Like watching a slide-show...

[phantom67 0]

So I recently dug out my copy of CFS3 & OFF after my most recent computer upgrade and a sudden urge to play some decent flight sims.I installed CFS, the CFS patch, BHaH, the 2 patches, HitR and its patch (<-in that order), configured it all according to the ATI graphics card recommendation in the install guide, and when I started up the game, when the plane is sitting on the runway, I max out at 10fps (according to Fraps). I tried lowering the Terrain and Scenery settings both down to 1, did not make any different, then I lowered everything else down to 1 and it made no difference either. The other curious thing is, when I look up at the sky in the game, my FPS rockets up to 60, but as soon as any of the terrain comes into view again, it drops like a rock.

 

I'm running an Intel i7 2600k (stock clock speed) on an Asus P8P67 Pro motherboard, 8GB of DDR3-1600 RAM with my Sapphire ATi Radeon 4870X2. I've tried all the different settings on the Catalyst Control Centre, none of it made any difference.

 

Anyone know whats up? Help would be greatly appreciated.

 

edit: I'm also running Catalyst 11.5 on Windows 7 64-bit if that helps.

Edited June 6, 2011 by phantom67

[Chamo 0]

Hi!

 

The terrain and objects rendering looks like it's malfunctioning (when you look up, there is no terrain to render) Try some HD/Optimization mods to see if they fix the problem. Also update everything (as usual).

 

 

[phantom67 0]

Optimization Mods? You'll have to be a bit more specific, you're talking to a noob ;)

[BirdDogICT 3]

So I recently dug out my copy of CFS3 & OFF after my most recent computer upgrade and a sudden urge to play some decent flight sims.I installed CFS, the CFS patch, BHaH, the 2 patches, HitR and its patch (<-in that order), configured it all according to the ATI graphics card recommendation in the install guide, and when I started up the game, when the plane is sitting on the runway, I max out at 10fps (according to Fraps). I tried lowering the Terrain and Scenery settings both down to 1, did not make any different, then I lowered everything else down to 1 and it made no difference either. The other curious thing is, when I look up at the sky in the game, my FPS rockets up to 60, but as soon as any of the terrain comes into view again, it drops like a rock.

 

I'm running an Intel i7 2600k (stock clock speed) on an Asus P8P67 Pro motherboard, 8GB of DDR3-1600 RAM with my Sapphire ATi Radeon 4870X2. I've tried all the different settings on the Catalyst Control Centre, none of it made any difference.

 

Anyone know whats up? Help would be greatly appreciated.

 

edit: I'm also running Catalyst 11.5 on Windows 7 64-bit if that helps.

Do yourself a favor and ignore the ATI tweaks...you don't need them since about Catalyst 10.3, especially with your 4870. The only exceptions might be Dual Pass Render, and anything that reduces immersion (like turning TAC on or Simulation Messages on). I run BHaH with a 5770, which is actually slower than the 4870, and don't use any of the ATI tweaks. I'm also running Catalyst 11.5.

 

Set AA from within the game to 4X or 8X, then set AA in Catalyst to "Use Application Settings", and turn Morphological AA on. Set AF to 4X or 8x and Mipmap Detail Level to Quality. Ignore Tesselation, Catalyst AI, Vertical Refresh, and OpenGL Settings. This should give you the best balance of performance/appearance, especially when flying in dark, overcast clouds. Also, reduce Workshop settings like Ground Detail and Regional Air Activity.

 

FPS are always lower on the runway, over the frontlines, near airports, or in giant furrballs due to the number of objects that are modeled.

 

If this doesn't work, you can get a FPS boost by turning shadows off.

 

Your mileage may vary.

[BirdDogICT 3]

Just adding my 2 cents, but for a Nvidia guy Catalyst is Greek to me

 

When Troubleshooting ( Z ) is FPS

UncleAl,

 

Catalyst Control Center is the ATI equivalent of the nVidia Control Panel. They now refer to it as the AMD Vision Engine Control Center, FWIW.

[phantom67 0]

 

FPS are always lower on the runway, over the frontlines, near airports, or in giant furrballs due to the number of objects that are modeled.

 

How low are we talking? 20-30 I can handle, but right now I'm getting between 5 and 15, pretty sure something isn't right, considering my spec o_O

[phantom67 0]

First off get rid of Fraps for now, as it's a known Frame Rate eater. Use ( Z ) for constant FPS readouts.

 

Do you have the problem when you try to run CFS3 itself, just fly the P47 . . Nothing Fancy . . . if everything works fine . . it's an OFF setting. If that's messed-up aswell, something's up with the catalyst

 

After I suggest to double check your Monitor setting in workshop. This Nvidia guy bows out

 

 

 

 

Flew the P47 for a Quick mission (attack on a Gerry airbase). FPS went down to 25 right at the start, but that was only very briefly, the rest of the time it sat comfortably between 40 and 60. Its perfectly playable, but still a little lower than I would've thought. Fired up another Quick Battle using OFF again, and it went right down to 5fps when looking at the ground.

