The FPS Hit is Absolutely, Positively....

L

LeBlaque

Guest
Because this has been driving me nuts, and because I have a more-than-decent rig, I fooled with all the sliders then tested while stationary at an airbase. I was able to jack up most settings to 4 while having smoooooth fps rotating around my plane with the external observer mode. There was, however, one exception to this rule....

When scenery was above 1 (that's right, above ONE), FPS bogged down in this same view to single digits. There is a caveat here: after about 3-5 full rotations in this view FPS would jump up into the high teens from single digits. Clearly, something is at issue related to these scenery features, as in Setting 1 there are no trees, extremely limited buildings, etc. On setting 2 several trees do begin to appear and I am no programmer, but this should be related to the number of polygons that are being drawn. I know having built levels in the old Half-Life days that you could create errors when creating polygon features where you could bog your computer to a standstill.

Given my card is an ATI 4850 with 512 MB it should be able to draw literally millions of polygons per second. I would suggest that the FPS mystery lies somewhere in these scenery items, particulary given I doubt these features are drawn similarly at altitude (where I again have smooooth FPS) above 4K.

Best Regards,

LeBlaque
 
Many people have reported problems with ATI cards not running BHaH very well.
 
It's been accepted fact for well over a year

Best Hardware for running OFF is Intel and Nvidia

Plus as against all logic, OFF runs smoother at high resolutions, when I say HIGH, I mean as high as your monitor will handle
Mine runs OFF at 1680x1050 :ernae:
 
If the best hardware for running OFF was Intel and Nvidia then I think that should have been posted somewhere on the FAQ or prominently on the OFF website. I COULD HAVE purchased an Nvidia card as I upgraded my machine largely for OFF-- got a tremendous deal on the 4850 (which slams every other dozens of games I own).

Doing some internet searching, I found the following comments from Andy Mahood who is a big Simmer writer for PC Gamer and others. Bottom line, this doesn't look too promising and ultimately "fixable."

RE: Combat Flight Simulator 3
A spanking-new graphics engine delivers all of this frantic aerial combat action but, unfortunantely, the engine appears to be the source of the sim's biggest problems. While some of the DirectX 8.2 visuals are positively gobsmacking--the spectacular volumetric clouds, weather, and pyrotechnic effects are among the best we've ever seen--there are also a number of serious hiccups and blemishes in the game's graphic coding. For example,a FlightSim 2002-inspired automatic scenery generator will dress up the surrounding terrain with trees and buildings, but as soon as you point your nose down to enjoy any of this target-rich environment, a horrific stutter kicks in and instantly and irretrievably destroys any sensation of fluid flight. The sim also rejects many ATI Radeon accelerated cards as "unsupported"(we got our 9700 Pro to work,but only after a lot of tweaking), and nVidia-equipped systems are wont to cough up graphical anomaly hairballs. But despite its many problems,experienced hardware gurus will likely find ways to tweak Combat Flight Simulator 3 into a reasonably playable form right out of the box.

I'm going to be real candid here, my interest is starting to drop significantly because of this FPS issue-- I shouldn't have to put scenery on a "1." I couldn't even fly properly on a Scramble mission because I was over my own airbase (low altitude with all the scenery items in-view).

And your comment, "This has been known for well over a year" is unproductive if you haven't visited the forum for that period of time. Didn't think I had to do a thread search on "FPS issues and ATI problems."

BTW I'm already running at 1600x1200 having seen that post....
 
Don't fear yet, try these tweaks as it really helps and greatly improved things on my rig (ATI X1950Pro) and completely cleared the full rotations initial fps drop then speed up symptoms you described:

Quoted from doublestop who also got it elsewhere from an old CFS3 tweaks post:

"In the overrides section clear the tick in the 'Dual Pass Render' box and tick the 'High Resolution Z-buffer' box immediately below it. Also tick the following:

Disable Write-Only Vertex Buffers
Disable Write-Only Index Buffers
Disable Terrain Texture Ring Blend

To disable messages such as whether you've hit your enemy and warnings such as 'Stall' tick the boxes for Disable Chat, Disable Advisor Messages and Disable Simulation Warnings.

Now click on 'Window' at the top of the page again and this time click on 'Texture Info' and set the following:

Composite Terrain Texture Pool - set to Managed
Composite Terrain Texture Usage - set to Rendertarget
Composite Aircraft Texture Pool - set to Managed
Composite Aircraft Texture Usage - set to Rendertarget
Vertex Buffer Pool - set to Managed
Index Buffer Pool - leave as is - should be set to Default
Fullscreen Swap Effect - set to Flip
Now click on the 'Save' button at the bottom of the screen.
Next click on 'File' and choose 'Exit' - do not use the X close button as this will lose the settings you have just made.

Hopefully you will see some improvement with these settings.

