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[GeorgeCostanza]

Hello, I'm not entirely new here but I am still afraid of harsh responses so I was hoping you fine people could help me out. I've been playing IL2 for about 8 years now ever since i was a little kid and only recently have I gotten into modding and downloadable missions and such, which I have no problems with. What I have a problem with is my frame rate.

My game and my system: Mind you i'm not very tech savvy, here's what I think will help. Right now I'm running a FX-8350 cpu with a GTX 970 gpu, I have 12gb of RAM and I use a hard drive inside my computer, If I missed any info that could help let me know. I like to believe that I have at least an okay system. Right now I'm playing IL2 1946 Steam Edition with C.U.P fully installed.

My problem: I can get 60 frames sometimes, in missions with no ground objects and less than 20 planes I'm fine, but whenever I play a downloadable campaign more often than not I only get 20-30 or even 10 frames on certain missions, especially ones with large ground battles or huge amounts of objects. Whenever I try to dogfight or do anything in these missions it gets harder every time the frames drop and that's often. I would like 60 frames as much as possible.

What I've tried: So far, I have two enhancing things going on from mods, the first being the 2gb cap given by the SAS Selector, I know it says RAM CRITICAL but I ignored that, let me know if I shouldn't ignore that (I have 12gb of RAM?) and the second one being the ProcessAffinityMask thing in the conf.ini which I set to 255 according to the calculator I downloaded from this website here: https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php?topic=32520.0
My Render_OpenGL section looks like this:

TexQual=3
TexMipFilter=3
TexCompress=0
TexFlags.UseDither=1
TexFlags.UseAlpha=0
TexFlags.UseIndex=0
TexFlags.PolygonStipple=1
TexFlags.UseClampedSprites=0
TexFlags.DrawLandByTriangles=1
TexFlags.UseVertexArrays=1
TexFlags.DisableAPIExtensions=0
TexFlags.ARBMultitextureExt=1
TexFlags.TexEnvCombineExt=1
TexFlags.SecondaryColorExt=1
TexFlags.VertexArrayExt=1
TexFlags.ClipHintExt=0
TexFlags.UsePaletteExt=0
TexFlags.TexAnisotropicExt=0
TexFlags.TexCompressARBExt=1

TexFlags.TexEnvCombine4NV=1
TexFlags.TexEnvCombineDot3=1
TexFlags.DepthClampNV=1
TexFlags.SeparateSpecular=1
TexFlags.TextureShaderNV=1

HardwareShaders=1

Shadows=2
Specular=2
SpecularLight=2
DiffuseLight=2
DynamicalLights=1
MeshDetail=2
VisibilityDistance=3

Sky=1
Forest=2
LandShading=3
LandDetails=2

LandGeom=2
TexLarge=1
TexLandQual=3
TexLandLarge=1

VideoSetupId=17
Water=4
Effects=0
ForceShaders1x=0
PolygonOffsetFactor=-0.15
PolygonOffsetUnits=-3.0

When I play a mission that has a low frame rate, I check the Task Manager to see what the %'s are and they are never much. When I'm getting 20 or so frames, It says I'm using around 700mb of RAM and 13% cpu power, but I'm not sure how much I can rely on the task managers data.

So this is my problem. I've never seen anyone else play this game on another system where they're frame rate might be challenged, so I have no idea if you guys just put up with the low fps or not. I know I've probably said a whole host of newbie stuff, but It said I wouldn't be burnt to hard in this section

Please help me, I'm willing to give any more info you need relating to solving this problem, or just finding out an answer 

Regards, Your friend 'George'

[Moezilla]

Essentially for IL2 the CPU is always the limiting factor. Regardless of what you put in ProcessAffinityMask the main thread of IL2 will run on one core only. You have an 8 core CPU so when one of your cores is at 100% the task manager will only show 12.5%(100/8) and there's bound to be some other stuff going on so that may be why you only see 13% CPU.

So you need to reduce the stress on your CPU. I would use the calculator tool to pick an affinity mask that will run IL2 on an idle core like core 3.

