July Update is Released : Discuss

[+Baltika 84]

Just installed the July patch, positive response from me so far.

 

The FPS issues I have been having are now completely gone. Pre-July patch I was getting continual microstutters, and an average FPS of 25-30, with dips into the teens, no matter what in-game graphics settings I used.

 

I have run several missions with the new patch, and I am getting rock-solid 60 FPS with everything set to unlimited ingame, at 1920x1080. I have set AA to 8x CSAA and forced Vsync on through nvidia control panel, so my framerate is limited by my monitor refresh rate. I also used the nvidia panel to set triple buffering and threaded optimisation on.

 

I am running a stock combined install of all the SF2 games, plus both expansion packs and a few DLC planes. I ran my test missions using Stary's enhanced Germany tileset, otherwise no mods.

 

I am also one of the lucky ones who do not seem to be affected by the avionics60.dll issue, I have tested it out on July patch with AA and AG radar running, no stutters.

 

@Pureblue, I know TK has not posted a reply to the avionics60 thread over at TW boards, but on facebook he answered the question by saying they are still looking into what causes it, so it seems he is aware of the issue and trying to pin it down.

 

I would be interested to know if those who have tried the new patch see a similar FPS boost to the one I have seen.

 

Cheers all,

 

Baltika

[+Baltika 84]

Update:-

 

Running the NA campaign using the SF2NA exe, I am getting more like 35-40 FPS over Iceland, but we always knew that terrain was a resource hog.

 

On a more positive note, running a strike mission on the Kiev battlegroup, 6 of my flight of 8 A-7s were hit by ship-launched SAMs, including me.

 

I think some tweaking of the SAM behaviour has been going on, but probably more testing is required.

 

Still not seeing any stutters using avionics60.

[+Stary 2,426]

will have to check it then, curious about the framerates

[+PureBlue 71]

@Pureblue, I know TK has not posted a reply to the avionics60 thread over at TW boards, but on facebook he answered the question by saying they are still looking into what causes it, so it seems he is aware of the issue and trying to pin it down.

 

Thanks for the heads up Baltika, installing July now to check it out for myself.

 

EDIT: Yes the stuttering is still there.............

Edited July 30, 2012 by PureBlue

[+SkateZilla 49]

$50 it's a driver issue.

 

Im gonna Wipe, re-install, and patch up to see if i cant get the stuttering.

 

Can anyone post a Decently Clear Video on YT of the Stuttering (With Debug mode on),.

Edited July 30, 2012 by SkateZilla

[+daddyairplanes 8,859]

taking the plunge, wanna see how iceland works now.......

[Teras 67]

SAMs are better now , i've never got hit by SAM while flaying over iran but after installing this patch i got hit 2 times by the SAMs

[+daddyairplanes 8,859]

framerates definately better. was rocking 3-6 fps overland in iceland now seeing 13-15 fps. about like my old Compaq i got rid of in February.

 

thats at altitude, ACM. bout the same for low level strike against heavily defended airfield in Germany. overall after a few hops in my Phavorite plane not noticing any issues.

Edited July 30, 2012 by daddyairplanes

[+malibu43 142]

...

 

On a more positive note, running a strike mission on the Kiev battlegroup, 6 of my flight of 8 A-7s were hit by ship-launched SAMs, including me.

 

I think some tweaking of the SAM behaviour has been going on, but probably more testing is required.

 

...

 

i can confirm this! The SAMs seemed to be fixed!

[+Stary 2,426]

I think framerates indeed went up a bit

[+JonathanRL 973]

I found out what the patch broke.

 

The Command "NavalMap=TRUE" now makes a terrain only available for SF2: NA users. For others, it is not shown in the Terrains list for Single Mission

 

HOWEVER

Campaigns (In this case TSF) still works properly with SF2: NA features. So, you have to chose if you want the terrain for single mission, for Campaigns or simply buy SF2: NA (and I just stopped recommending that course of action).

 

I can only assume this is a half-hearted attempt by TK to either lock NA Features out from non-NA users, or something that had implications he did not foresee.

[Wrench 9,538]

that might it explain the failure of CubaOTC* in SF2 (but works perfectly in NA)

But Korea3 (for KAW, in the KAW mods folder -built form the sf2.exe)and also in SF2 and Persian Gulf are both working as advertised.

 

that definatly points to NA-exe specific coding somewhere! even though the merged games uses all the same dlls.

 

*locks/freezes at 80%, which is usually a GO issue

[+malibu43 142]

I have a fully merged install with all titles, and I can still use the desert map with NavalMap=TRUE when running from the "SF2" (not SF2NA) .exe.

 

So, to clarify, it doesn't seem to matter what .exe you run, you just have to have NA merged with it.

[Wrench 9,538]

you just have to have NA merged with it

 

yah, that's what was trying to say!!

[+JonathanRL 973]

At any rate, I posted it down as a simple bug, not mentioning it works with Campaigns anyhow. I do not wish to risk him locking down the features entirely. If he do, I will probably stop modding as I felt NA Scripts was the extra tools I needed to make a really good show of it.

[+JonathanRL 973]

Ok, this is interesting. It may be so that TK has done the right thing in the wrong way.

