To the kind attention of developers # Re: Performance issue

[HFC_Dolphin]

After playing a few hours with the game, it is obvious that buildings produce the huge problem in the game's performance.

I don't know if you do have a solution to make the game playable with current buildings, but if not, I think it's time to discuss alternatives.
I don't know what these may be, but I'm even ready to accept much-much smaller cities if this makes the game playable.

I understand that you want to offer everything, but please keep in mind that combat flying experience is above all and if we can't get this because 1.000.000 static buildings load and produce performance issues, then it's time to choose performance over beauty.

I believe that for the next couple of years (until new hardware's ever increasing rough power solves programming or other issues) we could all live by flying a game with smaller cities. What can't we live with, is a game where we'll be experiencing stutters all the time.
I know that things are getting better and I even managed a dogfight of 6vs6 over sea without stutters, but that is not what I want. I think that all of us want more. We want to be able to simulate huge raid attacks. We want to experience 50 or 60 planes in the air, fighting like there's no tomorrow. And in the end, we don't care whether Big Ben is in London if every time we aim to an enemy he disappears in a crescendo of video hick-ups.

Solutions might be many, you know better, please consider them and don't forget that if someone with a brand new pc can't play the game as it should, then you're already out of the market.

PS. Needless to say that if solution of current problems with current status is really near, then we'll all wait. But please don't make us wait another couple of years - it will be a nightmare.

[Ataros]

You did not try the recent patch, right? It made the game very playable even on my ancient videocard in native resolution but with reduced shadows, buildings, SSAO and forest of cause, with high textures. 40 fps average online on channel map is great.

What are you talking about? Do you run IE in background when flying or do not defragment after every patch?

[HFC_Dolphin]

You did not try the recent patch, right? It made the game very playable even on my ancient videocard in native resolution but with reduced shadows, buildings, SSAO and forest of cause, with high textures. 40 fps average online on channel map is great.

What are you talking about? Do you run IE in background when flying or do not defragment after every patch?

Of course I did try the recent patch and still it is unplayable over cities.
FYI the system is i-2500k, ati hd6850, 6gb ram, win7 64bit and I play on a combination of high and low settings. Haven't turned SSAO off, but I don't expect to play on lowest settings with a brand new pc.
It has to be playable perfectly well in such a system.

PS. With this system I can play on highest video settings any other modern game without a simple problem.

[Kankkis]

Of course I did try the recent patch and still it is unplayable over cities.
FYI the system is i-2500k, ati hd6850, 6gb ram, win7 64bit and I play on a combination of high and low settings. Haven't turned SSAO off, but I don't expect to play on lowest settings with a brand new pc.
It has to be playable perfectly well in such a system.

PS. With this system I can play on highest video settings any other modern game without a simple problem.

Try without ssao and shadows at least.

[janpitor]

Or shadows low...the high/med setting is an FPS hog

[kgwanchos]

They did a wonderful job in RoF and Ive no doubt CoD will get there too....

They both had similarly difficult births and RoF has certainly turned out to be a thing of beauty ....

So what Ive done is taken a chill pill ... got myself a copy of RoF and I will come back to CoD in 6 months or so when it too will have blossomed...

If you dont want to pay money to be a beta tester you do have a choice you know .... ;)

[Kankkis]

Or shadows low...the high/med setting is an FPS hog

??

I have shadows on or off.

[Ataros]

It has to be playable perfectly well in such a system.

Why do you think so?

PS. With this system I can play on highest video settings any other modern game without a simple problem.

What game has a map of this size, same visibility distance, detailed cockpits, engine and FM physics modeled as well as all these tiny details built into the engine mentioned on 3 pages here?
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=21673

This game is built with 2015 in mind and will run well on 2015 hardware when all "modern" games are forgotten. imho

[Wolf_Rider]

Or shadows low...the high/med setting is an FPS hog

how are you setting Shadows to Low?

[Langnasen]

I've achieved 130+ planes in a furball so far without detrimental effect to FPS, over land. 188 planes was too much. ParaB has had around 150+ before he saw slowdowns. Next test will be over London.

[Ataros]

??

