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Long-lasting flames..

Hmmmm...10 downloads and no test feedback for anyone? C'mon guys, its not a final, so i'm totally open to opinions on this cut because i'm quite concerned about the FPS hit vs the visual appeal. Should i tone it down a bit or at least decrease the lifetime of the FX? On my rig this cut burns for about 25 mins. And i can't fly within 15 meters of the early smoke without the screen being blacked out by the intensity of the smoke...kinda like that huge volcano FX released a few years ago.
 
Bearcat

Just got caught up on this thread....I will give your napalm a testing and let you know if I have any frame rate hits that are unacceptable.

Test 1:

T-2 Buckeye (not a frame rate friendly aircraft), armed with 2 Napalm canisters, over stock scenery (Kahili). External view in Free Flight: mid 40s FPS

Zoomed out to have a nice view of the effects: frame rates dropped to the mid to upper 30s.

Dropped the first round of napalm: No frame rate reduction

Dropped second set of napalm: again no FPS reduction;

Began getting into the mountainous region of Kahili and saw frame rates drop into the 20s.

Did 6 more napalm drops and looked back at a line of 8 individual napalm drops (total of 16 napalm canisters and effects): Frame rates were still in the 20's.

Will have to compare this to stock effects later, as I have to take the pup to the vet. The frame rate reduction I experienced was mainly due to A) zooming out from the plane and thus putting more scenery on screen, B) increased complexity of the scenery being drawn (Kahili is very mountainous and I upped the Terrain_Max_thingiejiggy to 21 and increased the detail of the scenery).

My system is a P4 3gig, 2 gig RAM, 512meg video card (can't remember what the card is). All sliders set to max, other than Visibility which is set to 20 miles.

Love the effects! Will look great at night!

OBIO
 
Sounds good Obio...thanks for the update. With a P4 3gig, 2 gig RAM, 512meg vcard you're packing enough power to be crushing higher FPS numbers, with the testing scenarios you've described. I'm maxed out at full scenery sliders also, with a TMV Level=21 as well. But, like you said, it could be the terrain complexity in the test location.
 
bearcat241 said:
Sounds good Obio...thanks for the update. With a P4 3gig, 2 gig RAM, 512meg vcard you're packing enough power to be crushing higher FPS numbers, with the testing scenarios you've described. I'm maxed out at full scenery sliders also, with a TMV Level=21 as well. But, like you said, it could be the terrain complexity in the test location.
Click to expand...

The T-2 Buckeye I was using is Kirk Ollson's original FS2000 model that I converted over to CFS2....and many of the FS2000 planes I have brought into CFS2 are frame rate hogs. I have gotten far better frame rates with converted FS2002 and FS2004 planes than most of the FS2000 planes.

Will do more testing with other aircraft that I have set up to use napalm: Alpha Sim Super Etandard (very frame rate friendly), Mystere SBM2, Mig-19 and others. Will take notes on frame rates at various stages of each test and will give you a detail analysis as soon as I can. Right now, I am just getting back from the vet clinic (Hazel is showing signs of allergies..most likely to the milk in the puppy chow I feed her...time to get her onto grown up food. She's 10 months, full grown at 7.1 pounds.). And it's just about time to head to the hospital to visit Deb.

OBIO
 
Did another test, using the old Alpha Sim Super Etandard that I updated. 5 napalm tanks from the US Modern Weapons Pack. Really had a hard time getting any consistent results because its pretty hard to control a plane doing Mach 1.8 from outside looking backward at the plane. One moment I was at 1000 feet, the next I was at 15,000 feet.

Will set up a much slower prop plane...likely a stocker such as the F4F....so I can have an easier time controlling the plane while watching altitude and frame rates.

OBIO
 
I dropped 8 of them on a stock pacific island with no scenery in my F-100. I couldn't bring up FPS for some reason but I noticed no slow down. My specs: [FONT=&quot]Intel Core2 Duo CPU T9300, 2.5GHz, L1 Cache 64 KB, L2 6,144[/FONT]; [FONT=&quot]NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS 1280x800 resolution.