 

I omitted the line, and the Naval Parts of the Campaigns still works like normal. It may be that he just made the SF2: NA settings standard...

[+PureBlue 71]

At any rate, I posted it down as a simple bug, not mentioning it works with Campaigns anyhow. I do not wish to risk him locking down the features entirely. If he do, I will probably stop modding as I felt NA Scripts was the extra tools I needed to make a really good show of it.

 

Just don't post any findings , feature requests or other interesting stuff at TW boards.

He might get the wrong idea and implement his own "solution".

I've given up on bug reports too, just involved in this avionics stutter thread.

Because even bug reports are sometimes twisted and fixed in a way that has player cheats or file locks...

I know it wasn't always like this......

[+Soulfreak 6,353]

I have to test the latest patch this evening. installed it yesterday, but no time to test.

[+Stary 2,426]

I told you all... "invisible to Thirdwire" post filter is needed

[FalconC45 157]

Just don't post any findings , feature requests or other interesting stuff at TW boards.

He might get the wrong idea and implement his own "solution".

I've given up on bug reports too, just involved in this avionics stutter thread.

Because even bug reports are sometimes twisted and fixed in a way that has player cheats or file locks...

I know it wasn't always like this......

 

slight problem not reporting bugs on there though, DanW reads CA sometimes...

 

Falcon

[+Stary 2,426]

another thing I noticed -did my skills degraded or AAA became more lethal -so no more flying straight over target areas?

[+JonathanRL 973]

slight problem not reporting bugs on there though, DanW reads CA sometimes...

 

Then I hope DanW reads, understands and fully comprehends my annoyance with this. I am glad nothing in reality have changed - and curious if TK actually tried to make naval maps standard - but I spent a couple of hours very, very worried.

[+malibu43 142]

I think it'd be nice if TK laid out a bit of a roadmap for SF2 (like the one ED recently did). What are his plans in the short term? What are his longer term plans after Exp3? Are there other types of DLC that we can expect in the future? What is he planning on locking out? What isn't he locking out? (Another way of asking these last few questions is "What do you want/expect/allow the community to contribute and what would you like to be left for TW to handle?) This would save us all a lot of headache. We'd know what we should/could work on, and what will end up being a waste of time.

 

As a general idea, I'm OK with games becoming less open and developers taking care of things on their own more with DLC. Ultimately, if we want this hobby/genre to survive, the more money the developers make, the better! While M$ Flight ended up being a failure for many reasons, I understand where M$ was going trying to get a piece of the addon revenue. Look at the crazy amounts of money people spend on addons for FSX. If M$ had been getting a piece of that all along, maybe they would have had a better financial justification for pursuing FS11? I don't want to turn this into M$ discussion (those get ugly); the point was just that more money for flight sim devs = better chance they'll keep being flight sim devs and not move on to Angry Fighters.

 

So, if TK wants us to get more DLC from him instead of making stuff for free, I'm ultimately OK with that. That's business. But, if he's going to start breaking community based stuff, he needs to offer a DLC alternative. If TK doesn't want us to make the other SF2 maps "Naval Maps", that's fine. But he should offer to do it for us in the form of DLC. If he doesn't want us to implement the new water effects on old terrains, fine. But then he should offer to do it for us as DLC. If he doesn't want Stary to add all his great environmental stuff, that's fine. But he better do it himself then, so the game looks like something from 2012, not 2000. There's really no reason for TK to lock community stuff out, unless it's going to compete with something he plans on releasing.

 

Of course, at this point, it's probably too late for TK to lock out a lot of the stuff he wants to without a massive revolt. All the skins and addon aircraft is where the DLC money is at, but there's just no way TK could lock that out at this point (please don't make me eat my own words here, TK ), given how much user made stuff it would break or render useless...

Edited August 3, 2012 by malibu43

[JediMaster 451]

Makes me think MS should've made Flight a 360 game but made it more FSX-like. Think about how much they could get!

Let the 3rd party guys still build stuff, but since it's on the 360 MS automatically has to get a piece of every sale, whether full disc or DLC. Let the stick makers make 360-compatible versions of their sticks that MS gets money for, and MS could release its own as well.

 

Frankly, it's a lot easier to set up a 360 at your desk (or your home cockpit) then to get a PC gaming on a TV in the living room.

 

Or to go less radical, Flight could've been the GA version of DCS World. Still have 3rd party people working on it, but it goes through them and they get a piece of every plane sold whether they made it or not. With Win8 and the Metro thing, it would've been a natural. Flight and all its addons only available thru their store.

 

But oddly MS tried F2P then made the stuff you bought unappealing. If you want a WWII bird that can't fight in combat, you are going to want to a cockpit!! They took the worst part of FSX (no combat) and mixed it with the worst part of games like Ace Combat (no cockpit) and tried to sell it!

[+malibu43 142]

While I didn't want to get sidetracked onto M$ Flight, your post does help to drive home my main point above.

 

A developer making the game "less open" and then grabbing a piece of the revenue from the add-on sales is fine. The thing is, once they start locking things away from the modders in the community or other 3rd party devs, they better be darn sure that they've got the right stuff in the pipeline to make up for it to keep people happy. M$ Flight didn't.

 

Obviously TK's nowhere near the M$ Flight model at this point. It's more of an extreme example.