Anone else that has tried Black Death? Massive improvement in smoothness...

[mazex]

OK, many here post that they see no performance increase etc compared to the last beta patch - and looking at max and average that may be true, the real beef in this new patch is that is does not drop off in between! And it is a really massive improvement in that department!

Fraps score from black death with default "high" settings (1050x1680)

Beta 1.08

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
14438, 219244, 19, 133, 65.854

Previous beta - 1.07:

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
16541, 217887, 5, 171, 75.915

And the latest official 1.05 score:

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
13120, 215094, 10, 146, 60.997

So comparing 1.07 and 1.08 - less max and 10 fps less in average may cause people to say "fail"... But the thing is that is is down to 19 for a microsecond, during the "whole bombs blowing up Hurricanes" part it is now running at 40-45 fps in version 1.08 compared to bad stuttering at 5-15 fps in all earlier versions. Hardly saw below 40 any time so I don't really know when the minimum occurred! Before it stuttered every other second when the action started. And when the Hurricane crashed before it whent single digit - now it just chugs on at 40+ fps... Going through smoke? No problem.

Great job - so much better even though the average is lower! It's a completely new game for me.

[ATAG_Dutch]

I concur! :)

I didn't benchmark it, but just watched for smoothness and it's far better.

Also the fires on the ground are no longer visible through the 109 as it overflys the runway towards the end.

Altogether a huge improvement on both the last two patches. All we need are the high clouds back. Even the RAF FMs (except the Blenheim) seem to be good, but I'll reserve judgement on that one.

Performance wise though the patch is very good. Very Good. ;)

[Dano]

Visual comparison of Black Death over the last three beta's and official release:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7721109/FPS.gif

It's defintely the smoothest yet even if it doesn't maintain the increased fps of the first beta.

[Blackdog_kt]

It's an understandable development.

If you have X amount of processing power available and you "throttle" the FPS to a lower value than the maximum your system can do, you have more reserve power for when extra things start happening on the screen.

On the other hand, if the system is already running full blast to maintain as high FPS as possible, then whenever something new occurs on screen there is no reserve processing power to deal with it. So, even though the system should be able to display fluid frame rates, it's already chocked up and out of power at that point.

The difference between the two methods is exactly what you describe. In the first case you may get about 40 FPS but they will be steady, while in the second case you may get 60 FPS but whenever something new happens they will briefly drop to the low 30s before stabilizing around 40-50 FPS again.

The numbers i used are arbitrary, but that's more or less how it works and it's exactly why civilian sim pilots (FSX, X-plane, etc) who run demanding scenery add-ons use FPS limiters. Absolute FPS values mean nothing without the context: how are they achieved, plus how smooth and stable they remain ;)

[PotNoodles]

@Blackdog - So are you saying that you should still use a FPS limiter for this game like they do in FSX? I get a good 60 FPS now, but around 35- 40 when I am in the clouds. So would you say it's best to use a FPS limiter and say set it at say 40 FPS?

[Flanker35M]

S!

I get better minimum at bomb explosions on Hurricanes, being around 32-35fps and it was before patch 12-16fps. But for some reason just before it when Me110's attack there are some stutters that cause lower fps, strange.

[Blackdog_kt]

@Blackdog - So are you saying that you should still use a FPS limiter for this game like they do in FSX? I get a good 60 FPS now, but around 35- 40 when I am in the clouds. So would you say it's best to use a FPS limiter and say set it at say 40 FPS?

It's not mandatory, i was just explaining how the whole thing works and assuming that 1C optimized their code to not demand all the juice, all the time from our PCs.

You could try a limiter, but if the dips in the frame rates don't go below 30 with the combination of PC and settings you use, i'd say it's not necessary.
Some people claim to be able to detect FPS differences at somewhat higher values (eg, saying they can see a difference between 40 and 80 FPS), so they are more easily annoyed by fluctuations or just a bit lower FPS values, but for most of the human population things are simpler.

If you can maintain a minimum of 30 FPS or above and the number doesn't fluctuate much (it's the fluctuation that causes stutters), you probably don't need an FPS limiter.
For example, the movies we watch in cinemas are shot at 24FPS, so that's probably the limit of perceiving "stutters" for the human eye.