Poor FPS

[column5 63]

While I agree that it would be nice to have a multi-threading in the series, it's something that's unlikely to happen soon, as ThirdWire is essentially an "Army of One".

 

I'm not sure how much we would gain from it anyway. Most video drivers are already multi-threaded, and I think that means that the graphics process can already be run on a separate core from the game itself. Correct me if I am wrong on that...

[Fubar512 1,350]

The P4 used Rambus for a short time. They switched to SDRAM after nobody bought it. I have serviced both types. The willamette didn't used DDR, if it didn I have neevr seen one. That didn't come around until the Northwood core. Which brought a new socket, 478.

 

The Willamette Core and its associated chipset were optimized for RAMBUS, and RAMBUS boards were available throughout it's service life, Oct 2000 - December 2001.

 

The Northwood Core was released in January of 2002, the year that you stated that the P4 Willamette was introduced.

[zmatt 2]

He means the cpu. Few programs are multithreaded on the cpu. The gpu is a different story, but it is inherently multithreaded. My 4850 has 800 stream processors, each of those acts like a tiny cpu and they each have their own thread. The cpu can benefit greatly form multithreading. But its not an easy thing to accomplish. That is why only a few games and professional applications are multithreaded. Even then that is only one of many optimizations that can be done. To really understand what I mean you have to be a programmer to understand, or at least know something about it. There are a lot of code optimizations you can do yourself that just makes your algorithms work faster. I'm not bashing TK or saying its a bad game. In light that it is a one man project SF has been able to do a lot. Much more than other games with larger staffs of coders and much larger budgets. But I think that it is valuable to know hwy the game is slow. And that is because it is outdated code.

[column5 63]

Since you are convinced that the code is problematic, I suggest that you talk to TK about it on his forum. We are about playing the game here, not making assumptions about how it is coded.

 

I'm sure TK would love hear your opinions on how to fix the code:

 

http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/

[+Brain32 265]

Wow somebody is surely acting highly protective lol

[+Dave 2,322]

But I think that it is valuable to know hwy the game is slow. And that is because it is outdated code.

 

I know why its slow, its your system. The only time I get any FPS hit in this sim is when I am trying to run too many aircraft with 2048x2048 skins (some are 4096x4096). Other than that it run with out a hiccup and that is everything unlimited.

 

Outdated code, I disagree, other than multi-threading, he has added tons of features to take full advantage off the newer kinds of effects etc. Looks at how the effects are modeled, clouds, shading, all things he couldn't do back in 2002. Some of us been modding this sim for 6 years, some of us have been beta testers on most of it too. Check the credits. So I think we know pretty much what we are saying. However if the sim disapppoints you that much FPS wise then shelve it. I for one am very pleased with it. I can run this thing on my wife's craptop. It seems that when people complain about the FPS, it is when they are worried more about eye candy than playability. I am pleased I can run with all the eye candy, however, if I couldnt burt wanted a sim with that, I would fly FSX. I am here to dogfight, not site see.

[kct 5]

My craptop runs without huge losses of eye candy. My screenshots are proof of that.

 

This is a laptop with a graphics card that is not built for gaming (X1400), the slowest processor offered (Core Duo 1.66GHz), and 'just' 2GB of DDR2 RAM.

Edited January 5, 2009 by kct

[+Dave 2,322]

My craptop runs without huge losses of eye candy. My screenshots are proof of that.

 

This is a laptop with a graphics card that is not built for gaming (X1400), the slowest processor offered (Core Duo 1.66GHz), and 'just' 2GB of DDR2 RAM.

 

Dear god you and my wife have the same craptop. Are you seeing her on the side?

[kct 5]

No idea, it is just a Dell 6400. What others call the Dell e1505.

 

Got it because it was probably the only laptop that have a dedicated graphics card within my paltry budget (which is better than nothing).

 

And I am like 12 hours or so from the States. I'm no Superman.

Edited January 5, 2009 by kct

[zmatt 2]

I know why its slow, its your system. The only time I get any FPS hit in this sim is when I am trying to run too many aircraft with 2048x2048 skins (some are 4096x4096). Other than that it run with out a hiccup and that is everything unlimited.

