Graphical Enhancement Mod boosts frame rates by a double!

[Ticket1]

Hi folks,

 

I can't wait to rush in to report and share with you some of the happiness and excitement plus joys I've just accidentally discovered.  The story begins with my aimless wandering around the download section sort of window-shopping around.  And I chanced on seeing nixarass's Graphical Enhancement Mod -> http://combatace.com/files/file/8214-graphical-enhancement-mod-for-tw-games/ you can preview on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8eFRHwq7cM.

 

It's also the simplest install ever as far as a TK series mod is concerned.  The beauty is that you can deactivate it by Shift+F12.  I installed it, ran it for a few minutes and just out of curiosity for some unknown reasons, I hit the ALT-D and the in-game frame rate counter popped out of the fine and sunny sky.  I wasn't quite aware of the change initially until I paused for a moment and stared at the figures presented.  125 what!!!  The I was beginning to be more serious and check it again, no drama, it did read 100, 125,95  as you know the counter is real-time so figures are overlapping but I did see 3 digits figure so it's gonna to be higher than 100.  My good lord!!!

 

I uninstalled by removing the ini from the Flight and home folder.  Then I ran the simulator again.  The same mission, but the reading just capped at 53 or 52 something which I've already been through tens of time due to some recent research/testing work.  As scientific as I am used to be, I installed the mod again and ran it through one more time.  Boom!!!   Wow!!!!!!!  100~125 and I panned around my F-4J pit, no joke, it's really a double!

 

For your information, my graphics card is a native 4870 1GB DDR5 driven by Catalyst 8.12 running under Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bits and my CPU is Q6600@2.4GHz.  Surely, the file d3d9.dll is to be crowned for this big boosts of frame rate though I know not about how exactly it works.  Amazing  and if nixarass is here reading this thread, I would like to say a million of thanks to your contribution!

 

 

 

 

Tk1

 

 

[FastCargo]

This actually has been known about for a long time, and it isn't nixerass' mod.

 

It actually is the enbseries mod created here: http://enbdev.com/index_en.html.

 

This was orginally designed for other games, but has been tried with varying results on different games, including the TW series.

 

FC

[Ticket1]

I see! But well...funny no body mentions when I said the frame rates are low.  Anyway, I must make good use of this file.  I guess it is the d3d9.dll which does the trick, I don't mind to use the Shift+F12 function. It really does increase by 80% the FPS. I'm so glad!!

[SFP1Ace]

I see! But well...funny no body mentions when I said the frame rates are low. Anyway, I must make good use of this file. I guess it is the d3d9.dll which does the trick, I don't mind to use the Shift+F12 function. It really does increase by 80% the FPS. I'm so glad!!

 

Strange, with your system you should have better framerates with DX 10/ Adanced shaders than with enb series dll. I run system very similar to yours (ATi 4890, Q9650@3.0 Ghz, W7 32 bit) and I've done some tests (details set to Unlimited, custom single mission);

 

DX9 pure (No ENB) - 12 FPS in cockpit;

DX9 with ENB - 26 FPS in cockpit;

DX10 with Advanced Shaders on - 40 FPS.

 

So I don't even bother with ENB series nowadays. It's strange that you actually notice a performance boost rather than degradation...

[Stick]

well its pegged under the SF1 discussion so...

[Ticket1]

Strange, with your system you should have better framerates with DX 10/ Adanced shaders than with enb series dll. I run system very similar to yours (ATi 4890, Q9650@3.0 Ghz, W7 32 bit) and I've done some tests (details set to Unlimited, custom single mission);

 

DX9 pure (No ENB) - 12 FPS in cockpit;

DX9 with ENB - 26 FPS in cockpit;

DX10 with Advanced Shaders on - 40 FPS.

 

So I don't even bother with ENB series nowadays. It's strange that you actually notice a performance boost rather than degradation...

