kondor999

First - if you want to enable SLI, the correct executable isn't offmanager.exe. It's cfs3.exe. Offmanager is just a front end - that's why some people are having trouble. Second - You can see if SLI is activated by simply selecting "Show SLI visual indicator" from the "3D settings" dropdown menu (you can also select Show Physx if you're so inclined). Third - SLI is not producing improved framerates using AFR2 or AFR1. I've not tried SFR simply because it has never produced gains since it was introduced way back when, and I suspect that's why it's no longer even an option in the latest drivers (you can still force it on by using nHancer). If you don't know what I'm talking about re: the different AFR types - good luck. I'm always amazed by people who get into SLI or Crossfire and then haven't a clue as to how it works. Neither my dual 8800GTXs on my notebook, nor my dual 5870's on my desktop, are able to accelerate OFF/CFS3 via SLI/Crossfire. This is fairly common, and it would be up to Nvidia or ATI to write a custom SLI/Crossfire profile. This has to be done for the vast majority of games, although a few legacy games will end up benefiting from SLI even without a custom profile. When you manually force SLI on, it's pretty much down to dumb luck whether or not it ends up gaining you anything. I'll look on the net to see if anyone has, perhaps, come up with an SLI profile that produces increased FPS.

Also using 10.3a, but haven't had a chance to play with bezel mgmt. I think you mean 5760x1200, right? I'm using 2 5870's in Crossfire with 24" monitors. And Eyefinity is *so* much better than my old Matrox TripleHead2Go...

This is at 4xAA and details all at 3. FPS better (when it first started up, it zoomed all the way to 120 until Vsync cut in, I guess).

Check it out: 5760x1200, all Settings at "4" with 2xAA. FPS acceptable at 47 or so. And talk about immersion!

Sorry - it wouldn't let me edit my original post. I've since tested the game on my desktop (i7@4.2Ghz, dual 5870's, 8gb, Win7 X64) and it runs perfectly even at 1920x1200, 8xMSAA, 55555. Next I'll be trying 5760x1200 and will post screenies if it works! Well- I guess this sim just has very high system requirements. I'm curious as to why. I had assumed that, being based on CFS3, the requirements would be considerably lower than my other sims. But, as it stands, this is easily the most demanding piece of software I have! My laptop can actually run Crysis: Warhead fairly well - but not this sim. Then again, I'm super picky - I want a solid 60FPS at all times.

I'm using a system which is able to run the very recent Napoleon Total War (for instance) at quite solid FPS (40-70) at max settings, 1920x1200, etc. However - I'm getting much worse FPS from a flight sim based on a 9 year old game engine. I take it something quite radical must have been done with CFS3? With the vanilla game, I get FPS of 200+(!) or so with all details maxed out IIRC. Now, with details at "default" (22221), I can just barely hit 60fps and get a lot of stuttering when looking around (feels like textures are being loaded). I've tried lowering the res all the way down to 1280x800, but there's not much improvement. It feels like the game is very heavily CPU-dependent, since my video cards are considerably stronger than my CPU in this case. The system: Dell XPS M1730 notebook, Core2Duo X9000 (2.8Ghz), 2x8800GTX SLI (SLI settings don't matter), 4gb RAM. I've tried Win7 X64 and then reverted back to XP 32-bit just to see if perhaps that was the problem - same problem with lower-than-expected FPS. As a final reference, this machine will run Lock-On 1.12b at 1920x1200, all settings high (except Vis range-medium) at a solid 60-120FPS with zero stuttering. IL2 1946 - I get 60-100+ FPS with max settings (although I'm running with Vsync on most of the time). Likewise, Wings of Prey runs much better (again- full details at 1920x1200) and looks 1000% better (sorry). Bottom Line: How do the system requirements for this game compare to other flight sims out there? I can just go use my desktop (with a 4.2Ghz Core i7 and dual 5870's), but I was hoping this flight sim would be something I could use with my laptop on the road.

Good luck with this! These are some of my favorite a/c designs of all time. I've built a few models and just love the industrial design of them.

I'm running an e8600 OC'ed to 4.75Ghz (water cooled) and using 3 GTX280's in Tri-SLI, under Vista x64 with 8gb DDR3. And SLI makes zero difference to the framerate. I tried all the different modes and nada. What I haven't tried is maybe pulling one of the GTX280's and trying just SLI. I suspect that what we need here is a custom profile from Nvidia to sort this out. Or, perhaps the game is CPU bound even at nearly 5Ghz. Hard to say. My next experiment will be to lower the clock on the CPU to see if it lowers the framerate. I love the game so far, btw - but the limit of 7/10 installs/deinstalls scares me since I am such a hardware enthusiast - and I routinely blow out my Windows install. Or my insane overclocking craps out the registry, etc. Can't wait to sit down with the manual. I LOVE FLIGHT SIMS ESPECIALLY HELO's!!!