Ati settings (yeah,,again)

[sitting_duck 3]

Was getting tired of getting much lower fps than everyone else, and even thou the game play great, decided to give it another go..

 

Did the clean install again of drivers, and started adjusting settings one by one,,and then play the game to see the results...even took notes this time.

 

Keep in mind, i cant discount the fact i may have a sour video card, so this might only apply to me.

 

found 5 4 3 5 5 worked best for sliders, and without a doubt, the best fps with no visual change in game performance was just unselecting dual pass render, and leaving all the other setting stock...

checking the buffers, or messing with the texture info drops fps dramatically.

 

Ive got almost everything turned up in ccc,,,

 

I start at 48-52 fps on ground, and holds steady a 60 skimming over a forest..

 

unreal part is that if i kick in lables...fps drops down to 30...(which is why i suspect my card)

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MikeDixonUK 5]

I used to have the problem where turning on labels would lower my FPS, but the latest ATI drivers seem to have fixed that. (With an ATI 4890.)

[Bandy 3]

Sitting Duck,

 

Glad to here of your success and will try what worked for you. But what are your system specs?

 

In BHaH I used to sim exclusively in the early war RNAS period, N11's, 17's, and Tripehounds b/c I just love having the channel as a backdrop, and had good success. Then I tried 56 squadron and all my settings which gave me mid 30's to mid 20's were for naught and BHaH dropped into the teens all the time.

 

Running Win7 x64, on oldish workstation: 4 x 2.66 GHz xeons, 11 GB 667 RAM (5 GB RAM disk), XFX 4870 1 GB, 1900 x 1200 26" Vizio.

Am using ProcessLasso to assign background tasks to 2nd core, while foreground (sim, TIR, stick) run on core 1. I've had excellent results with CFS3-ETO with fps in 50's to 30's and all sliders nearly maxed out.

Edited January 23, 2010 by Bandy

[sitting_duck 3]

e8500@3.16 xp64 8gig ram ati4780

 

did find out today from flying mp, that if im low,,the fps hit with lables is significant,,but if im high,,8000 or so,,its only about a 10% drop

[Von Paulus 8]

I've better performance and better quality with ATI AI set at higher level.

I've yet to try out the D3D Overrider of RivaTuner and with Triple buffer force on

Edited January 23, 2010 by Von Paulus

[sitting_duck 3]

ccc settings did not signigicantly lower my fps...i've got them all at quality settings

 

 

but ALL the recomended settings in cfs3config, with the exception of dual pass render,,,dropped my fps consideralbly

 

and one thing i did notice,,,was that in some cases, i had to restart in order for cfs3config setting changes to take effect..

[Dutch_P47M 9]

SD, this is maybe O.T. but you could try a CCC alternative: ATI tray tool  

 

Keep in you mind that there is a for CCC9.12 a hotfix and a CCC beta 10.1 on 3dGuru  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[sitting_duck 3]

I have ati tray tools...and did install drivers only, (no ccc), and tray tools. but was dissapointed with results. However, im pretty sure this is when i was making all the settings in cfs3config.

 

will look at that hotfix and the beta thou..

 

and,,have set max fps to 30 in both online and offline,,and removed ALL fps counters from my screen lol

 

 

[Dutch_P47M 9]

I have ati tray tools...and did install drivers only, (no ccc), and tray tools. but was dissapointed with results.  However, im pretty sure this is when i was making all the settings in cfs3config.  

 

will look at that hotfix and the beta thou..

 

and,,have set max fps to 30 in both online and offline,,and removed ALL fps counters from my screen lol

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ooo that F%^&ing CFS3config file never in my game life I have ever seen such a garbage to adjust the graphics. 

 

Be sure that you did not checked weather in the CFS3config file.   

 

 

 

[Morris 2]

Bandy,

 

Thanks for the info on Process Lasso. I have installed it and set the current priority class of the TrackIR to high.

 

Setting in OFF at 554355. My PC is running much better. No more white screen flashes as i turn my head during combat.

 

thanking you.

 

m

[Bandy 3]

Thanks for the info on Process Lasso. I have installed it and set the current priority class of the TrackIR to high.

 

Process Lasso is very nice piece of code indeed. I liked it so much I paid for it (one-time purchase less than $10) even though the trial version will keep going with some caveats once you have it configured. Get it HERE

 

After chatting with the developer on his forum be careful about setting ANY process above the default of normal. I too thought that TIR would require "extra attention" but apparently it can cause unforeseen problems. He didn't recommend anything higher than "above normal", and then let Process Lasso do its thing.

[BirdDogICT 3]

ccc settings did not signigicantly lower my fps...i've got them all at quality settings

 

but ALL the recomended settings in cfs3config, with the exception of dual pass render,,,dropped my fps consideralbly

 

and one thing i did notice,,,was that in some cases, i had to restart in order for cfs3config setting changes to take effect..

Sitting Duck,

 

Thanks for the heads up.