I have shadows on or off.

Landscape shadows can be put to med/low.

[Wolf_Rider]

how?

[HFC_Dolphin]

This game is built with 2015 in mind and will run well on 2015 hardware when all "modern" games are forgotten. imho

You got to my words, thanks.
Therefore, until we get to 2015, developers should consider a version that will be playable from 2011 to 2015.
And in this pursuit of performance, we should be able to let some things that make our life difficult out. Less buildings, smaller cities, smaller map, whatever will make this game as good as it should be.
It must not be a worse performer than IL-2, cause in such case we'll either play Clod with discomfort or get back to IL-2.

Not to mention what such problems will cause to the community.
A new generation of "builder-cheaters" will appear. Whenever in trouble, just dive to the buildings and alas you're safe!

At last, I'd like to mention that our aim should not be to play the game perfectly well in a 5.000 euros system, but rather in a medium to high system of 600-1200 euros.

[HFC_Dolphin]

I've achieved 130+ planes in a furball so far without detrimental effect to FPS, over land. 188 planes was too much. ParaB has had around 150+ before he saw slowdowns. Next test will be over London.

Were there any buildings in this furball?
Did you have to dogfight close to them?

[Ataros]

how?

In game video settings screen right above Shadows you see Landscape Shadows (or shading).

[Wolf_Rider]

I'll try it and see what happens... cheers

[HFC_Dolphin]

This game is built with 2015 in mind and will run well on 2015 hardware when all "modern" games are forgotten. imho

[good will and fun mode always ON]
By the way, here (http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpost.php?p=254070&postcount=10) you mention that this is a 2013 game. Now you're saying it is a 2015 game. Does this mean that for every developer's failure we'll move the game's date to a few years later?
We all understand that eventually this game will be totally playable in 2030 with quantum technology, but problem is what we're doing NOW!

[W0ef]

Of course I did try the recent patch and still it is unplayable over cities.
FYI the system is i-2500k, ati hd6850, 6gb ram, win7 64bit and I play on a combination of high and low settings. Haven't turned SSAO off, but I don't expect to play on lowest settings with a brand new pc.
It has to be playable perfectly well in such a system.

PS. With this system I can play on highest video settings any other modern game without a simple problem.

With your system you should have little problems running the game at max settings, I would definetely check out if your system runs optimal..Only bottleneck might be your graphics card.

My system is a 2500k at stock, 8 gb ddr3, HD6970 on Win7 64 bit and I have no problems running everything fully maxed out. Only above a major city it has to load in a little.

Are you sure you have the most up to date drivers for everything? How much VRAM does your gfx card have? Lot of useless processes in the background? etc etc.

[Heliocon]

After playing a few hours with the game, it is obvious that buildings produce the huge problem in the game's performance.

I don't know if you do have a solution to make the game playable with current buildings, but if not, I think it's time to discuss alternatives.
I don't know what these may be, but I'm even ready to accept much-much smaller cities if this makes the game playable.

I understand that you want to offer everything, but please keep in mind that combat flying experience is above all and if we can't get this because 1.000.000 static buildings load and produce performance issues, then it's time to choose performance over beauty.

I believe that for the next couple of years (until new hardware's ever increasing rough power solves programming or other issues) we could all live by flying a game with smaller cities. What can't we live with, is a game where we'll be experiencing stutters all the time.
I know that things are getting better and I even managed a dogfight of 6vs6 over sea without stutters, but that is not what I want. I think that all of us want more. We want to be able to simulate huge raid attacks. We want to experience 50 or 60 planes in the air, fighting like there's no tomorrow. And in the end, we don't care whether Big Ben is in London if every time we aim to an enemy he disappears in a crescendo of video hick-ups.

Solutions might be many, you know better, please consider them and don't forget that if someone with a brand new pc can't play the game as it should, then you're already out of the market.

PS. Needless to say that if solution of current problems with current status is really near, then we'll all wait. But please don't make us wait another couple of years - it will be a nightmare.

ABsolutely nothing to do with hardware - its to do with horrible programming/optimization. Buildings should not be an issue (neither should tree hitboxes).