Are you talking about Series 1 or Series 2?  I heard that Series 2 is taking advantages of DX10 which is native in Windows Vista/7.  Mine is Series 1.  But what you've said is right, according to the readme, one should expect performance degradation rather than a boost.  But what I've got is factual.I've captured a screen shot as below: The in-game graphics setting is medium with shadow set to Low, in fact I don't think I need shadow.  The resolution is 1024X768 run in Windowed mode.  Outside the game, on the OS level I set AA=8X without AF.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 27, 2010 by Ticket1

[SFP1Ace]

well its pegged under the SF1 discussion so...

 

How did I missed THAT? LOL, too much wine & mead, I guess :D. Still the figures I presented show that it's worth to jump to Series 2 even for the performance improvement alone....

 

P.S. I'm glad you're happy with this improvement mate . So were we, but then Series 2 came along and blew it away (well not instantly, it took some time till TK implemented DX10 properly).

Edited August 27, 2010 by SFP1Ace

[Ticket1]

How did I missed THAT? LOL, too much wine & mead, I guess :D. Still the figures I presented show that it's worth to jump to Series 2 even for the performance improvement alone....

 

P.S. I'm glad you're happy with this improvement mate . So were we, but then Series 2 came along and blew it away (well not instantly, it took some time till TK implemented DX10 properly).

Oh well I see.  BTW, corrections to what I've quoted in my last thread, for some unknown reasons, I am not permitted to an "Edit" function, so I'll have to write it up on another thread, the graphics settings are

 

Mirror=Off

 

 

Reflection=Off

 

 

Shadow=Low

 

Horizon Distance=Normal

 

Ground Objects=Medium

 

all the other parameters are set to High.  I dare not try Unlimited coz given the quality is already that high as shown in the image above, I don't think my eyes can tell the difference between Unlimited and High.  All I need is this level of quality and a very very good frame rates!!

 

 

[SFP1Ace]

It's all subjective mate ;) Good fer ya, but "I" wouldn't enjoy the game as much without mirriors or plane shadows etc. I recon that with you rig you could easily expect framerates in the range of 30-50 FPS with UNLIMITED settings. With the setting you're using now, you'd end up with constant 60 FPS , coz Series 2 has permament VSYNC, at least in DX10

[PadFoot]

It's all subjective mate ;) Good fer ya, but "I" wouldn't enjoy the game as much without mirriors or plane shadows etc. I recon that with you rig you could easily expect framerates in the range of 30-50 FPS with UNLIMITED settings. With the setting you're using now, you'd end up with constant 60 FPS , coz Series 2 has permament VSYNC, at least in DX10

 

Oh well...is that so?  You're probably right. What I'm saying is that the frame rates stick to 55 or 58 without this enhancement.  However, with this enhancement activated, I get 111 like the above and sometimes I get something crazy like 250, seems that they are not capped.  It's truly amazing.  What exactly does this D3D9.dll does?

[SFP1Ace]

Well, it's just a guess...but I'd say that it makes a better use of your graphic cards Pixel/Vertex/Unified whatever Shaders to to take some load of the CPU. Original SF1 and FE series are mainly CPU limited when talking about the performance...SF2 series takes it even further thanks to use of AdvancedShaders DX10 function TK has implemented few patches earlier.

I also recon that D3D9.dll is a standard library file of a DX9 package, and is present in every modern PC with MS Widows installed. On the other hand D3D9.dll from the ENB series is, I think, custom modified/compiled library, that when installed in game's folder makes it "bypass" default DX9 D3d9.dll library file.

 

Does that makes any sense to you?

Edited August 27, 2010 by SFP1Ace

[PadFoot]

Well, it's just a guess...but I'd say that it makes a better use of your graphic cards Pixel/Vertex/Unified whatever Shaders to to take some load of the  CPU. Original SF1 and FE series are mainly CPU limited when talking about the performance...SF2 series takes it even further thanks to use of AdvancedShaders DX10 function TK has implemented few patches earlier.

I also recon that D3D9.dll is a standard library file of a DX9 package, and is present in every modern PC with MS Widows installed. On the other hand D3D9.dll from the ENB series is, I think, custom modified/compiled library, that when installed in game's folder makes it "bypass" default DX9 D3d9.dll library file.

