering vidcard specs is a bit arcane, if you've
never indulged before - you can't go by date or model number,
you have to actually dig into the specs, or, fairly reliably, you can
go by the cost, and read the Tom's reviews in the accompanying
article: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-gpus,4380.html

A 4 year old card tht originally cost $500 is going to be a better bet
than a brand new card costing $50. Typically you need to pay over
$100 for the necessary performance.

My current card, a HD6850, has now sunk to tier 13, and is well overdue
for an upgrade, but I'm mostly doing modding, not simming, so I haven't
bothered yet.

Oh, as well as Win 7/64, and a vidcard, you'll need the 2010 or later issue
of DirectX 9.0c - in its endless wisdom, µ$ stopped incrementing the version
number in 2006, but added four more years of necessary patches, without
which it won't run correctly for any software built in that period or later.
DX9 is not included in DX12, they are separate items which can coexist
as distinct installs. The source of the problem with BoB2 on later OS versions
seems to be that some of the functionality of DX9 was broken in the later
OSs, which had their own preferred native DX version. This was to do with
licensing charges, I think - breaking DX9 would encourage publishers to pay
for the next gen DX for their new software titles, which is a significant revenue
stream for µ$. At least DX9 still mostly works...

NightPuma
Airman Basic
Posts: 2
Joined: 22 Dec 2016, 16:13

Re: Before you purchase, will Your PC Run BOBII

Post by NightPuma »

NightPuma wrote:I'm thinking about purchasing BOBII but I want to know if my system is compatible?

Operating System: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (10.0, Build 14393) (14393.rs1_release_inmarket.161208-2252)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Hewlett-Packard
System Model: HP Z400 Workstation
BIOS: Default System BIOS
Processor: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU W3550 @ 3.07GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.1GHz
Memory: 6144MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 6128MB RAM
Page File: 3823MB used, 8447MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 12
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
User DPI Setting: Using System DPI
System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled
Miracast: Not Available
Microsoft Graphics Hybrid: Not Supported


NightPuma
PV wrote:Sorry a reply has taken a while- it being chrismas I'm
not paying much attention to the forum, but I don't
know why no one else is around. Anyway, the big problem,
which i hope you deduced reading through the other
posts here, and I believe it is also noted on the A2A
order page for BoB2, is that we have not been able to
get it to work reliably for OS beyond win7, and being
a tiny blip in the world, with no significant system wizards
aboard (A2A has ceased official dev support of BoB2 from
patch 2.06, which is the one they sell on the website, so
it's just us BDG guys), we have not been able to get any
hint from µ$ as to what the problem might be, nor how to
fix it, and while the BDG has some coding skills, none of
us are greatly learned in either BoB2's graphics engine
(a Rowan creation), nor the inner mysteries of directX,
which is where the incompatibility seems to lie.

As BoB2 is essentially an offline sim, many folks have created a
dual boot to their old win7 OS to run BoB2, or like me, have simply
declined to upgrade to any newer OS.

Beyond that, it's difficult to say with your machine - the
mainboard hardware seems adequate, 6GB RAM is excellent,
but there's no note about the video, which is equally critical
for a flight sim, which puts a fair workload on the vidcard.

I haven't shopped for a card for a while, so my knowledge may
be dated, but I expect the general drift should still be valid.
Anyone reading can correct me:

Generally, you need a gamer level card of vintage 2012 or
younger - check the Tom's Hardware hierarchy chart, here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu ... ,4388.html

You will need something within about the top 12 tiers of the chart,
but anything above about the fifth is getting to be overkill, and
a bit expensive. Deciphering vidcard specs is a bit arcane, if you've
never indulged before - you can't go by date or model number,
you have to actually dig into the specs, or, fairly reliably, you can
go by the cost, and read the Tom's reviews in the accompanying
article: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-gpus,4380.html

A 4 year old card tht originally cost $500 is going to be a better bet
than a brand new card costing $50. Typically you need to pay over
$100 for the necessary performance.

My current card, a HD6850, has now sunk to tier 13, and is well overdue
for an upgrade, but I'm mostly doing modding, not simming, so I haven't
bothered yet.

Oh, as well as Win 7/64, and a vidcard, you'll need the 2010 or later issue
of DirectX 9.0c - in its endless wisdom, µ$ stopped incrementing the version
number in 2006, but added four more years of necessary patches, without
which it won't run correctly for any software built in that period or later.
DX9 is not included in DX12, they are separate items which can coexist
as distinct installs. The source of the problem with BoB2 on later OS versions
seems to be that some of the functionality of DX9 was broken in the later
OSs, which had their own preferred native DX version. This was to do with
licensing charges, I think - breaking DX9 would encourage publishers to pay
for the next gen DX for their new software titles, which is a significant revenue
stream for µ$. At least DX9 still mostly works...

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