[W0ef]

ABsolutely nothing to do with hardware - its to do with horrible programming/optimization. Buildings should not be an issue (neither should tree hitboxes).

While I agree there can still be progress made on optimization, especially of the houses, I do not agree this has nothing to do at all with hardware and the way you set your system up. People with very similar specs (like me) have the game running smooth with everything maxed out.

As stated many times by now this game eats VRAM for breakfast. I think the bottleneck in your system therefore might be your HD6850 which is a fine card but probably just not good enough for running this game on max, running with everything maxed out requires over 1gb VRAM. I think the biggest optimizations are to be made in this department (VRAM usage of the engine).

[HFC_Dolphin]

Only above a major city it has to load in a little.
Well, this is a problem. You know well that a fighting is about the second you have enemy on your 12. If, every time someone has a problem dives into a city to save himself, then game is of no use.
In such case, we'll have to introduce rules such as "combats allowed only over sea" and this would be a bad joke.


ABsolutely nothing to do with hardware - its to do with horrible programming/optimization. Buildings should not be an issue (neither should tree hitboxes).
Not so sure about this - I know a little about programming but not to this level. But yes, I agree, that this shouldn't be a problem: buildings should not destroy a whole game. We can live without buildings - we can't live without smooth flying.
In general, the way graphics load seems like there is a specific problem.
Even in planes you see them loading layers each time you view them.

[Decker_runner65]

hello all
well 8 year later and were here,this last patch seem to of done me,in that after 10 -15 mins it crashs to desktop maybe a ram problem or map with way to many buildings,was okish to last patch,shudders are less but now the lag comes in which bring my flps way way down to 1 and it stop playing.

why if i change the screen rev to low say 1028x768 that my desk top changes to that too,needs to be looked at. and that been like it from the start of the game in all patchs, ammo needs to be doubled,really ? we all see what your doing and the realism but it has to be fun to,dont want to spend half hour getting there and 34 sec fireing and im careful 4 sec burst?

flps use to be 12-24 over london but in the air 34-60-to even 100 and over?
i know use are working on all these things and doing your best to a comadate all players pc. hope the next patch come qiuck as i cant play it at all now.

now to the crew and bob , look at what uses have done, it fantastic a wow game i surport use in all that you do even if after all patch im still not able to play it smothly, you done a real serves to all flyers of the game, i ~s use all for your work, plus ty for the lancaster even if we cant fly it ??

my sep is vista 32, 4 gb ram. intel core 2 duo at 2,66 Ghz and 1gb nvida sonic gfx card. last word keep on keeping on ~s

[Decker_runner65]

hello all
well 8 year later and were here,this last patch seem to of done me,in that after 10 -15 mins it crashs to desktop maybe a ram problem or map with way to many buildings,was okish to last patch,shudders are less but now the lag comes in which bring my flps way way down to 1 and it stop playing.

why if i change the screen rev to low say 1028x768 that my desk top changes to that too,needs to be looked at. and that been like it from the start of the game in all patchs, ammo needs to be doubled,really ? we all see what your doing and the realism but it has to be fun to,dont want to spend half hour getting there and 34 sec fireing and im careful 4 sec burst?

flps use to be 12-24 over london but in the air 34-60-to even 100 and over?
i know use are working on all these things and doing your best to a comadate all players pc. hope the next patch come qiuck as i cant play it at all now.

now to the crew and bob , look at what uses have done, it fantastic a wow game i surport use in all that you do even if after all patch im still not able to play it smothly, you done a real serves to all flyers of the game, i ~s use all for your work, plus ty for the lancaster even if we cant fly it ??

my spec is vista 32, 4 gb ram. intel core 2 duo at 2,66 Ghz and 1gb nvida sonic gfx card. last word keep on keeping on ~s

[samich]

The whole arguement that this game has so much more depth then other games which is why it runs worse is ridiculous.

The flight model isn't drastically more complex then some other flight sims around at the moment and while it may be better/more accurate, it is horribly coded.

