Graphics question

[HomeBoy 1]

Yep, took notice of this

 

did most of the changes to reflect rabu's settings (ati here,,,i have some he doesnt, and he has some i dont)...

 

Didnt improve fps any, but game still plays terrific.

 

think it boils down to ...if its not broken,,,dont fix it..at least for my game...

 

Understand. Sorry none of this helped you. I was hoping it would!

[Cameljockey 3]

Those settings worked great for me. As you can see, no jagged edges and close to 60fps directly over an airfield. I think I'll keep them, thank you very much!

 

Thanks a lot guys!

 

CJ

[Test Pilot 0]

I don't know whether to call Rabu a genius or a lucky man!

Either way Rabu, I give you a giant

 

When I saw your graphics and frame rate, I thought you must have a computer that is off the scale powerful and when you reported what you had, my jaw dropped. Your machine is very similar to mine. Mine even outdoes yours a little bit (I have 4GB memory, have a faster HD and have overclocked to 3.1Ghz). That was pretty discouraging until I realized there must be some setting somewhere that is causing all the trouble for me. Well, there apparently was (still not sure yet exactly what), because I am now running with as stunning graphics as you are and I'm seeing 60+ FPS when there is no ground in sight! My frame rate is really good now most all the time. First time for that. Antialiasing is beautiful, etc., etc. I've never seen this game look this good or run this well! Thank you so much for investing so much time in helping me with this!

 

What I did was very simple. I deleted every trace of OFF from my computer and reinstalled it. (This was really completely needless but at least I knew for sure what all the default settings were.) I took your settings that you posted and just blindly set mine to match (even when they didn't seem logical, for example, you have your "Multi-display" in vVidia setting set to "Multiple display" even though I only have one monitor and "Triple buffer" to Off even though the nVidia White Papers say that should be on if you are using Vertical Sync. I just blindly followed your lead. BTW, here are my settings that I now use:

Disclaimer: As Madmatt points out, just because copying Rabu's setup worked for me is ABSOLUTELY no guarantee that it will work for you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where do I open these other windows up for the parameter editor?

Edited April 16, 2009 by Test Pilot

[BirdDogICT 3]

Where do I open these other windows up for the parameter editor?

 

Test Pilot,

 

In Workshop, click the white "Graphics Config" box near the bottom right corner. This opens the CFS3Config.exe utliity. Select "File" then "Custom Settings" then click past the warning box to the Parameters Editor. The first Parameter page you see with be Image Quality. You can access the four others by clicking on "Window" on the top left.

 

Good luck.

[Test Pilot 0]

Test Pilot,

 

In Workshop, click the white "Graphics Config" box near the bottom right corner. This opens the CFS3Config.exe utliity. Select "File" then "Custom Settings" then click past the warning box to the Parameters Editor. The first Parameter page you see with be Image Quality. You can access the four others by clicking on "Window" on the top left.

 

Good luck.

 

 

 

Thanks Birddog! Guess I thought the window button there wasn't anything other than a description of the window. Must remember to use my mouse!!! I dont have my computer with OFF in front of me, but is there a way to limit FPS or do I have to use a 3rd party app such as the frame rate limiter? Im getting an occasional stutter despite constant FPS in the upper 50s largely regardless of my main graphic settings and I think my best bet for getting rid of these is just to smooth out my frames down to 30. At least that was the cure in FSX and hopefully here too!

[HomeBoy 1]

Thanks Birddog! Guess I thought the window button there wasn't anything other than a description of the window. Must remember to use my mouse!!! I dont have my computer with OFF in front of me, but is there a way to limit FPS or do I have to use a 3rd party app such as the frame rate limiter? Im getting an occasional stutter despite constant FPS in the upper 50s largely regardless of my main graphic settings and I think my best bet for getting rid of these is just to smooth out my frames down to 30. At least that was the cure in FSX and hopefully here too!

 

Don't feel bad TestPilot, I wondered the same thing when I first looked at cfs3config. It is not very intuitive. I kept wondering "Where's everybody seeing all these configuration screens!"

[BirdDogICT 3]

Thanks Birddog! Guess I thought the window button there wasn't anything other than a description of the window. Must remember to use my mouse!!! I dont have my computer with OFF in front of me, but is there a way to limit FPS or do I have to use a 3rd party app such as the frame rate limiter? Im getting an occasional stutter despite constant FPS in the upper 50s largely regardless of my main graphic settings and I think my best bet for getting rid of these is just to smooth out my frames down to 30. At least that was the cure in FSX and hopefully here too!

