very dissappointed!

[gaw 5]

well....no doubt i've missed a step somewhere but the kids gave me a killer rig which I expect many of you will know more about than I do. in anticipation of P4 I used up all my poor dad points and was set up w/ the following..

 

AMD Radeon HD7950 3GB graphics card

Seasonic 650w Plus Bronze power supply

WD Caviare Blue 1TB 7200 hard drive

GSkill Ripjaws X Series 8GB DDR#-1600 memory

AS Rock 990 Extreme3 ATX-AM3 mobo

AMD FX6300 3.5 GHz 6 core cpu

 

my nippers tell me that if this stuff can't rock the sim then something's badly amiss.....so....reloading all OFF HITR that's proper, and hooking the rig up to an Apple LED cinema display giving me 2560 X 1440 resolution...I can still only run the game at moderate slider levels. The visuals are stunning and almost overwhelming but the framerates are average at best. I fully expected to ram all sliders to the top and flap around @ 60fps average but I guess our expectations are born to be thwarted....full sliders equalled slideshow. I hooked up a smaller ACER screen whose max resolution was 1920 x 1080...which I've played for years happily.....but not only were the visuals lacking in comparison but the framerates were only moderately better. My ancient rig played framerates similar to this new one at identical settings. I MUST be doing something wrong. Anyhow....be warned...if any of you see what this sim looks like at max resolution on a gorgeous screen you'll never be happy again with what you had. And if any of you have a magic bullet to goose this rig into action...I'd be forever grateful

[JRP1973 5]

I have 3ea EVGA GTX 570 HD's if you want them. I noticed when I started using the 3SLI format was a little better. I also updated to 24 GB of ram. I run everything on Ultimate. BUT once in a while I will still hit a low frame rate. I don't think you can do anything about that. If you would like the 3 GTX 570's let me know. PM me. I updated to 660's and don't need them anymore.

[hood 2]

Hi gaw.I have a rig similar to yours in some respects but with an inferior video card [AMD 7850 2 gig] and I run OFF at 59/61 fps consistently with settings at 5-4-4-5-4.Olham has some very helpful advice re AMD video card settings which made a great difference in my case.I am afraid I don't know where they are to be found on this site but I am sure Olham and many other very savvy forum members will come forward to help ypu.I am confident that with a little tweaking your rig will do all you hoped for.

Cheers and best of luck.

[usafphantom2 19]

Make sure the video card box does'nt say factory overclocked,Had a pair of 6850's SLi had all kinds of probs Till I realized they were overclocked I used the amd overdrive utility and reduced the clock speeds and all was fine.Also have most current driver installed and then if it all works dont update unless something dosent.Update's that dont properly install can totally Fup your rig.And you wont belive what you will have to do to fix it.And for God's sake dont let Windows do it! Others may disagree.But I still warn Be careful.

[Tamper 9]

porterjr

 

FYI, Just sent you a PM - thx!

[Tamper 9]

Some good advice in here re: the tweaks as per Hood (and, in turn, Olham) with AMD cards (I use Nvidia, so not much help). I also tend to agree w/ what usafphantom4 says about drivers and NOT letting WIndows update them(!). The 7950 is fairly top-end hardware, for sure, but configuration - especially with something like OFF - can make a big difference.

 

One thing I wanted to point out is that even though that's a great video card, running @ 2560 X 1440 is almost twice the number of pixels that 1920 x 1080 is. So that may be something to consider. I think a lot of the "super-resolution" setups (basically, those with multiple monitors, particularly 3 wide or more) are really geared toward mutli-GPU setups - which works out well, because that's also where multi-GPU like SLI really is best applied: high-end resolutions. Many have set up SLI or CrossFire rigs only to be disappointed because their monitor only supports up to 1920x1080, and in my experience the benefit of mutli-GPU is really only appreciated at the higher resolutions. They didn't know why; they just didn't see the 1.5-2x performance these mutli-GPU arrangements are good for.

 

You say it runs the same res as your old setup at slightly better FPS - which (depending on a million things, but particularly drivers) might be all you get. Let's face it, the developers writing drivers aren't really focused on optimizing their drivers for things like the CFS3 engine (although we all still admire it here in OFF).