And arguing that map size and draw distance is a valid reason for it lagging is equally ridiculous. Yes there are games with as large a map, B17 II had as big a map and its like 10 years old, its not a new thing and graphically the game has nothing on shooters like Crysis II that run much more complex lighting solutions or the physics in the frostbite engine (used in the bad company series). Hell even wings of prey looks a lot better.

Don't get me wrong i like the game and im as hopeful as everyone else that things will be fixed but people really need to stop blinding making excuses for obvious failures in its development.

also: no company has ever or will ever release a game in 2011 that is only supposed to work in 2015. It doesn't happen.

[Ataros]

[good will and fun mode always ON]
By the way, here (http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpost.php?p=254070&postcount=10) you mention that this is a 2013 game. Now you're saying it is a 2015 game. Does this mean that for every developer's failure we'll move the game's date to a few years later?

No! I just found out recently that the game has much more potential - for 2 more years at least :grin:

[squidgyb]

There are so many entirely polar opinions here, I feel I need to fill some of the middle ground with some nice grey...

In response to "no games are released for the future" and/or "I can play any game on my PC" - there are plenty of games which are released with very high settings which eclipse what the PCs of the time are capable of. Crysis. GTA IV. FSX. Metro 2033. IL2. All these titles had settings, which (at the time of release) when set to the maximum, would cause severe performance issues. Some still do. I'd love to see someone play Metro 2033 at 1920x1200 with max settings on a single card system. Maybe a GTX 590 would scrape through... 2015 is hyperbole; he's just making a point.

I'm not excusing the performance issues on lower end machines - and it's true that the mid-range set will be the largest demographic, and they are working on, and have been working on performance issues and fixes. The game will continue improving as they work through bugfixes - I do think that a lot of development time has been spent on historical accuracy/modelling, and that more time could be spent on performance - but to a certain extent we've got to remember that the dev team's hand may well have been forced by powers higher up than themselves.

It's not like they've been doing "nothing" for the last 5 years, far from it. But for one reason or another, the devs have been given a shorter time frame and a reduced deadline which has resulted in them not being able to finish all the work they intended to do - we can wait, we can play the game as it is, or, erm, we can moan about it on the internet.

I just wish I wasn't drawn into these conversations quite so easily.

Damn my fence sitting, reasonable argument producing mind.

[Ataros]

Hell even wings of prey looks a lot better.

Because it has veeeeeery low visibility range and simplified physics.

RoF has good visibility range but it does not have as complex engine physics calculation, radiators, heaters, etc and ground units AI, as many instruments on very detailed panel, etc, etc.

I did not try DCS personally but iirc it does not model many planes, ground units and landscape with the detail of CoD.

ArmA2 can be compared to CoD as a very complex milsim and it is extremely demanding even lacking detailed instrument panels and visibility limit of 10 km (however playable with decent fps only at 2 to 5 km visibility settings). Visibility distance has huge impact on performance. You can check it for yourself in ArmA2.

I do hope the game will be further optimized though.

[HFC_Dolphin]

There are so many entirely polar opinions here, I feel I need to fill some of the middle ground with some nice grey...

In response to "no games are released for the future" and/or "I can play any game on my PC" - there are plenty of games which are released with very high settings which eclipse what the PCs of the time are capable of. Crysis. GTA IV. FSX. Metro 2033. IL2. All these titles had settings, which (at the time of release) when set to the maximum, would cause severe performance issues. Some still do. I'd love to see someone play Metro 2033 at 1920x1200 with max settings on a single card system. Maybe a GTX 590 would scrape through... 2015 is hyperbole; he's just making a point.

I'm not excusing the performance issues on lower end machines - and it's true that the mid-range set will be the largest demographic, and they are working on, and have been working on performance issues and fixes. The game will continue improving as they work through bugfixes - I do think that a lot of development time has been spent on historical accuracy/modelling, and that more time could be spent on performance - but to a certain extent we've got to remember that the dev team's hand may well have been forced by powers higher up than themselves.

It's not like they've been doing "nothing" for the last 5 years, far from it. But for one reason or another, the devs have been given a shorter time frame and a reduced deadline which has resulted in them not being able to finish all the work they intended to do - we can wait, we can play the game as it is, or, erm, we can moan about it on the internet.

