Ok...time to backup some more (LOL I'm starting to sound like Ed Norton in 'Fight Club'). It all started with New Years Eve. Fool that I am, I came up with my usual list of preposterous New Years' resolutions. Amongst them, I cavalierly added 'I WILL NOT BUY ANY COMPUTER GAMES IN 2001....*EXCEPT* FOR 'BATTLE OF BRITAIN')'. Mrs Z. duly made note of my proclamation, and life went on. Well...the NEXT DAY..I decided to try out the BoB demo (big talker that I am) and was horrified by it. No offense to the BoB fans out there, but it just ain't my cup of tea. In fact, I hate it. I've hated everything that Rowan has put out, and BoB has done little to reverse my stodginess on this issue. So here I am...given myself license to buy ONE COMPUTER GAME all year...and what is it for? A game that I can't stand. Ok..you all must know RIGHT NOW that I am the KING of rationalization (Mrs Z will corroborate this fact, with glee). In the aftermath of my profound disappointment at BoB, I find myself in my local software boutique, perusing the shelves. What do I see? A big fat copy of 'Flanker 2' for the insanely low price of $39.99 CDN (which for you Americans amounts to the equivalent of two rubber bands, a stick of Big Red, and a box of Cracker Jacks (prize included, I might add..hey, we're not a Third World country up here LOL). So, moi, the King of Rationalization sez 'Ok self...I shall *SCRATCH* the BoB resolution and REPLACE it with this humble copy of 'Flanker 2'...half the price (BoB was sitting beside it at $69.99), and much longer in the tooth. A fair trade, by gum!

So where are we going with this? Well...fast forward to one full installation of 'Flanker 2' on my system later. The game is beautiful. Don't listen to the spate of anti-Fwankerites that this forum is riddled with...it ROCKS and the graphics are to DIE FOR. Zhukov is as happy as a clam...flying under bridges and buzzing B52 bombers. Smooth as silk. Or is it? We get more daring and start in on the A2G missions...including Sevastopol. Damn Sevastopol. My Waterloo. As I approach that great Crimean metropolis, eager to let fly with whatever Soviet instruments of doom I have strapped to my sleek sky blue belly, my framerate grinds down..and down..and down...by the time I fly over the Sevastopolian equivalent of Times Square, where I'm supposed to be paying some loathsome bureaucrat an early morning wake up call courtesy of 'ZAB's R Us', my framerate dips to..oh...5 fps. I am smitten, yea verily!! But Zhukov is a harsh man...and within a nanosecond, the Control Panel is accessed and F2 becomes one of a long line of sims padding his bulging CD wallet. Back to EAW..good old EAW. Old faithful, and all that.

Now we're in about February. Something strange is happening in the Kali world. A realignment of the planets perhaps. All of a sudden, EAW diehards are interested in Falcon4. Not to name names (SCHATT), but certain of these previously perfect paladins of purity seduct me with tales of glorious online campaigns over the skies of virtual Korea (just add kimchi and stir). What can I say? I'm easily influenced, right? I've had a copy of Falcon 4 sitting in my basement for TWO YEARS and I've never had the courage to master it (getting my Ph.D. was less challenging somehow). Pumped with the thought of multiplayer napalm nirvana, I dust it off, install it, patch it (1.08, iBeta, eRAZOR...the whole friggin 9 yards), and run it. You think I'd learn from Flanker 2 right? WRONG. Once again, I'm mesmerized by the silky smooth ONE ON ONE dogfights that I'm having. Hey! The framerate counter is showing me 40 fps with the 3DNOW accelerated eRAZOR patch. WOO HOO! Life is good! I've found my home. Right? WRONG. This time it's the campaign. The first time I fire up the 'Rolling Fire' campaign, I'm sitting on the runway and I see things moving around me like a really bad silent movie. Hang on chaps! This ain't right at all!! Call up the fps meter...MY GOD!! I'm on the RUNWAY and I'm getting 12 fps!!!! Oh the shame! Oh the humiliation!! Coupled with the fact that I just CAN'T CONNECT to anyone in multiplayer, Falcon4 quickly becomes the next Bleak Prospect(tm). Ah well, there's always EAW. Good old reliable EAW. Always there, fitting like a comfy pair of shoes.

But this is all starting to weigh on me. How can my system be such an underachiever? How am I supposed to get with the program when IL-2 blows around? Sure I can weave around a bomber box like nobody's business in EAW, but I'm starting to get the sinking feeling that I'll be lucky to load the IL-2 splash screen within something resembling a reasonable period of time (say, two hours). So I'm chewing on this, and one day (well, yesterday to be precise LOL), I come across Gail's news story about the soon-to-be-released '3DMark2001' benchmark software. Bright boy that I am, I connect the dots and realize that there must be a '3DMark2000' extant..and this would be a PERFECT occasion to expose my once revered and now vilified system to the RELENTLESS GLARE of a good 3D benchmarking suite. So, I download and install it Within ten minutes and I run it and have my answer..all the frustrations that I've seen boiled down to a single 3 digit number:

The red arrow (the Arrow of Shame, as it shall become known) points to it. 941. That's it. That's all she wrote. The 3DMark website has this really cool feature that allows you to upload your benchmark results (yeah yeah, I know..the info is probably used by their marketroids...but hell, what do I care?) and compare them with a HUGE database of other users' results. What do I find? Well..to put it bluntly, K6-2 500 users with GEForce cards are routinely getting a 3DMark 2000 score of over 2500!! That's right! Almost THREE TIMES my score..just by changing the damn video card!!! And it gets even better!! People with a REAL SOCKET 7 CPU, that would be a K6-3 450, routinely score over 3500!!!!!

Hello!!! You starting to feel that there's something rotten in Duckburg?

Alright, this brings me to NOW. Present day minus 0.0001 seconds. Sitting beside me is an Asus V7100 GEForce 2 MX card, still in its box. Winding it's way towards me is a K6-3 450 processor that I just bought on eBay (you have NO IDEA how hard these CPU's are to find!!). Within a week (!!!) I shall AT LEAST TRIPLE my framerates for less than $300CDN (which, for you Americans, amounts to one slightly worn baseball card of Catfish Hunter, one slightly worn vinyl Captain and Tenille LP, and two cans of New Coke).

Screwdriver in hand, I am about to embark on Phase One: TNT2 M64 --> GEForce 2 MX. Part Two of this bloodsoaked tale of wanton desire and screaming rage will detail the success (or failure) of this operation.

Stay tuned.

Zhukov

p.s. to everyone who told me that I had to get that Athlon, which would mean replacing my CPU, motherboard AND case/powersuppply, allow me to say in advance (showing just how confident I am)...NYAH NYAH NYAH!!!

------------------
"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results." -- Winston Churchill

[This message has been edited by Zhukov (edited 02-23-2001).]

Well, she is right you know.

Zhukov (making his motorized Black & Decker screwdriver go 'whirr whirr!' as he descends on his computer case...)

Zhukov

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mrs. Z:
I won't mention those weights that are gathering dust in the basement -- or that jogging route...

---

FIRST the computer...THEN the jogging route. As for the weights..every guy is entitled to have one set of weights gathering dust in his garage. LOL

Zhukov

------------------
"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results." -- Winston Churchill

Oh, trade you the weights for a rowing machine.

Anyhow, I plan to get BoB, but only for the strategic part. As a flight sim it stinks. It's difficult to get high kills because the game cheats ..... big time.