From within your CFS3 (program files/microsoft games/...) folder open the 'Default' folder and then open the file 'cfs3.xml'. Look for MaxFPS="0" and change the value from '0' to something like '25' or '30'. This will help to smooth out the stutters too."
 
LeBlaque

I am like you and have not been following these forums from day one. I just happen to come across OFF right before phase 3 came out.

I am running OFF on a Intel core 2 Duro, 2 gig of Ram and a 8800GT with 512 on the card. And I am getting very good FPS, with the sliders at 5,4,4,4,2

Sorry to say it but it looks like you might be screwed playing OFF on a ATI card.
 
Redwolf said:
Don't fear yet, try these tweaks as it really helps and greatly improved things on my rig (ATI X1950Pro) and completely cleared the full rotations initial fps drop then speed up symptoms you described:

Quoted from doublestop who also got it elsewhere from an old CFS3 tweaks post:

"In the overrides section clear the tick in the 'Dual Pass Render' box and tick the 'High Resolution Z-buffer' box immediately below it. Also tick the following:

Disable Write-Only Vertex Buffers
Disable Write-Only Index Buffers
Disable Terrain Texture Ring Blend

To disable messages such as whether you've hit your enemy and warnings such as 'Stall' tick the boxes for Disable Chat, Disable Advisor Messages and Disable Simulation Warnings.

Now click on 'Window' at the top of the page again and this time click on 'Texture Info' and set the following:

Composite Terrain Texture Pool - set to Managed
Composite Terrain Texture Usage - set to Rendertarget
Composite Aircraft Texture Pool - set to Managed
Composite Aircraft Texture Usage - set to Rendertarget
Vertex Buffer Pool - set to Managed
Index Buffer Pool - leave as is - should be set to Default
Fullscreen Swap Effect - set to Flip
Now click on the 'Save' button at the bottom of the screen.
Next click on 'File' and choose 'Exit' - do not use the X close button as this will lose the settings you have just made.

Hopefully you will see some improvement with these settings.

From within your CFS3 (program files/microsoft games/...) folder open the 'Default' folder and then open the file 'cfs3.xml'. Look for MaxFPS="0" and change the value from '0' to something like '25' or '30'. This will help to smooth out the stutters too."
Click to expand...

Thank you, RedWolf, I can do the last entry (cfs3.xml) immediately. However, I'm not clear where all these other Override settings are found. I can't find anything in my ATI Catalyst Control Center Advanced Settings. I have a PCIe card.
 
LeBlaque said:
Thank you, RedWolf, I can do the last entry (cfs3.xml) immediately. However, I'm not clear where all these other Override settings are found. I can't find anything in my ATI Catalyst Control Center Advanced Settings. I have a PCIe card.
Click to expand...

Run CFS3config - file - custom settings - click on window then overrides...you'll see those options, among many more, there.
 
Look in Workshop on the enter page to OFF, you will find CFS Config, open that and you will find all the settings Redwolf mentions.

Beard
 
The overrides are found by running the csf3config utility/program. You can access it directly from the button on the workshop page within OFF.

Once in, select file/custom settings/window and you have access to the various settings.

Always exit csf3config using file/exit, not the 'x' in the top corner. Else you changes sometimes don't 'stick'.
 
I think it was VERY WELL DOCUMENTED, Prior to the massive Crash of SOH in Sept 08. We lost everything . . 250 pages of Threads (POOF)

Everyone who was around then, knew it

I've communicated with a guy that couldn't get the gunner to move, turns out after 3 posts. He might buy a joystick, he was playing OFF via Keyboard

Just How Much should the Developers post on their website ? :kilroy:
 
There WAS a List exclusive to ATI cards, which would make the cards HUM. I ran an X1300 at the time ( quite awhile back )

PM Cameljockey, he might still have it ( somewhere)

Or WF2 she had an X850 :ernae:
 
C:\OBDSoftware\CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields
run "cfs3config".
File->Custom Settings.
:ernae:
 
Go to C:\Programfiles\MicrosoftGames\CFSWWIOverFlandersFields, double click CFS3config (the wrench icon), wait for the message "CFS3 has been configured", then click file, custom settings, OK. You'll see the "Parameter editor for image quality", click "Window", then click "Overrides"
When exiting CFS3config make sure you click "File" and then "Exit". Don't use the red "X" to exit or your settings may not stick.

CJ
 
It appears to be ATI Redeon HD#### series. I had an X1950 that did really well. Replaced it with an HD3850 and the old woman with the walker is passing me by. Also, I've seen some things while testing tweaksl. In P3, the airfields have an airplane in front of every hangar (almost). While that may look more realistic, it's got to be a big source of the FPS hit. Also, I see a lot more road traffice than I saw in P2.
 
Redwolf I'll add your recommendations to the FAQ if you don't mind as something to try.
 
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