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[dsmith71]

Hello I have been away for a few years and have returned with an nvidia GTX 770 after a long struggle with AMD graphics cards. After using several different PCs and two different brand GPUs on the same game I have found that (at least in my experience) the biggest contributor to game lag in IL-2 is visibility distance. I ran tests using a .trk file I made on the Berlin map flying low over the city and utilising the F2 and F3 external view feature then ran this track applying different Nvidia control panel settings as well as changing the conf.ini to cover bilinear/trilinear/anisotropic.

My specs; Windows 7 Professional x64
               Intel Core i5-2400 3.1 GHz
               8GB internal memory
               1600 x 900 monitor 60Hz
               Nvidia GTX 770 Direct CU2 OC 2GB

Regardless what texture filter or quality setting was used my minimum frame rate was a consistent 18fps until I changed the visibility distance to very Low (VisibilityDistance=0). Suddenly my minimum fps jumped to 56 with an average FPS of 60 which is pretty good when you consider that v/sync locks my frame rate at 60fps on this monitor. I could also max out all other quality setting for this game and maintain the same minimum FPS of 56 so as long as you don't mind buildings leaping up in front of you at low level adjusting visibility distance to the minimum appears to be the best answer. I am sure this has already been covered elsewhere on this site but this is just my personal experience.

Also just to have a dig at AMD with my old HD 6970 I had frequent game crashes on Rise Of Flight, Crysis 2 and 3, Batman: Arkham city and probably a few others I have forgotten about. I have played all the aforementioned games with this new Nvidia card which has similar specs to the HD 6970 and so far it has not missed a beat. AMD need to lift their game in my opinion their quality of service is deplorable, infrequent driver update 3 or more months apart and they stopped releasing application profiles....just not good enough.

My current IL-2 conf.ini;

Code: [Select]

[Render_OpenGL]
TexQual=3
TexMipFilter=3
TexCompress=0
TexFlags.UseDither=0
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=1
TexFlags.UsePaletteExt=1
TexFlags.TexAnisotropicExt=1
TexFlags.TexCompressARBExt=0

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=0

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

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

VideoSetupId=17
Water=4
Effects=1
ForceShaders1x=0
PolygonOffsetFactor=-0.15
PolygonOffsetUnits=-3.0               

[Chupacabras84]

Berlin can kill any PC the only thing is, I think its your CPU cant handle it and not your card.
I am having a much weaker PC and much better fps over Berlin with VisibilityDistance=3 and Wide FOV (30-40 fps) and with Normal FOV its comparable to your results 10-18.
There is a few things you can try, with your GPU/CPU you should be getting much better fps IMO.

Disable multi-threading in nvidia control panel and make some tests.
I think hyper-threading can be disabled with utility, it makes sure that programs are not using logical cores.
Il-2 cant handle them and for me disabling threaded optimisation doubles the framerate.

On my joystick, on POV cross I assigned Wide/Normal/Gunsight/ FOV's.
Wide FOV have much wider field of view surprise lol but it doesnt zoom as far and renders only close objects.
Normal FOV have nice zoom and renders a lot more, its a standard FOV and if you havent changed it mid-flight that is the reason for fps drop.
Gunsight FOV will render objects far away and often will kill your fps.
If you bind those FOV's somewhere you can switch them conveniently you can switch to Wide FOV when over Berlin (for beter fps), then switch back to Normal FOV in lighter areas and use Gunsight FOV when looking for enemy planes.
All that and still have your VisibilityDistance=3.

As a bonus, you can set LandShading=2, it will keep normal earth shading but will remove shadows from trees and I maybe a few other objects, not something you will notice but will definitely feel when flying over palms.

[SAS~Tom2]

Few suggestions to your conf.ini:

try Landgeom=3, looks better. (I have set mine to 2 as well by accident, landscape rendering will be much less far.)
Check
[rts]
ProcessAffinityMask= at this forum or at AllAircraftSimulations, they have a very good guide on ProcessAffinityMask.

I use '84,' the native setting of IL-2 only assigns one core.
ProcessAffinityMask=84 ..without the semicolon IL-2 by default has.

[dsmith71]

Chupacabras84: Thanks for your reply and believe me I have tried every possible combination of control panel setting including Thread Optimisation: Off and nothing makes a difference except for changing the visibility difference. I have no idea if my core i5 has hyper threading or not it seems that each new evolution in computer creates more problems for what is essentially a 13 year old game. I also use my joystick buttons to toggle FOV in conjunction with my TrackIR5. I just want to add I have no trouble at all playing Rise of flight which has a much better graphic quality than IL-2 and new games are stutter-free with very high or maxed-out graphics settings.


