Simulation System Survey by Leonard "Viking1" Hjalmarson
	Last week we asked you some questions about minimum system specs. Typically, even the hottest new simulations sport box information listing something like "Pentium 133 with 16 MB of RAM" for a minimum. The problem with such a specification is that modern military sims will often look terrible or run poorly (low frame rate) under such conditions. Will you get a slide show of five frames per second, making it virtually impossible to hit an air target with your guns? And equally important, the box label doesn't specify under what conditions a three year old system will actually run the hot new game. For example, is the minimum spec fine with two aircraft in the air, but unusable in a dogfight with a dozen? Will you have to turn off virtually ALL advanced graphics features and run at 320x200 instead of the 1024x768 you were expecting? Will the game require that you optimize your system? In an effort to assist developers in designing games to fit our hobby we gave you an opportunity to complete a survey. In roughly four days, more than two thousand of you filled out our online form. Now we know what YOU think are acceptable frame rates in a state-of-the-art simulation in 1999, and we also know what kind of system you plan to be running by Christmas of this year. Having now shared that information with the worldwide intelligence community (ie. my grandmother and certain British simulation designers) we are ready to share the results with you, our faithful and combative readers. Warning: Extreme Operating Conditions First let's recall the conditions we specified for our questionnaire. We assumed that you will run the game at high resolution: 1024x768. We further assumed that all graphics options will be cranked to the maximum and that you will fly with FULL REALISM in flight model and avionics. Next we assumed that you would be in a heated battle setting where there are twelve other aircraft engaging in conflict within three simulated miles of your own aircraft. Survey Question One follows above right... Click to continue		What would you consider an acceptable frame rate range for a state-of-the-art simulation under these conditions? Only 1% of you felt that 10-12 frames per second was acceptable under these conditions. 18% felt that 15-20 fps would be acceptable. 39% felt that 20-25 fps was acceptable, and 39% felt that 25+ fps was acceptable. In other words, nearly 1 out of 5 feel that 15-20 fps is acceptable, while 4 out of 5 feel that 20 fps or higher ought to be the standard. The next question was, "What system do you expect to be running this awesome simulation on during the Christmas holidays this year? Choose the system that is closest to the one you will be running." 26% chose a PII 300 or lower (including AMD K6-2/3). 30% chose PII 400 (including the AMD K6-3 400). 44% chose PII 450 or higher. In fact, fully 2/3 of you said that you plan to be running a PII 400 or higher by Christmas of 1999. 71% of you plan to run a TNT2, G400 or V3 or higher by that time! 83% (!!) of you will be running 128 MB or more of RAM by Christmas, '99. While only 4% are planning to move to the AMD K7 Athlon at this point, I suspect it's because you haven't yet read a review of this new CPU. I'm sure that once we see the Athlon in action more of you will feel comfortable making plans to move to AMD. Finally, 14% of you have 4.5 GB hard disks or smaller. 14% have 6.4 GB, and 17% have 8.4 GB. 51% plan to have 10 GB or larger hard disks by Christmas of '99. Conclusion We already suspected what is now proven true of our readership: that we upgrade more than any other gaming group out there! Watch for our simulation title survey before the weekend, and next week we will run a HOTAS survey. Join a discussion forum on this article by clicking   HERE.
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