 

After the Catalyst 9.10 drivers, I found that using the CFS3config tweaks didn't make much difference, with the exception of "shadows off" (as suggested by Von Paulus). I'm close to matching your results with a 512MB 4870, old 3.0GHz processor, 3MB DDR550 memory, and XP SP3 at 1920X1080. I also have Catalyst settings maxed out. It looks like the ATI drivers are getting better all the time. Catalyst 9.12 has been great for BHaH, but some some older OpenGL titles (IL-2) are now toast. Will have to try the Catalyst 10.1 drivers when they come out, maybe this month (beta version from MSI is already available).

[Dutch_P47M 9]

I maybe wrong but Lasso sets the processes on priority ranking, right??????

But you can set the CPU priority using your task manager right mouse click on the process to set the priority. So you do not need an extra software that slows-down your PC, you could even set the process to a specific CPUcore. I use this trick to run RoF on my dualcore rig. Please correct me, if I'm wrong inhere to this Lasso software, I'm not a English speaker!!!!!

 

 

 

Marc homeboy has a nice tool; alacritypc, to shutdown all the not needed processes/services. Alternative shutdown programs are AMDfusion, Enditall or ISObit software. BTW I never used ISObit program and AMDfusion can only be used on a complete and modern AMD-system CPU/SB/NS=AMD & Vcard=ATI, to take the full advance for this software.

[Morris 2]

thanx for the info Dutch

[Bandy 3]

I maybe wrong but Lasso sets the processes on priority ranking, right?????? But you can set the CPU priority using your task manager right mouse click on the process to set the priority. So you do not need an extra software that slows-down your PC, you could even set the process to a specific CPUcore.

 

Yes, sure you could set CPU affinity and process priority for EACH process by hand, BUT you have to do it every time on reboot; those settings do not stick in Windows. P-Lasso does it automatically for all processes on start up as well as a host of other things including a dynamic process priority that changes to "game mode" (shutting down unnecessary background process just like Alacrity does) when you click on a game exe. This is important for those that also work on their computer when not simming . The P-Lasso footprint is very small on your RAM and has negligible impact compared to its benefits; I can report back on process footprint if interested, but if memory serves it is around 3 MB compared to 40 MB for ATI CCC.

 

But have a look and do some reading on the website...

Edited January 27, 2010 by Bandy

[Von Paulus 8]

Are you using the RAMDISK with OFF Bandy?

I mean do you upload some of OFF files to RAM?

Edited January 27, 2010 by Von Paulus

[Bandy 3]

Are you using the RAMDISK with OFF Bandy? I mean do you upload some of OFF files to RAM?

 

RAMDisk from DataRAM link HERE is another solid utility that is free to download and use at this time to create RAM disks. From my read of their website it sounds like it is in beta stage, but certainly works well so far.

 

I have 11 GB of RAM to play with so I'm experimenting at this time with only a small 4 to 5 GB RAM disk to use as process swap space. It can be reconfigured easily. I do not wish to portray myself as an expert (probably know just enough to be dangerous, but managed not to brick my video card when flashing its firmware...) but my understanding is that regardless of the amount of RAM you have, your system and running processes will STILL use the virtual pagefile which will slow things down due to I/O limitations of the hard drive (unless you have a solid state drive, but only a few of those are any good right now BE CAREFUL if you're looking at buying SSD's, read THIS FIRST).

 

So basically I'm forcing the system to use faster RAM to do the same thing. BUT there are some hurdles to overcome; Windows does not like to have the pagefile on space that is available so late in the boot cycle (since a RAM disk is basically a software created hard disk...). So I'm experimenting with the minimum pagefile size I need on a regular HD to boot the OS and background processes, and then let the overflow (such as from sim requirements) go to a RAMdisk pagefile. Still tweaking...

 

In conversations I've had with other flight sim developers there is no way to only load part of a sim into RAM disk; it is all or nothing at this time unless you can get into the code and change the call/directory path for things like terrain textures and objects. THAT would be really nice. I'm also thinking about an experiment that would pare down a sim to create a version with a minimum number of aircraft and other textures so that it could be loaded onto a RAM disk. I'll likely try this first with First Eagles because I am more familiar with it. It seems to me that CFS3 is not very robust and likes to crash when the smallest thing is not where it is expected.

 

Another issue is that whatever program you want to run on the RAM disk must be loaded from a disk image each time the system boots, and saved to img each time it shuts down (otherwise it is lost), making very long start ups and shut downs though RAMDisk will do this automatically if you so desire. It is a fine utility that I have only begun to explore.

 

Perhaps not the answer you were hoping for, but hope it helps.

Edited January 27, 2010 by Bandy

[Von Paulus 8]

Oh yes. It's the answer I was expecting.

Please keep telling us, or me at least, your findings. I'm quite interested to know about.

From another game here is a forum link about the use of RAMDISK.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=88629&highlight=ramdisk

[Von Paulus 8]

New catalyst drivers.