Edited June 7, 2011 by phantom67

[phantom67 0]

Other thing I might mention is when I look straight down at the ground, the fps sort of stabilizes at around 20-30, but when I look over the horizon on sections with lots of ground objects, it drops down to about 5.

 

edit: Disabled Shadows as well, changed AA settings and everything. Made no difference. Think its something to do with the amount of ground objects, cause when I look straight down at the ground, or up into the sky, it flies along at 60fps. I have no idea why my computer would be struggling with this -_-

Edited June 7, 2011 by phantom67

[Olham 164]

Well, I have an i5 CPU, and also an 4870 (1GB).

Other than BirdDog, I only set everything up in Catalyst Control Center (which is only for ATI cards, UncleAl).

I have maxed out everything there, and my fraps are wonderful.

 

Perhaps you check my complete graphics settings guide (which works fine for me):

 

http://combatace.com/topic/60374-an-easy-pictorial-guide-graphics-setup/page__view__findpost__p__452080

[Olham 164]

My Catalyst Control Center settings under "Gaming / 3D Application Settings" are:

 

Smoothvision HD Anti-Aliasing: Samples 8x - Filter: "Box"

 

Smoothvision HD Anisotropic Filtering: per-pixel samples 16x

 

Catalyst A.I. (not disabled): Advanced

 

Mipmap Detail Level: High Quality

 

Wait for vertical refresh: Always On

 

Adaptive Anti-Aliasing (enabled): Quality

 

Open GL-Settings: "Triple buffering" not enabled

Edited June 8, 2011 by Olham

[BirdDogICT 3]

Are you running 4870X2 in Crossfire? If so, you're most likely using Supersample AA, which I found to be a real FPS killer with BHaH. That's why I suggested using in-game AA and using Morphological AA (a type of post process AA that puts few demands on your GPU). That would limit you to one GPU (if in Crossfire), but one 4870 is enough.

 

Olham's settings work for most older cards, although some have found that FullScreen Swap Effect crashes the game if set to D3DSWAPEFFECT_COPY_VSYNC. It should be set to FLIP or DISCARD.

 

Something is seriously goofy with your setup. Hope we can help you sort it out.

[phantom67 0]

In Workshop CHECK . . the . . Ground Object Density. . on. . .LOW

 

Tried that, no difference. Will do some more testing when I get home.

[phantom67 0]

So I've been messing around with all my graphics settings (both in game, as well as my Catalyst settings) and to be honest, I'm getting pretty mixed results. At this stage it tends to be sitting FAIRLY stable between 40-60, which I guess isn't FANTASTIC but its definitely playable and enjoyable. I'll keep reporting if I have any more issues, and if I don't post, its because I got lost somewhere over Flanders.

[themightysrc 5]

phantom - try Olham's settings. His screenies are gorgeous, and I've never heard him moan about fps rates, therefore there's likely to be a fair bit in there which will help you. Good luck!

[BirdDogICT 3]

So I've been messing around with all my graphics settings (both in game, as well as my Catalyst settings) and to be honest, I'm getting pretty mixed results. At this stage it tends to be sitting FAIRLY stable between 40-60, which I guess isn't FANTASTIC but its definitely playable and enjoyable. I'll keep reporting if I have any more issues, and if I don't post, its because I got lost somewhere over Flanders.

40-60 is excellent for your rig. The object is to get all the eye candy with a frame rate above 30 and no stuttering. As long as FPS doesn't drop below 30 you won't even notice the difference, since you're gonna spend most of your time at altitude on long boring flights where nothing much happens.

[phantom67 0]

40-60 is excellent for your rig. The object is to get all the eye candy with a frame rate above 30 and no stuttering. As long as FPS doesn't drop below 30 you won't even notice the difference, since you're gonna spend most of your time at altitude on long boring flights where nothing much happens.

 

Damnit. I was just flying a mission (first proper one since I started my Campaign), everything ran fine, until I got close to the objective (nothing notworthy, just a patrol behind our own lines) and the framerate plummeted down to 10 again >:(. Its not like there was a lot of ground activity or anything, the scenery was no different from the scenery I encountered on my way to the objective, but the framerate just dropped to the point were it became unplayable again. I have NO idea what is causing this, I'm completely lost. I've tried everything :( I fired up a Quick Battle immediately after and it ran like crap, even though they ran perfectly fine on the same settings last night.

Edited June 9, 2011 by phantom67

[almccoyjr 7]

Another troubleshooting option is to run Process Monitor.

 

Using "Z" to watch your fps load, run a full campaign/quick flight to establish a time line for a couple of major frame rate drops and then compare the time with what data ProcMon was capturing. Windows 7 and Windows System Internals forums can aid with the setup and interpreting the data/processes.

