Strange WOV graphics problem.

[Bossco82]

Hi Guys I have a strange problem with my graphics in WOV. When I fly in a campaign and any mission goes up north where a lot of strikes are taking place I get a massive FPS hit when any large group of aircraft particularly B52's drop there bombs. By leaving my plane on auto and watching others it seems to be from the moment just before they are released to the moment just after they hit. My computer specs are as follows and i've always flown on single missions with my graphic setting to medium, mirrors and reflections off and my resolution at 1600x1200x32, i've never had a stutter problem before, its only on campaign when i'm around Hanoi.

 

Intel core2duo E8500 @ 3.16ghz

3.5gb ram

Palit Ati Radeon HD4850 512mb GP

 

When I first got this problem I tried a lot of things to attempt to solve it.

I deleted all modified sky effects,

I deleted all modified explosion and smoke trail effects

I edited the targets and reduced the sams up north by 3/4's

I edited the campaign aircraft to 20 US squadrons with 8 planes each

I used textures with reduced resolutions

 

None of the above caused any difference, the only thing that helped was reducing the planes and removing MK82 snakeyes from strike loudouts. The only thing that removes the problem completely is reducing my resolution to 1600x1200x16, I can also have all my graphics settings on high when I do this but my horizon, water and clouds look terrible.Can anyone tell me why having graphics on 32bit and lots of planes dropping bombs would clash, I don't get it because it works when I have a lot of planes firing missiles and I get FOX1 etc constantly.

 

My second question is can you limit the amount of planes launched at once against a similar area through an ini edit. That would solve my problem perfectly as at the moment I gave almost every plane with strike capability launching at once when I go up north. If anyone got as far as here thanks for reading this.

 

Cheers from Ross

[+Fubar512]

Make sure that your horizon distance is set to "Normal". If that doesn't help, I'm afraid that you're running out of texture memory. I went from a 512 mb to a 1024 mb card, and my minimum fps went up by 30%.

[Viper6]

I started playing the 3rd wire sims on a 512mb ati radeon card and when I flew up north in WOV I had studdering and a big FPS loss, I then went to a Nvidia 512mb card and still the same so I then went to a 1gig Nvidia card and experimented with the vid settings. I now can go up north with horizon on near, object texture on unlimited, cockpit on unlimited, mirrors on, shadows off, water on high, grounds objects set to medium etc. I also recall some early postings about the 1st gen sims and ATI vid problems.

[Bossco82]

Thanks for the reply fubar, my horizon is set to normal unfortunately. Do you reckon a graphics upgrade would help, i've also heard that ati cards dont work so well with thirdwire games, is this true. If so could you recommend an upgrade?

 

Cheers from Ross

[ezlead]

I am using an older Nvidia card and when I play WOV,I always get a big FPS hit over the North. I just have to turn down the graphics settings.

IN all the other sims that I have:SFP1,WOE,WOI,SF2V and SF2E,I can turn the settings back up and they work fine.

I have also experimented with 4 different Nvidia driver sets and found the best for my card. The latest don't always work the best.

If you are computer savvy,give that a try.

I have had computers since the old DOS days,so I do a lot more with them than most people.

[malibu43]

I've found that turning object texture and object detail down to low help in a lot of instances where FPS became a problem. If you're flying from the cockpit, you usually won't notice the difference in quality either.

 

Just something to try.

[Stick]

Would upgrading RAM help, Fubar512?

[+Fubar512]

Would upgrading RAM help, Fubar512?

 

No. His issue is frame-buffer related...he has more than enough RAM.

[Squiffy]

Fubar, isn't it also horizon distance/lod related? Snakeyes are pretty vertex intensive for bombs right? More planes equals the same thing. Sometimes I think the sim design conventions put way too much load on the hardware when it's really not necessary. How many B-52s do you need in a desktop sim mission to pound a target? Or how many do you really need to render? ;)

 

 

 

[Bossco82]

I think I may have solved the problem, it seems to be simply the amount of AAA and sam sites up north that causes the FPS hit in campaign due to the additional aircraft. After reducing the amount of planes and removing certain weapon types like MK82SE the FPS hits got a little better. So then I removed my sams out of the ground objects and it got a little better still. However with all the sams and all the aircraft but the AAA removed it went completely. No stutters whatsoever, thats on medium settings 1600x1200x32, using razbam tiles with the green hell mod, all effects mods and high res skins. So I spent a few hours thinning out the target list up north. I gave each area one sam site, and halved the AAA for each area keeping it spread evenly. The amount of planes in my campign are still thinned out but on a strike mission up north I get about 50-60 planes at once. It doesn't seem to have taken anything away from the game either, I still see multiple sams launching, the sky still has areas full of flak bursts and I still get my thud riddled with tracers diving in on a target. I think WOV suffers more FPS hits over other wings over games because it seems that only the vietnam terrain has such a concentration of AAA in one place and anything other than a high end computer just cant cope with it.

 

I'd still like to get a 1024mb nvidia card, can anyone suggest which one would be best?

 

Thanks from Ross

[Stick]

Lets try your target list-even my FPS is dropping to 8ish up north- from high forties over sea. Im flying an RA-5C in Rolling Thunder.