I just wish I wasn't drawn into these conversations quite so easily.

Damn my fence sitting, reasonable argument producing mind.

That's a reasonable post, but I think we all have to agree in a couple of points:

1) It's not acceptable to wait for a couple of years in order to get the game playable in decent settings.
2) Flying performance should be on top of every priority. This is not MS Flight Sim, where you take off, stroll and land. Here you're fighting in the air and every second, every frame, is important.
3) Its total performance (flying, graphics, sounds) must be better than IL-2's, otherwise what's the whole point?

Ending, I will have to make clear one thing: this game looks fantastic. Whenever I fly without stutters it's just marvelous. The graphics, the FM, the DM...almost everything!
But knowing that in the end we're all gonna meet in the air for some "fights", I know that bad performance can create huge problems, therefore (and keeping in mind one of Luthier's posts, where he mentioned that he doesn't think he can optiomize much more the buildings -can't find it now), I'm just saying that if this is the case, then alternative scenarios should be employed.

One last thing: I know, really know, that devs are doing their best and they're working really hard for the benefit of all of us. I do respect and admire their work and all of my posts are with good will and always keeping in mind how to make the game the best flight sim experience we ever had. I'm not yelling at them. I'm doing some reasonable conversation and I know that devs need and want this. In the end, it's only them who know what's best and what they can offer.

[335th_GRAthos]

Look guys,

Clearly there are a lot of points there and I can not say that this is a great programming work and everything is smooth as silk, only the HW is the thing that is ready yet and we have to wait for intel, AMD/ATI and NVidia to develop the proper hardware for our flight-sim.

Despite that, we waited for many years and finaly we got our simulation, with an amazing number of things incorporated based on a lot of input from many of us. I even believe a lot of us are surprised seeing how many things got inside this flight sim...
It is a hard core sim and it is A M A Z I NG!
And we should be happy that 1C is giving us so much support and are online fixing things with such speed. Yes, I am happy to have the game as is (I have two versions), had I waited for all the things to get ready I would probably have been waiting for another year...

It is becoming clear that GPUs with less than 1,5Gb RAM are immediately seeing the limit.
Some people proved that there are quick fixes to lower the immense and somewhat uncessesary load of graphics and luckily, the last patch managed to incorporate all that making the game very much playable.

Still there is no SLI (which should considerably improve things) but people try to fly at res 1600x and have demands both in terms of graphics quality and fps!
Well you can not have it all guys, let's moderate a bit the level of demands...

I can fly this game at 3840x but I fly only at 1280x because I want to keep my fps over 50. And sometimes reading the posts here, I have the feeling I fly the smallest resolution anybody ever tried in this forum! (have two 570GTX on my PC...)
1280x and I see my GPU RAM reaching 1200MB (max is 1280MB) so I know there is no need trying to go for more.

To cut the very long story short: Patience is required, if you want to dogfight online, the buildings have to go!!!!!
We had it in the past, when in trouble dive to the buildings (and pray the other guy is running on a 6800GTS...) I do not think it will ever change so I do not see the reason to complain.

Happy Flying!

~S~

[HFC_Dolphin]

...We had it in the past, when in trouble dive to the buildings (and pray the other guy is running on a 6800GTS...) I do not think it will ever change so I do not see the reason to complain.


Hi Athos!

I agree in what you're saying except from this small part.
Back in IL-2 it was only a few cities that would produce real problems with decent GPUs.
Here in all cities that I've flown over I had this problem - not only in London. This means that the extension of the problem is rather bigger.

And by the way, I do not test the game in high resolution ;)

In any case, I'll test again later, setting SSAO off.
Maybe it'll make the difference.

[squidgyb]

I have the feeling I fly the smallest resolution anybody ever tried in this forum!

Don't know about this particular forum, but someone on simhq.com was flying at 400x200 or something similarly ridiculous, vids and all :)

I do agree on the main point though - performance does need to be improved, particulalry for low-mid end system. Whether this comes from optimisation of the code itself, or better tuning of the available graphics settings - I don't know.