 

Outdated code, I disagree, other than multi-threading, he has added tons of features to take full advantage off the newer kinds of effects etc. Looks at how the effects are modeled, clouds, shading, all things he couldn't do back in 2002. Some of us been modding this sim for 6 years, some of us have been beta testers on most of it too. Check the credits. So I think we know pretty much what we are saying. However if the sim disapppoints you that much FPS wise then shelve it. I for one am very pleased with it. I can run this thing on my wife's craptop. It seems that when people complain about the FPS, it is when they are worried more about eye candy than playability. I am pleased I can run with all the eye candy, however, if I couldnt burt wanted a sim with that, I would fly FSX. I am here to dogfight, not site see.

 

It's not my system. I get 14k on 3dmark 06. e7200 at 4ghz 24/7 4 gigs of OCZ golds 1100mhz 4-5-4-15, Radeon 4850 @ 700/900. My system is far from slow. I don't see why im getting so much resistance to this idea. I'm not blasting the game, and I'm not blasting the developer. I think its a great game and its a lot of fun. I'm just calling ti as I see it. From a technical standpoint the engine leaves some things to be desired but from a fun standpoint its more fun than many big titles. If it was as modern then it would run as fast as FSX. There is a reason why new game engines are designed every 2 or 3 years. it makes more sense on the performance side to make newer code that catrers to newer hardware isntead of shoving higher poly models and higher res textures into an older engine.

Edited January 5, 2009 by zmatt

[Fubar512 1,350]

If it was as modern then it would run as fast as FSX.

 

It runs Waaaaaay faster than FSX. It just does not run as well on systems with ATI cards, and that's been documented.

[kct 5]

...Which is the case with me, so yeah.

[column5 63]

It runs Waaaaaay faster than FSX. It just does not run as well on systems with ATI cards, and that's been documented.

 

You just aren't getting it Ed, its clearly old and lacks optimization. I think TK used the River Raid engine from the 2600...

[+Dave 2,322]

It runs Waaaaaay faster than FSX. It just does not run as well on systems with ATI cards, and that's been documented.

 

 

I used to run it on a laptop with an ATI card and it sucked. Since I got a laptop and a desktop with GeForce cards, it runs smooth as silk. ATI just doesn't run well with this series. Been like that since 2002.

 

You just aren't getting it Ed, its clearly old and lacks optimization. I think TK used the River Raid engine from the 2600...

 

Man I loved that game! Played it until my thumbs were numb.

[Fubar512 1,350]

Man I loved that game! Played it until my thumbs were numb.

 

 

Wow. Talk about showing your age. But then again, I've always opined that Space Wars was the zenith of simming

[Viper6 3]

When I first got this pc it had a 256 ati card and it sputtered when there many items to track, since I went to GeForce 512 then a GeForce 1gb I have had zero problems with high object tracking or FPS loss.

[zmatt 2]

An interesting thing happened today. I upgraded my monitor and with the higher resolution came higher fps. I didn't expect that but it is a welcome change.

 

 

And collum5 I don't see why you have to be a jerk about it and mock me. I haven't insulted you so why are you insulting me. I just wanted to have a mature discussion about it.

Edited January 6, 2009 by zmatt

[Lt. James Cater 62]

A while ago i loaded WOE onto my ancient and junkyard bound Dell 4400. To my surprise it worked and with damn good performance. With my usual settings i had a bit of slowdown but a dropping a few things such as object details down to medium and it was good to go!

 

PS- ! always use mirrors and far horizon.

[WarlordATF 1]

I run WOV,WOE,WOI and FE-EP with an Intel 950 GMA onboard gfx chip with Vista and i get 15-25 fps most of the time, with alot going on it can drop to 5-10 fps. But i resize all textures to 512x512 before i install any mod and i don't use explosion mods or trees (Still running the Oct "A" patch). If your performance is worse, it has to be something with your system.

[StarBucker 0]

I have done an exepriment. This is the spec of my machine:

 

*****************************************

P5Q Deluxe

Core 2 Duo Q6600 @ 3.2GHz

Cosair XMS 2 2*2048MB DDR2@1066 Mhz

PowerColor LCS HD 4870 1GB DDR5 @780MHz/3.6GHz

VelociRaptor 150GB SATA2 10,000rpm

Cosair TX750W

Asus Silent Knight II CPU cooler

Asus Lightscribe DVD-RW

Cooler Master Praetorian 732 Case

*****************************************

 

I am running Windows Vista Ultimate 64bits and I dont have SF2. I installed SFP1 and patched it up to Oct 2008. As many of you have experienced, with High settings, the frame rate seems to have been locked at no more than 30 and sometimes I got low 20 and even at one time I got 17FPS!!