SAS~Tom2 Thank you also for taking the time i have been tweaking Core Affinity settings for IL-2 since my first dual core computer and I have already tried different core combinations when running this game on my current PC as in the past changing affinity has not made any difference at all and I believe it to be a waste of time. I am about to try this affinity tool here https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php?topic=32520.0 by SAS Storebror but I doubt there will be any difference. It has been 3 years since I last played this game on another PC and still the same old problems, I had forgotten that I spent more time tweaking than actually playing IL-2 before so it could be time to put IL-2 back in it's box for good. Playing this game on VisibilityDistance=0 creates a few visual problems as well such as an invisible Lancaster between 50 - 100 metres and vanishing propeller discs on the Bf-110 G4   

[Gumpy]

Have you tried Game Booster dsmith?It shuts down all your computers other processes while the game is running.

[dsmith71]

Have you tried Game Booster dsmith?It shuts down all your computers other processes while the game is running.

Yes i have though not with this computer it and it did not help before. Gamebooster is for PCs that are slow and have performance issues my problems are restricted to IL-2 alone I dont believe the fault is with my computer but with the very old game engine that IL-2 uses. If I can run ROF on High settings with no stutter then IL-2 should be a breeze. Thank you for your response.

[dsmith71]

Ok I have tested affinity settings using the ProcessAffinityMask setting tool https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php?topic=32520.0 mentioned before. After checking on the internet it appears mt CPU does not have hyper threading however I tried this checking the boxes for my 4 CPUs only and the number calculated was 85 so I ran my test at ProcessAffinityMask=85  and VisibilityDistance=1 (low) the result being a minimum frame rate of 15 FPS

Removing the option for hyper-threading changed the value to ProcessAffinityMask=15 and the same test with this setting returned a minimum frame rate of 15 FPS.

Returning to VisibilityDistance=0 (very low) my minimum returned to 56 FPS so I stand by what I say - messing with process affinity on this game is a waste of time. Next I will try the Landgeom=3 suggestion.

[Mick]

I have a much older and weaker PC than yours (Intel Core2 Duo 8400 OC 3.45Ghz, GTX260 892 Mb), dsmith, and good fps ... 

... and also different conf.ini settings ...

You could try this part, as it looks like it is where our conf.ini settings differ most ...

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

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

[dsmith71]

Ok same test as before with  Landgeom=3 and process affinity returned to default settings and (no surprise) a minimum of 15 FPS. Just repeating I had this same problem with a completely different puter and an AMD card and resolved it the same way (reducing visibility disatance) so I think poor old IL-2 might have to stay on the shelf permanently.

Mick Thanks mate i will give your settings a go. Do you have nvidia and if so what are your control panel settings? ATM I am forcing AA=4x, power management = Max. performance, and triple buffering= On....nothing fancy. 

[Edit] Whoops you do have nvidia.

[dsmith71]

Mick: I tried your conf.ini and I dropped to a minimum of 4 FPS!!! the reason being your VisibilityDistance=3. I believe you older and slower PC is actually helping you with IL-2. Oh well it was worth a try goodbye IL-2 its back to ROF 

[Edit] I forgot to say that my test video includes a lot of external views at low level over Berlin including the hookview (default F3 button and a frame rate killer) I do this because i like it and use it in-game all the time.

[SAS~Storebror]

You give up way too early
As a matter of fact, what separates IL-2 from newer games like ROF is that IL-2 is not capable of making use of multicore systems for the simple fact that it runs all it's time consuming tasks within a single thread. This can't be changed easily because the whole game engine lacks any multithreading synchronization.

Nevertheless, an i5-2400 should and will perform fine at perfect settings. Period.
A Core2 Duo is way weaker in terms of single core performance.
I myself use an i5-2500K on my gamerig and have no such issues, as expected.
IL-2 runs fine for me at solid 60FPS except for excessive large maps and/or above excessively populated cities (especially when burning) but that's just normal.

You can see how your system should perform when you take a look at the single core CPU benchmarks:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

Any CPU with a passmark value of 1000 or higher should have zero issues with IL-2.
Mick's system is at about 1200, yours is at about 1700 and mine is at about 1900.
You should be perfectly fine.

My guess is this:
Your CPU runs into throttling for insufficient cooling.
It's either of these:

• Fan blocked
• Cooler full of dust
• Cooler separated from CPU die (clamps misaligned or unlocked)
• Thermal paste missing
• Thermal paste rendered inactive for aging (bad quality? wrong paste?)

You can use Prime95 to get a first idea of whether or not your system can handle high CPU load without throttling back or loosing stability:
http://www.mersenne.org/download/

Best regards - Mike

[Mick]

... it is true that I saw an improvement when I overclocked my CPU by only 15% (3 Ghz ==> 3.45 Ghz), but it is also true that I have a  Cooler Master Hyper 212, in push-pull mode (2 fans) to cool it ...

Mike is right, dsmith, with such a rig you should get way better fps than I have ...!

Very interesting read here:

http://www.battle-fields.com/commscentre/showthread.php?21901-Want-to-buy-a-new-videocard-for-IL2-Think-again...-%28and-testers-needed%29

http://www.battle-fields.com/commscentre/showthread.php?21804-IL2-hardware-and-UltraPack-Performance-Analysis

 Unfortunately, the screens showing the results have disappeared with age, but not our beloved sim ...