 

Smoothness counts for a lot, too - although you don't indicate the actual frame rates you experienced, damn near everyone I've run into on the Internet still confuses high frame rates with actual smooth, fluid video. They re not the same thing, and it's fairly easy to prove that. You can monitor FPS, and it's one indication of video performance - but I'd trade even 120+ FPS that oscillates down to 20, for an evenly distributed 35 FPS any day. And, in "blind", side-by-side comparisons, so would just about anyone else; people just tend to discuss FPS because it's common and farily easy to measure...look at all the means there are for monitoring FPS, then try to find a software utility for determining the distribution of frames sometime.

 

The point I'm trying to make is that once you get consistent FPS above about 35, you should be more concerned with exactly how consistent they are. I guarantee you would prefer to see smooth rate that's lower than a higher rate that varies, if you didn't know which was which. And there are several other things besides the video card that absolutely can cause "slideshow" type stuttering effects, again, particularly at very high resolutions. Take the understanding that ultra-high FPA also = a good deal more data the entire computer will have to deal with (not just the GPU) and it's not hard to see that a great video card can be crippled by a problem moving data elsewhere.

 

Something else is that a big trend in CPUs, multi-core, doesn't really do much for something like OFF, which is commonly accepted to prefer higher CPU speeds over multi-core and threading performance. Multi-core has obviously moved the entire PC industry three generations past the problems of late-model, high speed single-core CPUs (heat, power consumption, and the related problems, etc). The FX series of AMD processors are able to hold their own in environments suited to multi-threaded/multi-core CPUs, but I'm not sure that translates well to great single-core performance (even if at a 3.5Ghz clock rate). You don't mention what kind of CPU your 'ancient rig' had - and (because it was older) it may have been better suited to runing something like OFF. Overclocking may be a good bet with that CPU; from what I gather it really helps the AMD FX CPUs compete w/ Intel offerings in single-thread performance (of course, the stock soolers are usually not sufficient, and that increases cost, which offsets one of the advantages of AMD CPUs. As always overclocking is done at your own risk).

 

Anyway, best of luck. Hopefully some of the more AMD-fluent folks here can offer you advice. I always look forward to hearing what Al (plug_nickel) has to say since I think he's got experience with the AMD stuff moreso than I do.

Edited April 22, 2013 by Tamper

[Olham 164]

Well, my graphic settings are in the "Sticky Threads" at the top under "Graphics Setup - An easy pictorial guide".

With NVidia cards it may be a little different though.

But for a start, you should right-click on your desktop to get to the NVidia Control panel.

Go to "3D Settings" (or similarly called) and make sure, that your NVidia card will control Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering.

(It should NOT say something like "Use application settings")

Then select AA of 8, and AF of 4 - that should look fine (you can later raise these, but it's not really necessary).

 

If you use TrackIR, you should select "Wait for vertical refresh: Always on" - this will avoid white jaggies at the corners

during rapid head movements.

 

Maybe you can find other settings too from my "Graphics Setup".

When you are ready, you should have an option to save the settings under "Over Flanders Fields" or "OFF",

so you can select them later again. For other games you may want different settings.

Edited April 22, 2013 by Olham

[hood 2]

Just a quickie note gaw.I find the AMD 13.1 driver works fine on my Windows 7 64 bit rig.

Cheers

[gaw 5]

gentlemen..........thank you very much for your support and thoughts....I'll dig in and try to manage my expectations a bit. I run a fraps counter on the side and see 20 or less on the field, mid 30's in the air, and this with settings of 5,3,3,4,4. Also the skins take a while to load up when changing views....maybe I'll try lower res skins. But seriously, I'm sure the hi-res is a hit on the system but I've drunk the posion and it's really hard to go back. thanks again....

[gaw 5]

WOW..............the driver's did it......high 30's to 50's all around......what a difference!!!!! thanks for helping me sort this out fellas..........love this forum....CHEERS!!!

[Olham 164]

It's always nice to see a pilot flying OFF like that, with cheerful glee - only to see him getting shreddered within the next 14 days.

Mmuahahahahaaaa!!!!

[gaw 5]

and in such detail......those miserable Albatri are dreadfully pesky....shredded within minutes....too busy staring about at the graphics.... Ol,,,,,your settings seen to work really well w/ this new graphics card

[hood 2]

Shadows are a frame rate hog too gaw, and not really necessary.