 

I do not know how many of you here are hardcore players and a fanatic of computer graphics. I am. Here is a quote from http://www.guru3d.com and a review of 4870 1GB is here http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-4870-review--asus/8. I totally agree with the followings:

 

<H3 qaOrq="2">A word about "FPS"</H3>

What are we looking for in gaming performance wise? First off, obviously Guru3D tends to think that all games should be played at the best image quality (IQ) possible. There's a dilemma though, IQ often interferes with the performance of a

graphics card. We measure this in FPS, the number of frames a graphics card can render per second, the higher it is the more fluently your game will display itself.

A game's frames per second (FPS) is a measured average of a series of tests. That test often is a time demo, a recorded part of the game which is a 1:1 representation of the actual game and its gameplay experience. After forcing the same image quality settings; this timedemo is then used for all graphics cards so that the actual measuring is as objective as can be.

 

Frames per secondGameplay<30 FPSvery limited gameplay30-40 FPSaverage yet very playable40-60 FPSgood gameplay>60 FPSbest possible gameplay

• So if a graphics card barely manages less than 30 FPS, then the game is not very playable, we want to avoid that at all cost.
  
• With 30 FPS up-to roughly 40 FPS you'll be very able to play the game with perhaps a tiny stutter at certain graphically intensive parts. Overall a very enjoyable experience. Match the best possible resolution to this result and you'll have the best possible rendering quality versus resolution, hey you want both of them to be as high as possible.
  
• When a graphics card is doing 60 FPS on average or higher then you can rest assured that the game will likely play extremely smoothly at every point in the game, turn on every possible in-game IQ setting.
  
• Over 100 FPS? You have either a MONSTER of graphics card or a very old game.
  

And I recall I read an article back in those days when Voodo cards were dominating 3D graphics card market. Today we called that Anisothrophic Filtering then it was a technology named as FX1. In that article which I canno tlocate on the net now, stated that human eyes cannot perceive image movement with frame rate per second beyond 60. And mpeg movies which we watch on our system runs at 29~30 FPS.

 

I am therefore quite surprised to hear some body up here saying that they have a smooth running of the game at 30FPS or below!

 

My exepriment results are a good FPS at 60 under 1680*1050 with Horizontal Distance set to Normal, Mirror set to Off, Mirror Reflection set to Off and Shadow set to Off. But then it never goes higher than 60.

 

I must provide you with one more piece of information: when I was monitoring using Hardware Montior on the CPU and GPU temeprature, te GPU temperature never rised to 70C or so like it did when Call Of Cuty World At War was run, in fact this game only raised my GPU by a mere 5 degree where CoDW@@ raised it by some 20C! But the CPU was raised by 15C. So I say this game is CPU bound. And to that end, the coding apparently is an issue.

[Spinners 15,986]

SF2 runs better on Vista than the 'old games' did on XP (using exactly the same PC).

 

I now play with shadows and mirrors ON and get the same speeds that I used to get with them OFF.

 

Why? I haven't a scooby!

[+starfighter2 117]

SF2 runs better on Vista

 

 

I second that - SF2 runs quite well here on Vista Home Basic 32bit and with mainstream config - AMD 4000+, 3Gb Ram and ATI 3650(512). All HIGH settings here with mirrors ON...etc on 1440x900 rez. Very nice performance with SF2.....

but...........

Old SF and clones are unplayable on that level of settings, I must lower some things down (1280x800), turn mirrors and shadows off(low) in order to get decent fps. My son have simmilar config with Nvidia 9500GT card,Nvidia chipset on mobo(still with same proc) - and performance are better a bit.