 

Does that makes any sense to you?

It does make perfect sense to me.  Actually your explanation is proven by the temperature drop of the 4 cores of the Q6600.  I'm running a utility called CPUID Hardware Monitor side-by-side the simulator and I can see the numbers drops compared to the one without using D3D9.dll.  This is impressive!!!

[PadFoot]

I recon that with you rig you could easily expect framerates in the range of 30-50 FPS with UNLIMITED settings.

 

You're right!!  I've just tried that, it fluctuated between 32~38 but never enter the range of 40~50. When it get passed cities where there are lots of buildings, frames rate dropped.  

 

 

As a conclusion, the most killing factor is the Mirror & Shadow.  I turned off Shadow first, that gave me 10+ more frames thus entreing the 40~48 range.

 

Next I switched off Mirror, wow! It went back to 50~60 and next I changed Horizon Distance to Far instead of Very Far, that gave me at least 18 frames so I ended up in the 70~80 range.

 

Unlimited is not needed especially for ground objects. I mean how much eye-candy ground objects in TW games give us?  They are very primitive houses.  Unless you want to check out the screw on the SCUD launcher, you really don't need unlimited ground object details.

 

Anyway, this D3D9.dll now revives the Series 1 installs, and I'm very happy with it.

 

 

[Ticket1]

You're right!!  I've just tried that, it fluctuated between 32~38 but never enter the range of 40~50. When it get passed cities where there are lots of buildings, frames rate dropped.  

 

 

As a conclusion, the most killing factor is the Mirror & Shadow.  I turned off Shadow first, that gave me 10+ more frames thus entreing the 40~48 range.

 

Next I switched off Mirror, wow! It went back to 50~60 and next I changed Horizon Distance to Far instead of Very Far, that gave me at least 18 frames so I ended up in the 70~80 range.

 

Unlimited is not needed especially for ground objects. I mean how much eye-candy ground objects in TW games give us?  They are very primitive houses.  Unless you want to check out the screw on the SCUD launcher, you really don't need unlimited ground object details.

 

Anyway, this D3D9.dll now revives the Series 1 installs, and I'm very happy with it.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are you using Q6600 CPU too?  I'm interested to know if you've over clocked it.  How do you obtain your readings?  Were there many flights in the air or you run a single plane mission?

[SFP1Ace]

You're right!! I've just tried that, it fluctuated between 32~38 but never enter the range of 40~50. When it get passed cities where there are lots of buildings, frames rate dropped.

 

Well, I recon you'd be in 40-50 range with SF2/FE2 series and DX10 ;)

[GwynO]

With DX10 force disabled on my lametop integrated graphics POS running Vista Home 32bit, I find the Enb series .dll/ini combo invaluable! Running just the "Out of the Box" game then truth be told I think even with force DX9, my machine runs faster (FPS) without it but put anything remotely like the SF2Vietnam Ground And Air War Mod in and it runs like an asthmatic snail UNLESS said plug-in is enabled, in which case it runs like silk dripping from a spoon, not PERFECTLY smooth.. but SMOOTH enough!!

[Fubar512]

ItWith the setting you're using now, you'd end up with constant 60 FPS , coz Series 2 has permament VSYNC, at least in DX10

 

No it doesn't. Not by a long shot. Wrong information, bud.

 

F-104G in SF2 at night, just to show exhaust glow shader and prove that it's under DX10.

 

Edited August 28, 2010 by Fubar512

[SFP1Ace]

WOW, Fubar, how'd you do it? I, for the love of God ,cant get more than 60 FPS even when looking at a blank sky...Tried switching VSync off in Catalyst Control Panel, forcing VSync Off in Options.ini, no love . So I thought that this is normal? Perhaps it's only my system. I'm using ATI graphics card, is your GC NVIDIA or something?

 

Just a picture to show that I'm not on drugs and really am capped at 60 FPS...F/A-18A, NF4+, High/Unlimited settings:

 

Edited August 28, 2010 by SFP1Ace

[Fubar512]

I have a rather modest graphics card, an EVGA GTS 250, which is essentially an overclocked, 1024 mb 9800GTX.