Test Pilot,

 

There are a couple of things you can do to help stutters (these tweaks have been around since CFS3 first came out, and they worked for me):

 

1. There is a frame rate limiter within CFS3. Use Notepad to edit C:\OBDSoftware\CFSWW1 OverFlanders Fields\Default\cfs3.mxl Change the MaxFPS argument to read MaxFPS="30" or "40" or even "25" (I use 40)

2. In Overrides, check "High Resolution Z-Buffer" and uncheck "Dual Pass Render". Also check "Disable Warning Boxes", "Disable Chat", Disable Advisor Messages", "Disable Simulation Warnings" (I had serious lags when messages would appear..this seems to be worse with ATI cards)

3. In Texture Info, click "D3D_SWAPEFFECT_FLIP under Full Screen Swap Effect

4. Having enough unfragmented memory available can smooth things out quite a bit. Try using AlacrityPC (or AMD Fusion for Gaming if you have an AMD procesor) to stop processes and defragment your memory before starting BHaH. HomeBoy is working on a guide for AlacrityPC.

 

Hope this helps. Of course, your mileage may vary.

 

Cheers

Edited April 17, 2009 by BirdDogICT

[BirdDogICT 3]

Test Pilot

 

Also, see Post#2 here: http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?showtopic=39852

 

Cheers

[Test Pilot 0]

Test Pilot

 

Also, see Post#2 here: http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?showtopic=39852

 

Cheers

 

 

Thanks for the help! Finally found the file to limit the frames and now got it set to 30. That takes away most all of them, even while running 16xS combined anti aliasing on the video card. So much better now :)

[Wels 2]

Hello,

 

first thanks for posting, but the settings Rabu presented here gave me a return of 4 fps and an unplayable sim. Must be a negative peak record lol. Resetting the cfs3config.exe to standard made it better - and it seems this is due to the "texture info" settings - changing them brought down the fps heavily.

 

Will look for a better graphic card, however with the wrong settings even a nvidia 280gt will perform very badly. It is really strange, sometimes the sim works just great, but at another time without changing anything the fps are suddenly down to below 10. This cfs3config.exe along with the possible adjusting of the graphic card is really unsatisfactorily in CFS3.

 

My guess is it has something to do with astrology - don't play the next 5 days after a full moon, and under no circumstance think of squirrels while starting the sim - or wait, was it a rhinoceros ?

 

Greetings,

Catfish

[BirdDogICT 3]

Thanks for the help! Finally found the file to limit the frames and now got it set to 30. That takes away most all of them, even while running 16xS combined anti aliasing on the video card. So much better now :)

Test Pilot,

 

Glad that helped. 16XAA seems like overkill I'm pretty happy with 4XAA with Edge Filter (i.e., 12 samples) and 8X AF. To each his own.

 

Cheers

[thewoo1 0]

Y'all are missing my point I'm afraid.

 

I'm not having trouble getting AA to work. I can get MSAA and SSAA to work just fine. It is the CSAA (of which I describe the three step method of configuring in original post) that I can't get to work.

 

The 8800 series supports three types of antialiasing:

 

1. Super Sampling (SSAA) - a brute-force method that produces the best smoothing and quality but hits your GC really hard (worst FRs of all).

 

2. Multi Sampling (MSAA) - very easy on FR but doesn't do that great a job in smoothing out the jaggies (not as good as SSAA anyway).

 

3. Coverage Sampling (CSAA) - a trick nVidia developed to get the good graphics quality of SSAA and the performance of MSAA (having your cake and eating it too).

 

As I said, I was able to configure CSAA in Microsoft FX and it made a tremendous difference. My FRs increase probably by 10 and the picture quality is beautiful. I was just hoping I could do that same thing with OFF. I don't understand why I can't. This should work!

 

gaw,

In my first post, I was trying to say what you were saying about the CFS3 bug. It is mentioned in the FAQ. My only point in bringing it up was that I wish I had some confirmation that the game was indeed set for AA. You see, when you use SSAA and MSAA, the video card overrides any setting the game may set (assuming you configure it that way). Course you say you set the card to "application controlled" and get AA to work which answers my question. That confuses me even more as to why I can't get CSAA to work.

 

Oh well, maybe someone who knows the graphics engine in this game will come forward with some words of wisdom. In the mean time, I guess I have no choice but to stick with MSAA.

 

Thaks for all the info homeboy do you know if the 9 series 9800gt Ithink supports csaa also ty thewoo1