[fireship4]

As someone suggested earlier, I've found "Land Shading" to be a big resource hog. Setting it to low basically got rid of stutters for me.

Here are the settings I'm currently using to get the game to run on my 4870 (512MB):

Resolution: 1920*1080@60
Full Screen: On
Model Detail: High
Buildings Detail: Very Low
Land Detail: Medium
Forest: Very Low/Low
Visual Effects: High
Texture Quality: Medium
AA: Off
Epilepsy: Off
SSAO: Off
Damage Decals: High
Buildings Amount: Unlimited
Land Shading: Low
Grass: Off
Shadows: On
Roads: On

Its not completely smooth (when low down for example) but it is acceptable. Finally able to use the game somewhat over england (havent experimented there much).

[Deovis]

ABsolutely nothing to do with hardware - its to do with horrible programming/optimization. Buildings should not be an issue (neither should tree hitboxes).

I'm agree with you. Do you remember the Slovakia map in IL2 1946? They put those new brand buildings which causes fps drops and microstutters even to the galactic computer systems while the original ones didnt give problems. And everybody here know that IL2 runs wonderfully with other maps and mods even at full details. I wonder if the devs used same kind of buildings for this new sim and if they are able or not to solve this problem! They never solved those in Slovakia map.
Cliffs of Dover is an horrible programmed and optimized game at present state...it is also uncomplete in the percentage of 50 . I really hope the devs in a month or 2 will give us a full, repeat FULL, playable game!

Tally ho!

[Ailantd]

Land shading has nothing to do with landscape shadows.
Shadows can only be turned on/off.
Shading controls the way hardware shaders render the terrain textures and how landscape reflects light (Do you think terrain is too happy greenish?, turn shading to its best and behold beauty). Shading is all computed in gpu, so it is a killer in ancients video cards and as it is calculated for every pixel performance is very dependant of resolution you play: For example you could play with the better shading settings in a very old gpu if you play with a very slow resolution 300x400 or so XD. So better shading is better and detailed terrain ilumination not shadows.

[335th_GRAthos]

I'll test again later, setting SSAO off.
Maybe it'll make the difference.

I do not want to spoil your optimism but I am afraid it will not...


You are right Dolphin, we definitively had less cities in the online wars, but the job was done, same as when we were near those German flaks (Opel Blitz) and the AAA of the battleships, frame show.

In this game the graphic detail of the houses is amazing. Only problem is that for us flying dogfight full real, nobody will ever be so near to enjoy the artistic detail so it is a bad overkill and the biggest problem the programmers have seems to be how to sensibly remove it (or gradually present it).

Anyway, 1,5Gb is the magic number (the min RAM your GPU has to have nowadays...).


~S~

PS. @squidgyb: Good to hear that someone does fly smaller resolutions than me after all... :-)

[Heliocon]

While I agree there can still be progress made on optimization, especially of the houses, I do not agree this has nothing to do at all with hardware and the way you set your system up. People with very similar specs (like me) have the game running smooth with everything maxed out.

As stated many times by now this game eats VRAM for breakfast. I think the bottleneck in your system therefore might be your HD6850 which is a fine card but probably just not good enough for running this game on max, running with everything maxed out requires over 1gb VRAM. I think the biggest optimizations are to be made in this department (VRAM usage of the engine).

You read my system specs wrong...:rolleyes:

-Also its not an issue with vram (well it is but it "shouldnt be") because the flight sim should not be maxing it out, if its maxing out it means the programming is crappy and they are not removing rescources/textures from Vram memory when they arent needed, or equally as bad they are loading stuff into vram that should be stored in system ram then sent to vram when needed (its hard drive paging thats slow). Why is it maxing vram but not using more than a couple of gigs of system ram? (from what I have been told/seen).
Why are they not offloading tree hit boxes to another thread? They said it would require them to raise the games min requirments (although if it was optional it wouldnt) but if the games build for the future why are they afriad to use more than 4 threads?

[JG14_Jagr]

I think the perforamnce is getting there.. I run the "BLack Death" track at an average of 64 with a high of 192 at 1920X1200 with everything on HIGH except SSAO OFF and SHADOWS OFF