Using a 512mb ATI radeon 4570

[Bossco82]

No problem mate, can you pm me your email address as it won let me upload files. I must warn you there is another mod i've put in these lists. I have my AAA listed in target types as AAA1, AAA2, AAA3, AAA4, AAA5, I did this so I could label them as taget type MISC. Sam radars and launchers are the same and AAA is designated to a ZSU-23 that is independantly radar guided. I did this so Iron hand mission only selected radar guided defences as targets so I could fly the A6 with shrikes.

 

[TargetType056]

Name=AAA1

FullName=KS-19 AAA

TargetType=MISC

UseGroundObject=TRUE

GroundObjectType=KS-19

ActiveYear=0

TargetValue=1

RepairRate=3.22

StartDetectChance=100

StartIdentifiedChance=100

IncreaseDetectChanceKey=100

MaxVisibleDist=8000.0

DestroyedEffect=SmallRocketGroundExplosion

SecondaryEffect=VehicleFireEffect

SecondaryChance=50

 

[TargetType057]

Name=AAA2

FullName=ZSU-57 AAA

TargetType=AAA

UseGroundObject=TRUE

GroundObjectType=KS-19

ActiveYear=0

TargetValue=100

RepairRate=3.22

StartDetectChance=100

StartIdentifiedChance=100

IncreaseDetectChanceKey=100

MaxVisibleDist=18000.0

DestroyedEffect=SmallRocketGroundExplosion

SecondaryEffect=VehicleFireEffect

SecondaryChance=50

 

[TargetType058]

Name=AAA3

FullName=KS-19 AAA

TargetType=MISC

UseGroundObject=TRUE

GroundObjectType=KS-19

ActiveYear=0

TargetValue=1

RepairRate=3.22

StartDetectChance=100

StartIdentifiedChance=100

IncreaseDetectChanceKey=100

MaxVisibleDist=8000.0

DestroyedEffect=SmallRocketGroundExplosion

SecondaryEffect=VehicleFireEffect

SecondaryChance=50

 

[TargetType059]

Name=AAA4

FullName=ZU-23 AAA

TargetType=MISC

UseGroundObject=TRUE

GroundObjectType=BTR-ZPU

ActiveYear=0

TargetValue=1

RepairRate=3.22

StartDetectChance=100

StartIdentifiedChance=100

IncreaseDetectChanceKey=100

MaxVisibleDist=8000.0

DestroyedEffect=SmallRocketGroundExplosion

SecondaryEffect=VehicleFireEffect

SecondaryChance=50

 

[TargetType060]

Name=AAA5

FullName=BTR-ZPU AAA

TargetType=MISC

UseGroundObject=TRUE

GroundObjectType=BTR-ZPU

ActiveYear=0

TargetValue=1

RepairRate=3.22

StartDetectChance=100

StartIdentifiedChance=100

IncreaseDetectChanceKey=100

MaxVisibleDist=8000.0

DestroyedEffect=SmallRocketGroundExplosion

SecondaryEffect=VehicleFireEffect

SecondaryChance=50

 

[TargetType061]

Name=EWR

FullName=Early Warning Radar

TargetType=MISC

UseGroundObject=TRUE

ActiveYear=1950

TargetValue=0

RepairRate=3.22

StartDetectChance=100

StartIdentifiedChance=100

IncreaseDetectChanceKey=100

MaxVisibleDist=8000.0

DestroyedEffect=SmallRocketGroundExplosion

SecondaryEffect=VehicleFireEffect

SecondaryChance=50

 

[TargetType062]

Name=SAMRadar

FullName=SAM Site

TargetType=SAM_RADAR

UseGroundObject=TRUE

ActiveYear=1965

TargetValue=200

RepairRate=6.0

StartDetectChance=80

StartIdentifiedChance=20

IncreaseDetectChanceKey=10

MaxVisibleDist=8000.0

DestroyedEffect=SmallRocketGroundExplosion

SecondaryEffect=VehicleFireEffect

SecondaryChance=50

 

[TargetType063]

Name=SAMLauncher

FullName=SAM Site

TargetType=SAM_LAUNCHER

UseGroundObject=TRUE

ActiveYear=1965

TargetValue=200

RepairRate=6.0

StartDetectChance=80

StartIdentifiedChance=20

IncreaseDetectChanceKey=10

MaxVisibleDist=8000.0

DestroyedEffect=SmallRocketGroundExplosion

SecondaryEffect=VehicleFireEffect

SecondaryChance=50

 

[TargetType104]

Name=AAA

FullName=Radar Guided AAA

TargetType=AAA

UseGroundObject=TRUE

ActiveYear=1950

TargetValue=200

RepairRate=3.22

StartDetectChance=80

StartIdentifiedChance=20

IncreaseDetectChanceKey=10

MaxVisibleDist=8000.0

DestroyedEffect=SmallRocketGroundExplosion

SecondaryEffect=VehicleFireEffect

SecondaryChance=50

 

I also have the modified Ubon and NKP airbases the objects are from target type 107. If you want to keep this feature change the ground object role of your AAA to artillery. If you dont want to keep it simply change AAA from target type 56-60 from MISC to AAA and it will run the same as before. Please back up your old target list and target type list incase you dont like the changes.

 

Thanks from Ross

 

 

[Stick]

Naturally.