Now check your log for errors on the missions you are struggling with and fix any errors that show up and then disable the log.lst and eventlog.lst in conf.ini to save CPU cycles.

In your Nvidia control panel go to: Manage 3d Settings -> Program Settings -> Select IL2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles from the dropdown and set Power Management mode to "Prefer Maximum Performance". This will prevent the GPU entering a low-power state while running IL2.

As a temporary test I would also install something like HWInfo to monitor your CPU core that IL2 is running on to make sure it also isn't saving energy just when you need it at full beans. You will be able to see the clock, multiplier and usage of each core.

Good luck.

[GeorgeCostanza]

So you need to reduce the stress on your CPU. I would use the calculator tool to pick an affinity mask that will run IL2 on an idle core like core 3.

Thank you for your reply, just to be sure, which boxes do I tick on the calculator to acquire that exactly?
The rest of your post I understand loud and clear and will also try

[vpmedia]

Repeating java errors can cause considerable fps drop even on the best gaming rig.
It's improtant that we take a look at your log.lst file and maybe at a problematic mission too.
Sometimes you're looking at engine limitations, in other cases its bad mission design but it can also happen that a modpack has bugs in the parameter files which are not visible in the error log.
Effects mods can also cause low fps.
I dont have CUP but I'd try to measure my average fps first in a simple, unmodded SAS modact, then in CUP. The result should give you a clue about how much impact CUP has on your pc.

Your conf.ini is more or less ok, but you can adjust a few things:

TexFlags.TexCompressARBExt=1 is only required when texture compression is enabled, or you can enable TexCompress=3, it will improve fps

Forest=2, your game would look better with forrest=3

Water=4, water=3 is enough if you try to make your game run faster

Effects=0, should be 1, 0 is effects without shadows

[GeorgeCostanza]

Repeating java errors can cause considerable fps drop even on the best gaming rig.
It's improtant that we take a look at your log.lst file and maybe at a problematic mission too.

Yes this, When I play ingame and press shift+tab it has an error that repeats constantly, to do with an engine, It does not crash my game but when I checked the log it could fill dozens upon dozens of pages with the same error, something called EngineWep, I'm not sure if it has been entirely resolved however, it does fill up my log a lot. Now I have disabled the log by putting the zero there and it no longer appear in my folder, however pressing shift+tab in game still brings up a console displaying the same error messages. Maybe I would be right in assuming there is more I can do to completely remove the shift+tab console from my game, lessening the load on my cpu?

EDIT: Quoted from the C.U.P page

4.) Missing Effect Files Error in log.lst:
To fix errors like this
Code:

INTERNAL ERROR: Effect param file '3DO/Effects/Aircraft/EngineWep2.eff' NOT loaded
INTERNAL ERROR: Can't open file '3DO/Effects/Aircraft/EngineWep2.eff'
WARNING: object '3DO/Effects/Aircraft/EngineWep2.eff' of class 'FObjSect' not created

Which might cause frame rate drops, add this to the "[Mods]" section of your conf.ini (inside C.U.P. game folder):
Code: [Select]

WepEffect=0

I may of tried this in the past but I can try it again, however like I said, can I completely remove the logging?


EDIT2: Alright applied the WepEffect=0 and it did fix my problem with that, not sure if removing the console now would be useful but please still let me know

[Moezilla]

Keep the console and logging ability. You will need it in the future.

[GeorgeCostanza]

Yeah, I've noticed after fixing up that error the frames have come up a bit, unless thats some placebo effect or something but I dont know. I still get that dip now and then, looking at over 30-40 planes on an airstrip, 50 tanks battling, or a big island battle, it still brings me down to 30-40 frames occasionally, and for some full on missions, like monties RAF campaign, it can still lower to around 20 over cities. is it unavoidable? I don't mind if it is, but I just want to make sure that there isn't any more I can be doing other that wipes this away, or am I being silly thinking that 60 frames everywhere can be a reality?