I cannot imagine make it any tamer, just lower and wider, if possible. But you still need input from someone with a weaker system.
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I'm testing when time permits but my PC is running so slow & crappy just now that it's hard to come up with meaningful conclusions.
 
First off, let me say that I could not get it to work at first. Problem...delete those cdp files in the Objects Dp folder. Duh..After that was done, everything worked great. No noticeable drops in FR's. "New flak effects by RAF_Mutlly" has a bigger hit on my system's frame rates then this does. Six dropped, lost maybe 4 to 5 on the usual 65 fps for my box. AMDx64 2.3 ghz 1 mb L2, 7950 GT KO 512 mg, 2 Gig ram, 1680 x 1050 res. BTW, the animation in this fx is outstanding. :applause: You have to load it to see it. Screenies don't do it justice.
 
Great shots DV!....glad to hear from you and Erufle on the easy FR hit too. From what i can see in your 1st pic, i should try to add more flaming light splinters and smoke fade-out to the rolling fireball animation, like the real thing, plus what Erufle said about the spread.

In the beginning i started out just curious about increasing the size of the flame, smoke and duration of the after-blast fires. But the animation for the characteristic 'rolling' fireball intrigued me and soon consumed most of my effort. And i'm not happy yet...

I've been wanting to make time for this little project for years. My main motivation for wanting to look into this has been for use in late WW2-PTO and my Korea/Vietnam install, where these types of weaps were used more frequently with devastating returns. But like many of you, i was never satisfied with what's been generally available up to this point. Old Wheat's inquiry by this thread just lit a fire under me, pardon my pun. Thanks OW...:d

And a special thanks to Nanni and Blade for showing the way :icon29:

PS------you're right about deleting the CDP's first. I forgot this because my test location was MR's non-destructible Iwo Jima bases and the dp's of the non-GSL scenery objects are not activated by the sim, so their existing CDP's didn't have an effect in my case.
 
DId another test run, again in the AS Super Etandard...this time with full flaps, dive breaks, a power rolled back. Was able to maintain a steady flight at 300 knots! Have the plane set up with 5 napalm canisters. Free Flgiht, external view, no weapons drop: Frame rates in the 180 range. Dropped 5 napalms from 750 feet and frames dropped 10 FPS.

THe earlier test, the one with the Buckeye and the low frame rates: I had my sim in full screen mode...and that lowers my max frame rates to 77fps due to my LCD monitor. DUH! Ran the same test in Window mode and frame rates were double...still lower than the Super Etandard due to the Buckeye not being a frame rate friendly.

OBIO
 
Rgr on the model choices and the selected screen viewing modes Obio - definite factors in judging effects. I have a CRT monitor and run all of my sims and games in full screen mode 98% of the time, unless i get a rare and sudden mood to do otherwise.

Also, i should have mentioned earlier that i deliberately chose the stock Corsair model for delivery to minimize the FR hit due to a/c choices.
 
Tried the Napalm with pretty much no noticable frame rate drop from the usual on my old clunker. I usually have the terrain, detail and effects settings about at three quarter mark. Dropped 2 tanks together on some buildings....didn't get any of that "rolling flame" effect mentioned. Just the fire explosion. The flame looks real good I think and duration is a lot better than older attempts. Smoke looks good, but because it doesn't pile up and spread out for miles is probably why the frame rates are holding good. Best effort I've seen so far....wish the flame could throw across the ground some more but.
 
You may be way past some of this stuff. None of it was written by me, but was freely available to those interested quite a while ago. Happy headaches.
 
Thanks Demorier...i already have the second one, but the first is something i haven't seen before...very useful. :)
 
Update

Gettin' closer to my likin'....:d

Initial blast - starts as a rolling fireball and quickly darkens into a low-lying, boiling black cloud of smoke which then disappears.

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What a difference this makes...not just with napalm but with small bombs (which bacome mapalm by default). With the OH Lightning my FRs were around the low to mid 30s. With Akemi's new Ki-45 the FRs were in the high 20s to low 30s. Good stuff BC!
 
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