What does it take to run unlimited with StrikeFighter2?

[1Patriot-of-many 15]

I have two Xeon 2670's, 98GB of ram and one Nvidia 1070, waiting for an SLI bridge to the second 1070, I still have single or just barely double digit frame rates when it gets intense with lots of targets/city ect.....  Running 7 X64 pro

Edited December 25, 2018 by 1Patriot-of-many

[Skyviper 1,101]

What will it take?

Why the main computer from the Starship Enterprise of course...then maybe a Hybrid from a Cylon Baystar.

Seriously I have no idea but don't feel bad.

[Wrench 9,792]

The problem with using the Hybrids is, their mind tends to wander off, and causes your computer to jump beyond the Red Line, getting Lost in Space

[Skyviper 1,101]

touché

[MigBuster 2,883]

How many cores of the Xeon does the game use? what is that 3.2Ghz max clock speed?

 

Is this on the stock game? any particular scenario that can be run fairly easily?
 

[+Menrva 4,192]

Let's not forget that SF2 is not so well optimized. That, and 3d objects with no proper distance LODs can cause bottlenecks too. However, that setup is really impressive. I can understand that it does not perform well on my low-end machine. But with high specs it should run smoother. On my end, (custom/improved) effects like smoke from ships etc., eat much FPS. Try to lower Effects to High, because with Effects to Unlimited the game even activates a horrible bloom effect.

Edited December 26, 2018 by Menrva

[KiwiBiggles 114]

What Menrva said. 

My rig is so old I can't even remember (my kids were preschoolers when I built it, and my oldest is finishing high school next year!) and even then it was very much a budget machine.  Even so it will run stock SF2 on unlimited acceptably well, most of the time.  

I recently added the latest Combat Ace version of Operation Desert Storm to my SF2 collection, and very cool it is too.  As downloaded, it was unplayable on my machine (like three seconds per frame!!) so I'm currently optimising it to my own machine, and to my own personal taste as well (menus and sounds for example).  I have to reduce skins to 2048 x 2048 wherever they are higher, and use the stock TW environment system (stock sky with just a very basic cloud mod for a nice fps-friendly boost in appearance) and stock TW effects too.  After a holiday weekend of tweaking it's already very playable.  Fortunately I enjoy this "optimisation" process (I know it's not exactly what Menrva meant) as much as playing the game -- to me modded SF2 is like the best 1950's to 1990's jet combat puzzle-game ever invented!  I also enjoy customising mods (within my modest ability) and Iearning the potential (and limits) of the game engine.  I have a very nice customised version of the F/A-18A mod flying over Kuwait and Iraq these holidays. 

2019 is the year I finally get a new rig.  It will be home-built and still somewhat budget, but should be able to play titles like FSX, Falcon 4.0 BMS, DCS World and IL-2 Bodenplatte on high or ultra at 1080p at 60fps.  It will be interesting to see how it copes with SF2, but I imagine I'll be keeping my old dual boot XP/Win7 machine around for many years yet to play all my favorite old titles.

All the best

Kiwi

[Wrench 9,792]

Also, leave shadows on "HIGH". If run on Unlimited, it creates is "interesting" effects *

 

*(and not in a good way)

[TempestII 262]

I'm sure I've read on this forum that SF2 doesn't support SLI/Crossfire set-ups.  I've never personally tried it though.

https://combatace.com/forums/topic/89509-slicrossfire/

 

As others have said, SF2 isn't particularly well optimised so even modern GPUs struggle when the settings are turned up.  My 980TI runs the game between 30-60FPS (usually on 60) with most settings on High at 1440p.

Edited December 27, 2018 by TempestII

[MigBuster 2,883]

SF2V Heavily modded (July 2013)

Linebacker II Campaign mission over N Vietnam

Average GPU usage very low (14% with rare spikes to 38%)

Average VRAM usage 4GB

Average RAM use 6.3GB

Average CPU usage and power very low (18%)

FPS solid at 60fps but a few drops when tried to come home at 16x time acceleration even though the system burned through it far better than previous setups.

