Is there a way to preload files?

[+gregoryp]

One neat feature of CFS3 was we could preload files/textures so they didn't need to load during the game.

 

I have Stary's HiRes GermanyCE enhancement and it's fantastic at 1920x1200 with all the sliders maxed, and I'm staying at 59fps. The only problem I've run into was as I approach a city (around 200ft) for the first time I get a micro stutter for about 5-10 seconds and the framerates drop down to the 20's. It appears to be loading the city graphics from the HD, CFS3 would do the same thing. Since I have 2gig on the graphics card it does have room to load stuff before flight.

 

Anyway, the question is, does SF2 have a similiar feature to pre-load stuff?

[+EricJ]

I honestly don't think so, as sometimes I get the same problem. If there was a way I'd like to know too...

[xclusiv8]

Maybe you should post this over at TW. I bet TK will have some usefull info.

[+gregoryp]

I'd sure like to post over there, I've done the Forgot Password and resend auth and nothing comes back to my email Hope I wasn't banned

[+Paladrian]

Actually everything the game needs is preloaded, unlike CFS or MSFS

 

The problem with the cities is that they have many single different objects (3d buildings): for the graphics engine it is much easier to render 10 1000-polygon objects than 1000 10-polygon objects at the same time

[+gregoryp]

Actually everything the game needs is preloaded, unlike CFS or MSFS

 

The problem with the cities is that they have many single different objects (3d buildings): for the graphics engine it is much easier to render 10 1000-polygon objects than 1000 10-polygon objects at the same time

 

 

My old slow system running SF2 I had to pause it right when I started a mission. Go to external view, move around the aircraft, do the same with any enemy aircraft. If I didn't when the aircraft got in visual range my system would stop and the HD light would be solid. I think it loads on the fly as needed.

 

I hear you on the poly renderings. CFS4 went to cities with one giant poly. When we did the same in MAW we greatly inproved frame rates. The MAW dev's LOD'd everything. Which explains how we could have 250 aircraft in a dogfight with reasonable frame rates.

[Lexx_Luthor]

CFS4 went to cities with one giant poly.

 

I've wondered about that, thinking of the possibility of making isolated towering cumulus clouds out of 3d polygons, like the Sims Of Old, the Sims of Renown, say, DOS Su-27 FLAKER 1.0 from 1995. Since then all The Sims have gone to (rotating lol) "fluffy" cloud "textures" that don't exist as objects in game.

 

A 3d cloud lod, set to float like a balloon, would interact with the SF sun and be illuminated on poly faces toward the SF sun, and shaded on faces away from the SF sun. Give it a big one polygon flat bottom. Skinning would be interesting.

 

Something like these ~> http://www.chitambo.com/clouds/cloudshtml/towering.html

 

 

The RAAF Meteorological Flight (continued)

Air-Commodore Heffernan stated:

 

'Sometimes during a flight one would encounter huge towering cumulus clouds, and it was a sheer delight to play chasings around them—through the valleys and then a dive into a mass of cloud, a couple of minutes of clammy wetness and out into brilliant sunshine. In fact we were not supposed to do anything other than climbing and gliding, as there was some theory that violent manoeuvres upset the thermometers; but it was hard to resist the temptation of this type of sport; and as I said earlier, because of the limited number of aircraft around the sky in those times, there was virtually no risk of collision.

 

One morning however, I was frolicking around a big cumulus cloud and was actually about to loop the machine through a hole in it when, as I came over the top of the loop, I saw to my horror another Bulldog looping in the opposite direction. Both of us were upside down and pointing straight at each other! I've forgotten what type of avoiding action we took, but I know that I fell back into the cloud and prayed that the other chap had gone the other way. On returning to the tarmac I was greeted by my friend, and we both made the same remark: 'Were you the bloody fool that was mucking around that cloud?'. Thereafter, we treated cumulus clouds with a bit more respect.'

 

~ http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/fam/0249.html

 

What is CFS4?

[Dogzero1]

You lot dont know when you are born. I remember when city scapes were really detailed in combat flight sims . Infact I still have a dabble with these sometimes on my retro pc.

 

 

[+Gr.Viper]

I remember times when sims wers still allowed to have the towers in NY and Meigs Field was not a fictional airfield.

[Gunrunner]

While we're on preloading, it would be great if the engine didn't flush video and system memory after each mission, that would save some time at the start of the next mission.

 

As it is, the engine reads ressources from disk to load them in video/system memory at the start of a mission (with video memory updates during the mission) and flushes everything afterwards.

If you use the same ressources in the next mission, it loads it again in memory having to read from disk again.

With an index of loaded ressources and no flush, it would be easy to keep the needed ressources (cutting on disk reading time) and replace the others by the needed ones (suppression/replacement in memory has virtually no time cost), cutting load times.

 

And yes, even with SSDs, it takes way too long on a heavily modded install.

[xclusiv8]

My old slow system running SF2 I had to pause it right when I started a mission. Go to external view, move around the aircraft, do the same with any enemy aircraft. If I didn't when the aircraft got in visual range my system would stop and the HD light would be solid. I think it loads on the fly as needed.

 

I hear you on the poly renderings. CFS4 went to cities with one giant poly. When we did the same in MAW we greatly inproved frame rates. The MAW dev's LOD'd everything. Which explains how we could have 250 aircraft in a dogfight with reasonable frame rates.

 

Its sounds like your HDD is defragmented alot

Edited April 10, 2010 by xclusiv8