[nbryant 8]

Gaw is having an OFF-gasm!

[Olham 164]

...those miserable Albatri are dreadfully pesky....shredded within minutes....too busy staring about at the graphics...

 

"Zatt is ze reason why vee paint der Albatros so colorful! Mmuahahahahaaa!!!!"

[MudWasp48 3]

OFF-gasm...LOL

 

I recently built myself a new rig after many years of running a reliable old AMD machine, which still runs fine. I found that overclocking my AMD 8350 made a big difference, stock was 4.0 and things looked good, but at 4.8 all the sliders are at 5,and fps are solid smooth v-synced at 60fps. But I'm running on a 24" monitor at 1920x1080 with an inexpensive Asus 550GTX Ti. My Asus Sabertooth mobo is easily overclocked with a program it came with or from the funky new style UEFI bios. There is probably a program for your mobo too. A friend of mine is overclocking the same CPU you have at 4.3 with a stock AMD heatsink/fan, can't recall what mobo he has.

 

I think your mobo has a program for overclocking called AXTU

...ASRock Extreme Tuning Utility (AXTU) is an all-in-one software to fine-tune different features in an user-friendly interface, which includes Hardware Monitor, Fan Control, Overclocking, OC DNA and IES. In Hardware Monitor, it shows the major readings of your system. In Fan Control, it shows the fan speed and temperature for you to adjust. In Overclocking, you are allowed to adjust the CPU frequency, ratio and some voltages for optimal system performance. In OC DNA, you can save your OC settings as a profile and share with your friends. Your friends then can load the OC profile to their own system to get the same OC settings. In IES (Intelligent Energy Saver), the voltage regulator can reduce the number of output phases to improve efficiency when the CPU cores are idle without sacrificing computing performance.

 

Sounds like you have the video card drivers sorted out

 

Have Fun!!!

[MudWasp48 3]

AS Rock has a forum for overclocking and general support. I'm an idiot at inserting links, but if you go to "asrock.com" the link is there.

[Olham 164]

With his rig, he shouldn't need any overclocking IMHO.

[MudWasp48 3]

True, I didn't think I'd see much of a difference either, but I did.

Some amd fx6300 came with a "turbo Mode" to overclock to 4.1

[Olham 164]

I read somewhere that overclocking the CPU changes some values for the memory too.

Does your AMD arrange that too?

[MudWasp48 3]

I don't oc the memory, but there are options to do so. Not sure if "turbo mode" does so automatically, kinda doubt it. Mostly I read up on milder nonextereme settings other's have used and apply them.

 

The Asus ENGTX 550 TI DC/DI/1GD5 graphics card came with software to OC and it works very well. Also read up on the Nvidia control panel settings and tweaks, they made a big difference in smoothing out stutters.

 

Hopefully my trackIr 5 will arrive this afternoon, so I need to educate myself on that. The sticky in the general help forum was informative, hope not too much is different in setting up a 5 instead of a 4

[Olham 164]

One tip for using TrackIR: if you get white jaggies at the corners during rapid head movements,

you should set up your graphic card control panel to "Wait for vertical refresh: Always on".

 

TrackIR may take a while to really get used to, but it is such a BIG difference - it really puts you

in the cockpit. I have found settings, which give me a safe picture almost with any movements I

make. I can even lean over board and look down vertically.

If you want to try my profile, give me a note - I can post it to you.

[MudWasp48 3]

I used trackir2 quite a bit back in my IL2 days when flying with a virtual squadren. Sadly, my lack of high speed internet put an end to online flying. Sure, please pm me your profile, Thanks in advance.

Leaning out of the cockpit or to the side sounds like a big advance!

[+Lothar of the Hill People 6]

My OFFfov field-of-view manager (included in OFFice) really really puts you in the cockpit with TrackIR. It can configure CFS3's 3D engine to place the virtual camera where you actually sit in order to render the scene so angles are preserved and objects appear at the actual distance in the gameworld. That enemy plane 50m in front of you actually looks 50m away, not 40m or 60m, so you can intuitively apply your real-world spatial reasoning.

[+Polovski 458]

The VC viewpoint is set where the eye is in the cockpit normally.