 

 

 

 

[MigBuster 2,883]

Ran another campaign mission with same settings above to see a bit more what is happening.

Very high aircraft and defence objects over N Vietnam but perhaps not as intense as mission 1

Average VRAM usage = 3.6GB <- this is dedicated video card RAM 

Logical CPU cores - only 7 and 10 seems to be doing much overall

Average cpu7 = 70-80% usage
Average cpu10 =13% usage

Average RAM = 7.5GB

Average fps = solid 60fps

Average Frametime = 16.8ms with some spikes to 28ms although remained fairly smooth

 

 

 

Quick compare with DCS Spitfire over Las Vegas city area over high settings and letting things settle down

Average GPU use = 39%

Average VRAM usage = 4.9GB <- this is dedicated video card RAM 

Logical CPU cores - only 12 and 10 seems to be doing much overall

Average cpu12 = 38% usage
Average cpu10 =15% usage

Average RAM = 11.9GB

Average fps = solid 60fps

Average Frametime = 16.7ms with no spiking but does not feel as smooth

 

 

 

 

[1Patriot-of-many 15]

On 12/25/2018 at 7:31 PM, MigBuster said:

How many cores of the Xeon does the game use? what is that 3.2Ghz max clock speed?

 

Is this on the stock game? any particular scenario that can be run fairly easily?
 

How do I get that info? I've read the second processor doesn't even get used, which I was surprised at. Yeah I think 3.2 is max CPU speed, 2.6 without turbo.

[1Patriot-of-many 15]

On 12/26/2018 at 5:06 PM, KiwiBiggles said:

What Menrva said. 

My rig is so old I can't even remember (my kids were preschoolers when I built it, and my oldest is finishing high school next year!) and even then it was very much a budget machine.  Even so it will run stock SF2 on unlimited acceptably well, most of the time.  

I recently added the latest Combat Ace version of Operation Desert Storm to my SF2 collection, and very cool it is too.  As downloaded, it was unplayable on my machine (like three seconds per frame!!) so I'm currently optimising it to my own machine, and to my own personal taste as well (menus and sounds for example).  I have to reduce skins to 2048 x 2048 wherever they are higher, and use the stock TW environment system (stock sky with just a very basic cloud mod for a nice fps-friendly boost in appearance) and stock TW effects too.  After a holiday weekend of tweaking it's already very playable.  Fortunately I enjoy this "optimisation" process (I know it's not exactly what Menrva meant) as much as playing the game -- to me modded SF2 is like the best 1950's to 1990's jet combat puzzle-game ever invented!  I also enjoy customising mods (within my modest ability) and Iearning the potential (and limits) of the game engine.  I have a very nice customised version of the F/A-18A mod flying over Kuwait and Iraq these holidays. 

2019 is the year I finally get a new rig.  It will be home-built and still somewhat budget, but should be able to play titles like FSX, Falcon 4.0 BMS, DCS World and IL-2 Bodenplatte on high or ultra at 1080p at 60fps.  It will be interesting to see how it copes with SF2, but I imagine I'll be keeping my old dual boot XP/Win7 machine around for many years yet to play all my favorite old titles.

All the best

Kiwi

Looking at Migbusters specs, maybe time to really make a serious gaming rig! I only wish it ran on WIN7, I hate win10.

[MigBuster 2,883]

3 hours ago, 1Patriot-of-many said:

How do I get that info? I've read the second processor doesn't even get used, which I was surprised at. Yeah I think 3.2 is max CPU speed, 2.6 without turbo.

Assume this is your CPU

https://ark.intel.com/products/64595/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-2670-20M-Cache-2-60-GHz-8-00-GT-s-Intel-QPI-

 

SF/DCS/BMS all based on old code it seems from years back despite many changes. They all do multicore and hyperthreading to a degree but don't really seem to utilise it anywhere near fully.......thus only 1 core with high utilisation in the tests . Therefore for combat flight sims a CPU with a higher clock speed is currently better than more cores in general.

