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Can I have my money back please?
by Steve MacGregorNow I don’t want to categorize Jane’s Combat Simulations as a “bad” company because of this, and F/A-18 certainly isn’t the only game that I have had this problem with over the years. Generally, Jane’s produces fine games; it just so happens that their latest offering is driving me crazy. Looking at various forums around the Net, I am obviously not alone in struggling to run F/A-18 at a decent framerate. Many other people are reporting similar problems.
Digital Integration’s Superhornet (a game with a similar minimum spec) runs smoothly at 1024 x 768 on my system with all detail maxed out. Jane’s F/A-18 won’t run smoothly at 640 x 480 with everything set to the minimum. Something is wrong here, and I believe it is caused by an over-optimistic minimum spec rating rather than an intrinsic fault with my system. Superhornet's minimum specs are Pentium 233, 64MB RAM, and a Direct 3D compatible video card.
So, am I happy? No. So what can I do about it? Probably not much. The first step, as always, is to check for patches (there is a patch for F/A-18, but it has no positive influence on the game's framerates on my system). The second is to make sure that the drivers for sound and video cards are up to date. The third is to take a deep breath, brace yourself and contact technical support.
During my years of gaming, I have contacted the technical support divisions of many companies. These have ranged from the chirpily helpful, to the plain surly. EA Technical Support in the UK seems to be one of the better ones. During our extensive e-mail discussions about F/A-18 they have been unfailingly courteous and have responded regularly to e-mails. Not to my e-mails, unfortunately. They seem to exist in a parallel universe where they respond to the messages that they think I should have sent, rather than the mail I have actually sent.
To date, I have received 12 e-mails from EA UK Technical Support. Only six have contained concrete advice, and all of these have suggested downloading the latest drivers for my sound and video cards. Perfectly good advice, except that very early in our correspondence I noted that I had tried this, with no effect on framerate, and asked for other suggestions. EA have continued to suggest that I download the latest drivers. I have continued to tell them that I have done this, and ask for other help.
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