 

plug_nickel

[phantom67 0]

It's painfully obvious. . it's reverted to it's old ways . . Firstly check the settings in your Catalyst Control Center

 

Then Configure your video card in workshop . . AGAIN checking your settings in overrides . . along with the other catagories . . . but when you're Leaving . .Don't ( X ) your way out . . . .instead . . File>Exit

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Granted . . this is grasping at straws . .But something is causing a change . . .kind of like it's the unwanted by-product of the operation of something else . . . Keeps coming up Automatic Scheduled . SYSTEM SCANS. . . Because Something refuses to play nice, with something else

 

To prove or disprove this theory. . Isolate yourself from the internet totally . . physically if possible . . .uninstall all protection systems. . .Set up OFF and Play . . . 24 hours Later Play OFF again. . If it's a slideshow we've wasted 24 Hours

 

But if it's fine . . somethings got to go . . .as to which. . your choice

 

In Phase 1, I had total Mc Afee, but I discovered I couldn't download any optional 3rd party OFF missions. It cost me $70 but no-more Mc Afee

 

 

 

 

Funny you should say this, but I noticed that if I tick Dual Pass Render, run a game, and go back to workshop, it is unticked. Not sure if this is what is causing the huge fps drop, but any idea why it would be doing this?

[BirdDogICT 3]

Funny you should say this, but I noticed that if I tick Dual Pass Render, run a game, and go back to workshop, it is unticked. Not sure if this is what is causing the huge fps drop, but any idea why it would be doing this?

Dual Pass Render is a FPS hog for some, especially with older ATI cards.

 

Uncle Al is spot on: exiting CFS3Config using anything other than File, Exit wil void any changes you made to graphics config. Also note that if setting AA from cfs3config, it won't dsplay the true level of AA you set. These are known glitches from CFS3 and are detailed in the FAQ.

[phantom67 0]

Yeah but File > Exit is all I have been using thus far. I never use the 'X' anyway. What I'm getting at is that it saves all the other settings, but Dual Pass Render somehow manages to untick itself after I've flown a mission.

[phantom67 0]

This comes from a strictly Nvidia guy. So I don't know if it's even possible.

 

If you're experiencing unexplainable problems with Catalyst 11.5. Is there anything stopping you from trying Catalyst 11 or 10.5

 

I mean if you had no internet connection, would your ATI Card turn into a pumpkin at midnight ?

 

Because a smooth running 10.5, beats the hell out of a slideshow 11.5

 

Yeah I've tried several different Catalyst installs (each of them preceded by a complete Driver sweep) and its all just more of the same. For some reason, not only does it keep DISABLING Dual Render Pass when I ENABLE it, it also ENABLES High Resolution Z-Buffer when I DISABLE it, so for SOME of my settings it doesn't want to save them, or it saves them, and reverts after a mission. Right now I'm finding fairly stable frame rates when I ENABLE Dual Pass Rendering and DISABBLE High Resolution Z-Buffer, it just keeps reverting though. I've made sure that the CFS3Config file, OFF Manager as well as CFS3.exe are set to Run as Administrator in case that was causing anything, but its just the same **** every time.

[phantom67 0]

Sounds like a conflict with SOMETHING, perhaps it's time to grasp at straws.

 

Ancient History in Phase II, was Trackir & Microsoft Powerpoint Mouse. So anything is possible

 

Yeah I thought at one point that it might've been my TrackIR since the software was running kinda laggy, but I don't see why that would revert settings in CFS3, and on top of that, it was doing this before I even had my TrackIR all set up, and I've tried unplugging it and running the game without it, and its all the same anyway.

 

Just wanted let you guys know anyway that I appreciate all the help you've given me so far, really neat little community this is :) Hopefully we can sort this crap out soon.

[+Polovski 458]

It sounds more like overheating of the CPU or GPU which would in term throttle speed if you get 40-60 in places then almost nothing. First check your heatsink is fitted properly to your CPU (important) and all fans are working properly and clean - then look in the BIOS and disable try CPU throttling.

 

If you have a problem with fan/heatsink it wouldn't be a good idea of course, but if all checks out then this see the attached pic to give you an idea.

If you are not sure about BIOS setting or changing get some advice or help before changing anything.

 

You can use HWMonitor to show temps of CPU under stress.

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

 

Also CPU speed IS important, so if it's not overheating, try a small amount of some overclocking.

 

The settings not sticking doesn't sound right at all but no idea why that would be - unless you are not saving using FILE,EXIT do NOT close the using the right hand corner [X]. Make sure you are running cfsconfig from the \OBDSoftware\CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields folder. High res Z buffer should be on anyway usually.

 

Make sure any Antialiasing settings are set to Override application or something not "Enhance application.."

[phantom67 0]

Yep I'm running HWMonitor in the background to keep tabs on CPU and GPU temps and they are both running just fine, I'm fairly sure it has something to do with the settings reverting that is causing it, and I'm definitely using File > Exit instead of the red 'X'

[phantom67 0]

Played for a bit with HWMon running, max the graphics card got to was 87 degrees, with the variable fan setting I can get it down to about 50 under stress. (the 4870X2s are well known for their high temperature, there have been some cases where they go all the way up to 100), and I had the CPU sitting at about 38. Temperatures are fine.