locking frame rates

[thewoo1 0]

I saw a post about locking frame rates between 20-30 how do you do it. ty thewoo1

[Olham 164]

I have forgotten, where it was. Try to google "CFS3 fraps improvement".

Someone from a gamer zone had a well written post about it.

[HomeBoy 1]

I saw a post about locking frame rates between 20-30 how do you do it. ty thewoo1

 

Hi Woo,

I happen to have that information right here in my filing cabinet (how old fashioned!)

 

Edit this file:

 

C:\OBDSoftware\CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields\default\cfs3.xml

 

Find the line that contains the string "MaxFPS"

 

The default value for this parameter is "0" which means Unlimited. Change it to your desired maximum frame rate value.

[thewoo1 0]

Hi Woo,

I happen to have that information right here in my filing cabinet (how old fashioned!)

 

Edit this file:

 

C:\OBDSoftware\CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields\default\cfs3.xml

 

Find the line that contains the string "MaxFPS"

 

The default value for this parameter is "0" which means Unlimited. Change it to your desired maximum frame rate value.

 

ty I was thinking more along the lines of not letting it get below 20...so without being too stupid is there a minfps..how would you set that string

[Barkhorn1x 14]

ty I was thinking more along the lines of not letting it get below 20...so without being too stupid is there a minfps..how would you set that string

 

Well, the thing is - you can only set the max FPS.

 

We should all be so lucky as to be able to set our GPU so the frames won't go below 20.

[Flyby PC 23]

Barkhorn's correct thewoo1, but if you're suffering with low framerates, there are lots of other things you can try to improve the performance.

 

Post some more details of your difficulties and we'll see if we can suggest some improvements.

[77Scout 3]

ty I was thinking more along the lines of not letting it get below 20...so without being too stupid is there a minfps..how would you set that string

 

There is no minimum FPS setting because your machine just can't do more FPS than it is physically capable of.

[Velvet 1]

What would be the advantage of setting a max frame rate?

[HomeBoy 1]

What would be the advantage of setting a max frame rate?

 

Velvet,

That is a very good question. I don't think there is an easy answer to it either.

 

One answer to the question is with respect to the older technology CRT (opposed to what most of us use now, the LCD). One of the differences between CRTs and LCDs is that CRTs use a "refresh rate", LCDs do not. Refresh rate is the number of times a CRT redraws it's screen. Typical values are 60, 85, 90 times/second. You will see refresh rates associated with LCDs but that is only for compatibility with CRTs for video drivers. People with a CRT might choose to set their maximum frame rate equal to their CRT's refresh rate because a frame rate larger than the refresh rate is a waste of cpu cycles because the CRT cannot draw any faster than it's refresh rate. However, most video cards support "Vertical Sync" which forces the frame rate to synchronize with the refresh rate (if it goes that high) which accomplishes effectively the same thing. Now that the LCD is the standard video display, this particular issue has pretty much become a non-issue.

 

The other answer to the question is a bit controversial (I believe). People claim that by setting the frame rate to something close to what they think the eye can see (people claim you can't notice frame rates higher than around 25 FPS though I believe it's been shown that even though you can't "see" a FR over 25, you will definitely notice a "quality" of the picture at higher FRs. There's lots of discussion around about that along with some arguing. When MSFX first came out, it was are real resource killer and people were getting FRs in the low teens and even single digits. Guys were claiming that if they capped the FR to something like 20 that the game seemed to perform better. Others strongly disagreed. I suppose those arguments can find their way here to OFF using the same logic so there you are.

 

I have experimented with this max frame rate business a good bit with OFF and I finally decided just to leave it at unlimited (0) because frankly I didn't see any improvement at all with any other setting. Your mileage certainly might vary. Feel free to experiment all you want.

 

Sorry for the long winded explanation (or opinion, whatever you think).

 

Hope that helps a bit anyway.

-mark

[Olham 164]

Thewoo, when you set max fraps to 35 or even 30, you get a smoother framerate.

It seems that the system is not so stressed then producing much higher fraps,

and it equals out better. It worked for me.

I have an ATI X1900 vid card, and the sim is running fine.

Edited August 1, 2009 by Olham

[Velvet 1]

Thanks for the info Homeboy

[77Scout 3]

It should have little benefit as far as the quality of the image on the screen...higher FPS will always look smoother than low FPS so capping the FPS isn't ever going to make on-screen movement smoother.

 

Basically, you cap the frame rate to tell the computer 'Hey, don't work so hard giving me 60 FPS, because my human brain can only see 30 FPS.'

 

The theory is that the computer will then use the 'saved resources' for more important things, like giving the AI pilots more 'brainpower'.

 

I tried capping the FPS a while back in the hopes that my TrackIR 'blue jaggies' would be reduced. Made it worse so I am now of the opinion that capping FPS has little benefit on my system.

[Herr Prop-Wasche 7]

For me, capping the FPS reduced a significant stuttering problem on my CRT. Don't know what effect it has on LCD's.

[HomeBoy 1]

See what I mean?

[Jimko 0]

I'm not any kind of pc knowledgable user...I have a rather limited understanding of many pc functiions since I learned what little I know on my own, and as we know, "a little learning can be a dangerous thing!"

But, I am comfortable enough to get by with them.

 

For what it's worth, I have my Maxfps=0. However, I use my Vertical Sync = On and Triple Buffering = On in order to cap my fps, and in my case they cap at about 60 fps. There is an interesting relationship between the Refresh rate of a monitor (in my case Samsung 24") and the VSync and Triple Buffering, and how they all affect the frame rates. The total effect on MY system is that I dont have the wild fluctations in frame rates which previously went from the 20s to over 100 fps and the sim runs smoother in some ways and is more consistent under different conditions. The frame rates will drop to the 40s under particularly heavy graphic activity, but that's about the worst case scenario that I've seen. I've also eliminated almost all tearing effects, particularly when using TrackIR.

 

I have used this guide successfully: http://www.tweakguides.com/Graphics_1.html

It is a very interesting document written for the layman like me. Page 5 (page box at the bottom of each page) and the following pages give a good explanation of the relationship I referred to above. The whole thing is a good read for anyone who wants to 'tune' their system.

The OFF website documents have many good tips and suggested settings. This tweakguides document explains some interesting facts about tuning your system.

Keep in mind, all systems are very different. This works for my system which is:

 

MSI P45 neo3 motherboard

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0 Ghz

1065 Ballistix 3X1Gb (3 Gb of RAM)

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260-216 SC

Zahlman cooler on mb, Intel Heat pipe 10cm fan, all in a server size case, lots of fans, blah, blah.

Samsung Syncmaster 2443BW 24 in. LCD

 

I'm running this system with the E8400 comfortably over clocked at 3.6 Ghz.

My sliders are set at 5-4-4-5-3

Edited August 2, 2009 by Jimko