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[raptor_9090]

Hi, first post here, i'm loving B.A.T so far, a great achievement for the modding comunity.

That being said, my only issue so far is the performance loss when i play missions involving large bomber formations (i'm not talking about ridiculous big amount like 50+ bombers, but something between 30-40). When approaching these formations, my fps falls from constant 55-60 to 30-20ish fps, but that still is playable for me, especially considering the amount of advanced texture and effects mods included in BAT. This happens both with "Fighting the bombers" campaign by vpmedia and "Boelcke Defense of the Reich" campaign.

The real issue is when these b-17 bombers start dropping bombs. The game FPS falls from 30 to 5, 2, sometimes 1,5 FPS, lol. This FPS continues for like 30 seconds, until all bombs explode.
Is this supposed to be normal, or is something wrong with my system/B.A.T install? Or it's the campaigns that are not suited for BAT yet? I have the basic install and all six expansion packs, and i can comfirm the install was completely all right, no erros and with the right folder's size, etc. The only thing i did was to include some campaigns that are compatible with 4.12 version, but not necessarily made for BAT/CUP.

The main reason i opened this topic, is because i also have a IL-1946 install with the VP modpack, with basically the same conf. settings, and there i have no performance problems on these missions, it keeps constant 60 fps with some drops to around 45 at the most. This made me think that maybe it's not the amount of objects that interfere so much with the FPS loss, but maybe kind of problem with system (that possibly can't handle BAT in some situations with too many planes/objects on a mission), or how my BAT install renders some objects (like the bombs i mentioned).

My PC system is:
i5-3570 3.40 GHz
Nvida GeForce GTX 660 Ti with 2GB DDR5 memory
16GB RAM
Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 64bits

[SAS~Monty27]

Its 'horses for courses' to a large degree.  Clearly the biggest factor, and not one we can 'undo', is the fact that B.A.T. employs thousands of mesh improvements throughout.

We like the PA_Jeronimo improved wheels, better props and cowlings.  I'm not a high poly nut, but the appearance of individual aircraft within the B.A.T. flightline is, overall, vastly superior to anything else out there.    The vpmedia modpack also modifys wheels, props and cowlings, although not as many as B.A.T.

This will be a factor and will reduce the overall numbers of aircraft it is practical to render in a single mission.  To depict mass bomber raids you can either; use the simpler less detailed mods, or write smarter missions for a more detailed simulator.

vpmedia has made some great strides towards better performance and this approach is certainly a valid and successful one.  It may be that we can claw back performance from effects.  Set "effects=1" is a good start and we should look into the most framerate friendly effects packages.  I think this is the real secret of the vpmedia modpack performance. 

Overall though, for an interceptor or bomber pilot in B.A.T. there is a higher 'simulator' workload, with many more realistic functions, at the expense of drawing fewer aircraft at any one time.  How good those missions can be, from the point of view of a sim-pilot, compared with the sheer enormous spectacle of the big raids filling your screen, is something we shall see from the mission builders.

Interestingly, I have not found performance to be a factor with the other B.A.T. modules.  The Dawn of Flight and Golden Age flightlines are not packed with high poly beauty queens and these are certainly a performance factor.  I haven't yet tried a thousand FA18 bomber raid but I do like shooting jets off cats and up to a squadron strength is enough for any missions really.  Even with the superbly detailed Jets performance is not impacted significantly when using generally lower numbers of aircraft (under 30).

There is also the prospect of more effective coding for SASEngineMOD, whose logging can slow performance with large numbers of aircraft.  However, even in its present imperfect form SASEngineMOD is an essential part of B.A.T.  It fixes the 412 AI and adds catapults.  I couldn't imagine building a modset without it. - But it may be possible to tune it up more effectively in the future.

[raptor_9090]

Thanks for the well thought out reply!

Actually the effects was already set to 1, and indeed, it increases considerably the performance. As a matter of fact, the reason i set it to 1 was because of the big contrails of bombers (this happens of course when flying by 7000+ m of altitude), they costed a lot of fps. By altering to 1, there's a performance gain by almost 10 fps approximately.
Yes, SASEngineMod is enabled, though when disabled i don't see a difference really, and yes, its really a important feature.

Like i said, i noticed the big/core problem are not the amount of planes as i see it (i can enjoy playing with 30fps when many bomber are displayed), but rather the moment when the formation starts droping the bombs, thats the moment that fps drops to one digit number. I noted that once the bombs explodes/hit the target, the performance slowly starts to increase again, reaching the 30 fps mark again.
Not sure if the bombs dropped by those b-17's themselves (which you can imagine are very numerous on these 8th air force raids) are also very high poly and/or render in a demanding way, compared to vp modpack.

