Trying to play the game on a system that does not meet with the game's system requirements.
Trying to install or run the game without Administrator priviledges. You need an Administrator account to install and play our games.
Applying a patch incorrectly. e.g. if you bought the game from Direct2Drive, do not use a patch described as being for any other version (e.g. Digital River version).
Tinkering with the game's data files. Just don't do it. The game will detect this. Then it will break.
Tinkering with the game's copy protection. Don't do that either - or very bad things will happen. They won't be obvious to you.
Game crashes are also usually a result of outdated or missing drivers. These include motherboard, audio and video card drivers. Here is a checklist of things to check.
Check and update your motherboard BIOS and drivers to make sure that you have the most recent and updated versions.
Also, don't mess with the game's graphics options unless you know what you are doing!!
If you have All Aspect Warfare or Angle Of Attack, the following applies to you.
The game was optimized to run at 720p (1280x720) or 1280x768 with the default graphics settings.
We the developers know what is justified for our game and which isn't. You, the gamer, aren't expected to know that but rather to make assumptions as to what you think is acceptable.
Its like your car. You see the speedometer can go to 200 km/h - at which it (due to dynamics) becomes highly unstable - so they dont' expect you to be going any higher than the speed requirements set by common sense, the law etc. Just because you can, doesn't mean that you should.
So, if we were to lock the graphics options and screen resolutions to what we believe to be acceptable standards - and not allow you to change them - you'd be very upset because now you have a computer which - you believe - can handle anything. Which of course it can't, but its OK to think otherwise. Which is why most games don't let you do that. They lock it. On the consoles, you have no choice. So no matter if your HDTV is 1080p compliant, your games will run - and in some cases upscale - to 720p.
The game sets the minimum requirements for the game to run. If you don't mess with it, then everything is fine.
If you want to increase those settings, you can - and in which case, you're on your own.
If are going to be mess with settings that are not developer recommended, you should do it carefully and in stages until you hit the sweet spot. I would do it in this order. You do one, test, then do the next and so on.
DISPLAY RESOLUTION
TEXTURE FILTERING
TEXTURE QUALITY
SHADOWS
LIGHT SHAFTS
FSAA
When doing the above, be sure to read the manual which describes the impact of each.
Light Shafts are the most expensive options.
FSAA will completely fail depending on your driver version, amount of memory you have on the video card and the other graphics options you have set.
And if you have on-board audio, the HARDWARE AUDIO CHANNELS should be set to 0. Though you can do 3D audio processing in hardware, most sound cards have crappy support for this - so you may want to still have this set to 0 even if you have a discreet (i.e. PCI, PCIe etc) sound card.
Doing the above, you can check the fps using either our own display CTRL+F12 or something like Fraps.
Stop when you get to the point where it becomes acceptable and stable.
If you mess things up, reset everything either within the game's options screen or by deleting the configuration files. A new one with defaults will be created next time the game is started.
If you own the standard version, go to the game install folder and delete the GAME_CONFIG.INI file.
If you own the Steam version go to the steamapps\common\all aspect warfare or steamapps\common\angle of attack folder and delete the GAME_CONFIG.INI file.