 

The key to consistantly high frame rates in this series, is brute processing power. 3 ghz is good, 3.6 ghz is much better, 4+ is great! Having more than a dual core CPU means nothing, as the series barely uses the second core, as is.

 

Oh, and you must force vsynch off in both the options.ini, and in the video card's control panel.

[Ticket1]

With DX10 force disabled on my lametop integrated graphics POS running Vista Home 32bit, I find the Enb series .dll/ini combo invaluable! Running just the "Out of the Box" game then truth be told I think even with force DX9, my machine runs faster (FPS) without it but put anything remotely like the SF2Vietnam Ground And Air War Mod in and it runs like an asthmatic snail UNLESS said plug-in is enabled, in which case it runs like silk dripping from a spoon, not PERFECTLY smooth.. but SMOOTH enough!!  

 

But then there is one tiny little thing which I'm not sure if anyone up here has given some thoughts about it.  Said it's smooth because all we saw on the FPS counter red something like 100~125, some panned views even reported 225!  But then when I moved my head around inside the cockpit, there's still some sort of lagging, it's very minute but you can feel and see that...compared to the smoothness of the vanilla out-of-the-box version I mean.

 

 

 

 

 

But anyway I luve it!

 

 

[Ticket1]

WOW, Fubar, how'd you do it? I, for the love of God ,cant get more than 60 FPS even when looking at a blank sky...Tried switching VSync off in Catalyst Control Panel, forcing VSync Off in Options.ini, no love . So I thought that this is normal? Perhaps it's only my system. I'm using ATI graphics card, is your GC NVIDIA or something?

 

Just a picture to show that I'm not on drugs and really am capped at 60 FPS...F/A-18A, NF4+, High/Unlimited settings:

 

Dude,

 

I guess I know the cause of your concern.  Your resolution is higher than ours!   Yours is amongst the highest I'm afraid.

 

 

 

[Ticket1]

Folks,

 

This is my option.ini files, I can't find the line which refers to VSync??

 

[GraphicsOptions]
DisplayDeviceID=0
DisplayWidth=1280
DisplayHeight=800
DisplayDepth=32
AspectRatio=1.600000
LensFlare=0
DetailLevel=4
ObjectDetail=2
ObjectTexture=2
CockpitTexture=2
CockpitMirrors=0
CockpitReflection=0
EffectsDetail=2
TerrainDetail=2
TerrainTexture=2
HorizonDistance=1
GroundObjectDensity=2
WaterDetail=2
CloudsDetail=0
Shadow=0
AntiAliasing=0

 

 

[SFP1Ace]

Dude,

 

I guess I know the cause of your concern. Your resolution is higher than ours! Yours is amongst the highest I'm afraid.

 

 

 

 

Not a chance, mate, here's lower resolution for a change:

 

 

Besides I'm running quite powerfull rig: Q9650 OC'ed to 4.4 GHz, 4 GB RAM, 1 GB ATI Radeon 4890 that I can OC to 960/4400...And my FPS are CAPPED at 60 fps, obivously sometimes drop lower to 30-40 when a lot of action on the screen :). And Fubar, I tried different combinations of Vsync in Options.ini and Control Panel, doesn't make any difference.

 

Since you're running Nvidia card I'll risk the following: In SF2 series ATI graphic cards users FPS are capped at their displays refresh rate, while Nvidia users are not. Maybe some ATI guys can confirm this?

 

Ticket1, I'm affraid that SF2 series Options.ini looks slightly different ;)

[Fubar512]

 

Ticket1, I'm affraid that SF2 series Options.ini looks slightly different ;)

 

Ummmm, perhaps because this is an SF1 forum, and we're discussing SF2 issues and settings?

[SFP1Ace]

Ummmm, perhaps because this is an SF1 forum, and we're discussing SF2 issues and settings?

 

Oops! ;) And all this confusion started with me not noticing it and posting in the first place - had too much wine and mead indeed (tasty japanese plum liquer wine and polish mead, yummy!)