Solved a "bug" in OFF

[CaptSopwith 26]

Just thought I'd share some thoughts after reading a great post over at SimHQ from our own RickityCrate. Here's the thread, btw.

 

Some time ago I had started a late war pilot serving in Jasta 6 in summer of 1918. With the war in its closing, chaotic stages, I bumped up regional air activity to heavy to reflect the ridiculous numbers of aircraft flying over the front at that time.

 

It never failed, my late war campaigns were always slide show-fests. OFF would take forever to load and when I would try to take off and my FPS was down in the low teens and rarely improved. During flight, I experienced intermittent stutters that never went away. Dogfighting became a real hit and miss affair. I tried everything I could think of on the graphics side of things - I dropped the resolution, turned down my anti-aliasing, dropped detail down - all to no avail. Every time I'd relaunch a mission, I was still in single digit FPS territory. Grumbling about a possible OFF bug and even wondering if the late war planes were just too polygon heavy, I resigned myself to flying earlier war campaigns - oblivious to my adjusting of the regional air activity as a possible cause of the problem.

 

After doing some more work, and coming across the aforementioned thread at SimHQ, I went back and tinkered with my late war Jasta fodder and dropped regional air activity back to medium. And just like that, my FPS were back up where they've always been, even with all of my graphical detail ramped up! I should have known it was something I did!

 

And that's when I figured it out. OFF was generating so much regional activity that it was taxing my computer to a crawl! So alas, until I upgrade my rig (which will likely be sometime next decade! lol) I'll have to keep flying at medium activity for now. Once more, a potential glitch turns out to be a really cool feature of OFF. There is so much going on behind the scenes, over the horizon that we don't know about. It reminds me of a "feature" listed on the back of the old Red Baron II box. It read something like "dogfights rage whether you're there to see them or not. The whole virtual world is alive at all times." OFF carries on that tradition with pride.

 

Well done guys! Here's hoping I knock out that PhD quickly so I can get a real job and buy a new computer in time for P4!

Edited June 6, 2010 by _CaptSopwith

[rabu 9]

Yea, those higher concentration setting are for the guys here with the Ferrari computer set ups, or at lease, a lot better then I have! I leave mine on the default normal level and have plenty of action.

[Fortiesboy 3]

Just thought I'd share some thoughts after reading a great post over at SimHQ from our own RickityCrate. Here's the thread, btw.

 

I tried everything I could think of on the graphics side of things - I dropped the resolution,

 

Just in case you are not aware, Capt, CFS3, and therefore OFF, have a peculiarity ( a welcome one ) in that the sim runs with faster FPS the higher you set the resolution at.

This is against the mormal run of things re peformance and resolution, but it is a fact.

 

All other things being equal, the higher resolution you set the sim at, the faster it runs.

 

It might get you a few more FPS.

 

cheers

[CaptSopwith 26]

Just in case you are not aware, Capt, CFS3, and therefore OFF, have a peculiarity ( a welcome one ) in that the sim runs with faster FPS the higher you set the resolution at.

This is against the mormal run of things re peformance and resolution, but it is a fact.

 

All other things being equal, the higher resolution you set the sim at, the faster it runs.

 

It might get you a few more FPS.

 

cheers

 

Yep! I run OFF at my desktop resolution (1680x1050) and tried dropping it back out of sheer desperation lol! It's interesting how even with everything dialed back it made no difference in FPS. Peculiar engine indeed.