 

Cheers

[zmatt 2]

I have done an exepriment. This is the spec of my machine:

 

*****************************************

P5Q Deluxe

Core 2 Duo Q6600 @ 3.2GHz

Cosair XMS 2 2*2048MB DDR2@1066 Mhz

PowerColor LCS HD 4870 1GB DDR5 @780MHz/3.6GHz

VelociRaptor 150GB SATA2 10,000rpm

Cosair TX750W

Asus Silent Knight II CPU cooler

Asus Lightscribe DVD-RW

Cooler Master Praetorian 732 Case

*****************************************

 

I am running Windows Vista Ultimate 64bits and I dont have SF2. I installed SFP1 and patched it up to Oct 2008. As many of you have experienced, with High settings, the frame rate seems to have been locked at no more than 30 and sometimes I got low 20 and even at one time I got 17FPS!!

 

I do not know how many of you here are hardcore players and a fanatic of computer graphics. I am. Here is a quote from http://www.guru3d.com and a review of 4870 1GB is here http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-4870-review--asus/8. I totally agree with the followings:

 

<H3 qaOrq="2">A word about "FPS"</H3>

What are we looking for in gaming performance wise? First off, obviously Guru3D tends to think that all games should be played at the best image quality (IQ) possible. There's a dilemma though, IQ often interferes with the performance of a

graphics card. We measure this in FPS, the number of frames a graphics card can render per second, the higher it is the more fluently your game will display itself.

A game's frames per second (FPS) is a measured average of a series of tests. That test often is a time demo, a recorded part of the game which is a 1:1 representation of the actual game and its gameplay experience. After forcing the same image quality settings; this timedemo is then used for all graphics cards so that the actual measuring is as objective as can be.

 

Frames per secondGameplay<30 FPSvery limited gameplay30-40 FPSaverage yet very playable40-60 FPSgood gameplay>60 FPSbest possible gameplay

• So if a graphics card barely manages less than 30 FPS, then the game is not very playable, we want to avoid that at all cost.
  
• With 30 FPS up-to roughly 40 FPS you'll be very able to play the game with perhaps a tiny stutter at certain graphically intensive parts. Overall a very enjoyable experience. Match the best possible resolution to this result and you'll have the best possible rendering quality versus resolution, hey you want both of them to be as high as possible.
  
• When a graphics card is doing 60 FPS on average or higher then you can rest assured that the game will likely play extremely smoothly at every point in the game, turn on every possible in-game IQ setting.
  
• Over 100 FPS? You have either a MONSTER of graphics card or a very old game.
  

And I recall I read an article back in those days when Voodo cards were dominating 3D graphics card market. Today we called that Anisothrophic Filtering then it was a technology named as FX1. In that article which I canno tlocate on the net now, stated that human eyes cannot perceive image movement with frame rate per second beyond 60. And mpeg movies which we watch on our system runs at 29~30 FPS.

 

I am therefore quite surprised to hear some body up here saying that they have a smooth running of the game at 30FPS or below!

 

My exepriment results are a good FPS at 60 under 1680*1050 with Horizontal Distance set to Normal, Mirror set to Off, Mirror Reflection set to Off and Shadow set to Off. But then it never goes higher than 60.

 

I must provide you with one more piece of information: when I was monitoring using Hardware Montior on the CPU and GPU temeprature, te GPU temperature never rised to 70C or so like it did when Call Of Cuty World At War was run, in fact this game only raised my GPU by a mere 5 degree where CoDW@@ raised it by some 20C! But the CPU was raised by 15C. So I say this game is CPU bound. And to that end, the coding apparently is an issue.

 

Well put, and that's a pretty good system you have there. I think the biggest thing is people need to put things in perspective how this game runs compared to the current major titles that use cutting edge technology.

 

I have a second 4850 in the mail, I'm hoping that I can get better fps with it.

[Fubar512 1,350]

An 30 FPS average is quite playable in a flight simulation. In fact a low FPS in the high teens is still playable. Remember, this is not a first person shooter, where a super high end graphics card will help. The TW series scales quite nicely with CPU speed, and does quite well on my Intel E8400 at 3.6 Ghz.

 

ATI cards have had some issues with this series, right from its inception. Those issues ranged from texture corruption (RWR screens did not display in the first two patches with ATI cards), to inexplicably slow FPS, when certain graphic options were enabled. I have a "mere" GeForce 9600, and I regularly see FPS well over 70 (when I disable refresh rate synchronization), with all graphics options set to their highest, except for horizon draw distance (which is CPU limited).

[+Dave 2,322]

:Deadhorse: :Deadhorse: