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Easy CFS3 Performance Upgrade

gecko

gecko

Charter Member
Hi all,

Bucksnort, over at the WOFF forum recently posted an extremely helpful link to a utility for improving the performance of 32bit based games (like CFS3). Currently, CFS3 is only able to use 2 GB of RAM, no matter how much you have on your PC. In my case, when CFS3 reached this limit (usually over dense scenery areas like cities) the game would crash. Others might experience a loss of framerates instead. This utility performs an edit to the CFS3.exe that enables it to use up to 4 GB of RAM. Obviously, to benefit from this, you must have at least 4 GB of RAM installed on your system. But I can say it is easy to use and quite effective. Just drop the .exe file into your CFS3 directory and run it. Select cfs3.exe in the program and the rest is done automatically. I am now able to fly over cities and other scenery rich environments as long as I like with sliders all on 5 and 30 or so FPS with no crashes. Before if I had done this the game would have crashed in less than a minute. Alternatively I can get a steady 60 FPS everywhere and no crashes with the scenery sliders turned down a bit. WOFF apparently already has it installed, but CFS3 users can really benefit by using it. Make sure you make a backup copy of your cfs3.exe before you try it just in case. Here's the link: http://www.ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php

Enjoy!

Daniel
 
Thanks Daniel, I'd heard this was possible but didn't know how to do it. If it can also improve Gmax in the memory department that would be welcome!

(Win7 64-bit and 8 GB here...)
 
Thanks thats a great tip. The other day I was getting a message something like "imgui.exe out of memory", so I hope this will help, with the tweaked scenery budgets and so on.

Win 8.1 and 64 bit, 8Gb RAM here...
 
I've never had any memory issues, so it's probably not surprising that when I ran some side by side tests with and without this modification to the exe, I can't actually see any performance differences so far.

Win 7 64 bit with 8 Gb of memory, and GTX 670 2 Gb video card.
 
In checking the actual memory usage when CFS3 is running I'm finding that it's only using about 250 - 500 Mb even when flying fast and low over cities, and dense forests. Evidently I'm not really challenging the new larger memory limits that this modification enables with the tests I'm able to run. Anyone know of some better way to test this, or should I just be happy with things working really well either with or without it?
 
I use modified scenery budgets that really eat it up (but they look nice). I don't really get any FPS increase with the 4GB patch, but it does increase how high I can turn up my settings and how long I can fly without a CTD due to memory overuse. Now it doesn't matter what I do, it doesn't CTD.
 
Thanks Gecko, thats useful info.

I set the FPS to 60 in the game.xml, so as to synchronise with the refresh rate and avoid visual aberrations. Framerate has been rock steady with this setting, since getting a good video card (GTX 760, lots of Gb).

I have just started to hoist my long-standing scenery budget levels, to try this mod out.
 
[h=2]Will this help for HH Poliesti Missions[/h]
"And there are Masters here looking into the problems with MAW and the scenery issues.

Everyone who has changed there sliders to a lower setting have been able to fly the missions without crashing..
Recommemd that the scenery slider be set at 3 and the terriains at 4 MAX..
MAW will not allow anyone to fly in Romainia without setting the sliders at a Lower level..The game will crash to desktop if not done this way..
One of these bugs in the MAW expanision that is now being adressed.."

​
 
I don't know, I haven't tried it. It would depend on what causes the MAW issue. Worth a shot.
 
Tried it with Poliesti Oil Attack B17 S 22 Luft 2 mission in MAW and got a 5-8 pft increase.
 
gosd said:
Will this help for HH Poliesti Missions

"And there are Masters here looking into the problems with MAW and the scenery issues.

Everyone who has changed there sliders to a lower setting have been able to fly the missions without crashing..
Recommemd that the scenery slider be set at 3 and the terriains at 4 MAX..
MAW will not allow anyone to fly in Romainia without setting the sliders at a Lower level..The game will crash to desktop if not done this way..
One of these bugs in the MAW expanision that is now being adressed.."

​
Click to expand...
Yes one of the issues, I discovered when I built this set.
MAW Scenery wasn't finished and it caused some issues..

I loaded this improvement also into my Win 7 machine (8 gig of ram)
It has improved the FPS +10 for this machine.

Thanks very much
 
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