Probably 16GB RAM for SF2...but if intending to do DCS multiplayer then 32GB

 

 

 

[1Patriot-of-many 15]

Yep that would be the processors I have.   You have any problems with win10 running Strike Fighters?   Looking at your specs, I might just buy a new system. I bought this HP workstation pretty much to run this game, hoping it would kick my old pentium quadcore with dual GTX950s into the ground. Turns out one GTX1070 is about the same as two 950's and I can't get SLI to work on this HP workstation Z820 for my two 1070's.(HP has to have everything proprietary and they don't support SLI except for some dipshit workstation video cards)Though the machine is unbelievable for multi tasking, I can be downloading on steam ect and strike fighters2 doesn't suffer at all. ......Might bite the bullet and get a thoroughly modern system like yours. I hate win10 though, have it on one of my other puters. I'd love to stick with XP and 7. But oh well, I'll suffer with 10 for my gamer...... 

[MigBuster 2,883]

Seems to run OK - there are a few changes that might need to be made. I can see for example I am running it in Win 7 Compatibility Mode...others might not be using this at all can vary.

I made some comments on Win 10 here with a link to a privacy tool.

 

My system is very custom and very expensive (CPU also overclocked and water cooled) and is self built. Would suggest looking at prebuilds they might also be cheaper. Unless you have any other games that need SLI then would think 1 card is enough. A must for any new system is Solid States disks (SSDs) 

What resolution do you run your monitors at because I only run currently at Full HD (1080p) single so any higher usually needs more resource.

You say you have 1070s? ..........SF was pretty okay with high settings on a single GTX 780 albeit with an i5 running 4.4Ghz  on all cores. 

Are the 1070s proper gaming cards with multiple fans or HP proprietary?

 

 

 

 

 

[1Patriot-of-many 15]

On 1/2/2019 at 2:06 PM, MigBuster said:

Seems to run OK - there are a few changes that might need to be made. I can see for example I am running it in Win 7 Compatibility Mode...others might not be using this at all can vary.

I made some comments on Win 10 here with a link to a privacy tool.

 

My system is very custom and very expensive (CPU also overclocked and water cooled) and is self built. Would suggest looking at prebuilds they might also be cheaper. Unless you have any other games that need SLI then would think 1 card is enough. A must for any new system is Solid States disks (SSDs) 

What resolution do you run your monitors at because I only run currently at Full HD (1080p) single so any higher usually needs more resource.

You say you have 1070s? ..........SF was pretty okay with high settings on a single GTX 780 albeit with an i5 running 4.4Ghz  on all cores. 

Are the 1070s proper gaming cards with multiple fans or HP proprietary?

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah I only have one monitor run at 1080P,  like I said I have two GTX 1070's but they won't run in SLI on an HP motherboard, so one now, HP doesn't make any cards, they are EVGA.  Yeah, I'm probably going to go prebuilt, I built most of my systems starting at the 486 age on up, but haven't kept up since a quadcore pentium build so I'll go with an I7 or I9 system prebuilt, I'm a little confused, your specs show an I7 not an I5?  One other question, I have an SSD, I just installed a second for the OS much bigger, but I use a 4TB normal drive for the game, other than the user files. Would I get any speed advantage putting the whole game on the SSD?

Edited January 5, 2019 by 1Patriot-of-many

[MigBuster 2,883]

Previous system to this was an i5 4670K &  GTX-780.

All my games are on an SSD - it is mostly game loading time that gets reduced not improved FPS etc. Games do often access the disk during play so it can reduce some holdups (stutter) in some games but depends and is system specific. Most likely your HDD is fine assuming it is SATA 3. 

 

CPU/RAM/GPU/VRAM/FPS/FrameTime are generally primary concerns when a game is running over Disk access.