And i agree 100% with you on the performance of other modules. I flew already many missions on one of your DOF campaigns, and the performance is flawless, always constant 60 FPS! For sure, they don't have the same amount of planes of a big b-17 raid mission, but these aren't missions with "few" planes either. The same applies to Golden Age missions (though i didn't fly that much yet of the Spanish Civil War campaign, just 4 missions).
About the Jed Age module, i also think the performance loss wouldn't be a problem, since, as far as i know, post-50's air combat often involve way less number of fighters/bombers compared to the massive formations there was in ww2 (big focus on technology, efficiency, guided missiles, radars, less in production numbers).

[SAS~Monty27]

I think we are looking at effects then, explosions, related tga's, classfiles. Food for thought...

[raptor_9090]

Yep indeed...
Or, maybe could be shadows casted by these bombs? I have already google my problem and found a thread regarding a similar issue, but it was about chute bombs, not regular b-17 bombs:
https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,52158.0.html

I did even as far as downloaded the fix provided by Epervier (01__Parachute_noShadows), downloaded and enabled via JSGME. But, no sucess, the problem continued, lol.
Then, i also tried by extracting the fix folder to #WAW2, no dice, then to #SAS, no dice again.

One funny thing i'm doing is to slow the time flow by 1/2, this increases the fps to 25, then when the bombs finally hit the ground and explode i go back to normal time flow. 

[western0221]

When you will paste your error log during fps dropping down time,
there maybe long long loop of same warning or error lines ..... ,
we can know what happens in your game.

[jpten]

  You could modify the missions before you play in FMB.
If you are flying as a bomber you are only going to get points for what your bombs hit.  Open the missions in FMB and remove or down size the bomb loads for all the bombers except your flight.
  If flying against the bombers, you are mainly concerned with shooting down bombers, so do the same, reducing the bomb loads or just leaving one plane per flight with a bomb load.

[raptor_9090]

  You could modify the missions before you play in FMB.
If you are flying as a bomber you are only going to get points for what your bombs hit.  Open the missions in FMB and remove or down size the bomb loads for all the bombers except your flight.
  If flying against the bombers, you are mainly concerned with shooting down bombers, so do the same, reducing the bomb loads or just leaving one plane per flight with a bomb load.

Interesting, thanks for the tip!

[raptor_9090]

When you will paste your error log during fps dropping down time,
there maybe long long loop of same warning or error lines ..... ,
we can know what happens in your game.

The reason i didn't post the log was because you can't insert external link/logfile before having 5 posts.

From the last mission (this wasn't so bad as the ones before, but the fps loss was noticeable) the interesting parts of the log:

Code: [Select]

[4:39:10 AM] Mission: campaign/de/DGen_Boe01_RV_Berlin4300/19430827-0.mis is Playing
[4:39:10 AM] INTERNAL ERROR: Can't open file 'PaintSchemes/Pilots/Default'
[4:41:58 AM] warning: no files : music/inflight
[5:07:47 AM] CollideEnvXY.collideLine: com.maddox.il2.objects.weapons.Bomb1000lbs@c7c0 very big step moved actor - IGNORED !!!
[5:12:53 AM] INTERNAL ERROR: HierMesh: Can't find chunk 'Flap03_D0'
[5:12:53 AM] INTERNAL ERROR: HierMesh: Can't find chunk 'Flap04_D0'


[western0221]

What aircraft, what named loadout did you play to get the log ?

"very big step moved actor" is often seen with Cluster bombs' bomblets (around 2kg per one), but others rarely.
1000 lbs. bomb big step? I've never seen.

When you use Cluster bomb loadouts, that fps dropping is an inevitable feature limitation on IL-2 1946.

[raptor_9090]

What aircraft, what named loadout did you play to get the log ?

"very big step moved actor" is often seen with Cluster bombs' bomblets (around 2kg per one), but others rarely.
1000 lbs. bomb big step? I've never seen.

When you use Cluster bomb loadouts, that fps dropping is an inevitable feature limitation on IL-2 1946.

The aircraft i'm flying or the bomber that drops the bombs? I'm flying BF-109G6 with the default loadout.
The bomber is the B-17F.

[western0221]

Thanks.
Now I know what mission you play.
Too many bombers begin to drop their bombs in too short time ..... calculation capacity about bombs falling and colliding to the ground --- exploding becomes over.
We cannot deal it.

Only alternative proposal is as same as jpten described.