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[Captain Dawson]

Hello chaps 

I've put this in the lounge because this is really more of a tip question than a direct problem with the modpack.

I was recently testing a mission on the Kanto map in BAT. It is a fairly large map, but most of it is water, and the land is mostly open fields apart from the cities. As I was flying the mission when I came over Tokyo, I started to get significant lag which really affected the playablility. This was surprising to me, because there were less than 10 aircraft, and hardly any shooting going on. My computer should not be an issue, it is plenty powerful to be running this kind of mission, and I've already configured the GPU per Max and VP's suggestions. Yes, I know there are a lot of buildings in Tokyo. But I've flown much larger missions over far bigger cities with minimal lag. Anyone have an idea what specifically could be causing this, and what I can do to diminish it?

Here's a few more details.
Aircraft: 2 B-25s, less than 10 Japanese planes, and not in combat during the lag
Ships: ~30+, but only 3 large ships, all stationary and with shooting turned off
Vehicles: ~>15 non-moving small trucks and cars
AAA: ~>10 light and heavy flak guns, ROF very low

Computer: GTX 1060 6GB DDR5 , 8GB RAM , i5-6600K , IL-2 installed on 240GB SSD like 5 cooling fans , cool shiny LEDs,  ... so yeah. It should work with no lag.

The reason I question such lag is because I recall when I was running stock, I could run a 150+ aircraft mission on the yuge Gulf of Finland map with minimal lag. All this on my old lousy integrated graphics laptop. I could have 50 P-40s and Spits shooting at 100 109s and Ju52s, and it was pretty much just as playable as with 10 aircraft. Now I understand, BAT would be having a lot more lag than stock. But should the differences in performance be so dramatic? What am I doing wrong here?

Thanks 

[jpten]

While running the mission press Shift+Tab and see if you get any clues.

[sniperton]

I guess it's the sheer amount of different buildings causing the lag, as they are all loaded simultaneously. Some spots on some maps are real FPS killers. I have a near identical config and made the same experience over Nitra in the Slovakia map when I was on sightseeing alone. No tanks, vehicles, airplanes, or whatever, just my humble self over a beautiful landscape. Approaching Nitra airstrip from above the town proved impossible due to the lag, I had to make the other way round to keep my FPS above 20. Perhaps tuning down LandShading and LandDetails would help a bit, but I haven't tried.

[SAS~Poltava]

I guess it's the sheer amount of different buildings causing the lag, as they are all loaded simultaneously.

I'm out on a limb here, as I don't run BAT  but this is probably the explanation. Big cities will eat you FPS almost regardless. And the real comparison will be when you run that 150+ aircraft mission you mention on the BAT Finnish Gulf map.

[Captain Dawson]

I guess it's the sheer amount of different buildings causing the lag, as they are all loaded simultaneously.

I'm out on a limb here, as I don't run BAT  but this is probably the explanation. Big cities will eat you FPS almost regardless. And the real comparison will be when you run that 150+ aircraft mission you mention on the BAT Finnish Gulf map.

Good idea, lets try it. See FPS at the top of screens:



Yep, that's a lotta planes. The planes visible in this shot are only about a fifth of the ones flying around out of the shot.





Ok, my work here is done. 



Surprisingly, it was actually playable! Lag got down to 7 FPS, but generally stuck around 20 FPS. I even managed to take down 7 1/2 Junkers with this this lag. The buildings must be the main factor here since there's no other reason I should have similar lag between a mission with 150 AC and one with only 10.

[SAS~Poltava]

The buildings must be the main factor here since there's no other reason I should have similar lag between a mission with 150 AC and one with only 10.

No, exactly, you shouldn't!

[sniperton]

VP is working on optimizing maps with FPS-heavy locations. Berlin is done, you should test how it works with and without aircraft.

[Captain Dawson]

VP is working on optimizing maps with FPS-heavy locations. Berlin is done, you should test how it works with and without aircraft.

Good point. Better yet, I'll see if I can test this same mission in VP. I made it in stock 4.12, so it should work.

[Captain Dawson]

Well now, this is interesting. Same exact mission in VP Modpack. 60 FPS IN A 150 PLANE MISSION, with full-on graphics! 



Up to 60 fps, and could even play without stutters at 4x speed!

Of course, I'm not trying to make one pack look better than the other. BAT has many aircraft and maps I love that would never fit in VP pack. The Golden Age and Jetwar are beyond the scope of VP, and so I will still use BAT a lot. But performancewise for this mission, VP Modpack has much better framerate. Goodness, with this kind of performance, I might revisit those massive B-17 raids again!

Do you guys have this big a difference, or is it just me? I've been having some trouble with my BAT install lately, so part of the problem could be with something I inadvertently messed up.

[Airbourne]

I find that in BAT I can only reach missions of about 50 aircraft before the fps start to slow to unrealistic levels. In VP's modpack I can manage 100 planes with no trouble at all and probably much more but I haven't tried more.

[vpmedia]

I'd start the fix by looking at the logfile, maybe the answer is right there.

But there are many ways to improve pc & game performance:

1. Windows Update
2. Defragmenting the HD
3. Spy and malware removal
4. Turning off processes and services which are not required
5. Nvidia Control panel settings adjustment
6. Trying older version of Nvidia driver, easy to roll back for testing
7. Conf.ini settings, enabling texture compression for example
8. Turning off the constant logging

There are tons of youtube and other tutorial about most of these subjects.

[Captain Dawson]

I'd start the fix by looking at the logfile, maybe the answer is right there.

But there are many ways to improve pc & game performance:

1. Windows Update
2. Defragmenting the HD
3. Spy and malware removal
4. Turning off processes and services which are not required
5. Nvidia Control panel settings adjustment
6. Trying older version of Nvidia driver, easy to roll back for testing
7. Conf.ini settings, enabling texture compression for example
8. Turning off the constant logging

There are tons of youtube and other tutorial about most of these subjects.

Good tips, thank you! I'm good for Windows updates, defrag, and virus protection right now already. Older versions of the driver I never would have thought of, but it makes sense I guess. Every time my brother updates his graphics drivers to a newer version, everything gets worse!

I'll give these a try.