Your link is not working :(

Ah, thought I didn't recognise it.....thanks for coming back

Try setting this in your conf.ini:

ProcessAffinityMask=2

This tells windows to run IL-2 only on core 1. For AMD dual core processors, this can make a considerable difference. I run an ancient 939 4200+ X2 @ 2.64G; if I don't use this setting my display occasionally freezes for a second or so (usually upon encountering a combat situation :(), and if something explodes, the FPS goes to down to about 3 for a second or so. Good Luck!

The problem with "ProcessAffinityMask=2" is, that IL2 was not built to use multiple cores and therefore it can cause stutters to run IL2 on 2 cores. I rather recommend assigning IL2 to one core, Teamspeak, TrackIR and other programs you need, to the second. That solved a lot of microstutters for me, but you should try that one out yourself, as it probably really depends on the system configuration.

That is not the maximum!
This is:

Water=4
//4 = improved display quality with vertex Shader 3.0 (NVIDIA 6800 and later models)
Effects=2
//2 = (explosion) effects for later hardware
HardwareShaders=1
Shadows=2
Specular=3
SpecularLight=2
DiffuseLight=2
DynamicalLights=1
MeshDetail=2
//Detailed degree of the objects in the game (0=Lego|1=box |2=normal)
VisibilityDistance=3
Sky=2
//Cloud representation 0 = no clouds (only offline available) 1 = less clouds 2 = normal clouds
Forest=3
//If Hardwareshaders=1 there is still the option 3. The single textures of the stratified woods are increased once more and trees in the town are replaced (on newer maps faster).
LandShading=3
//3 = buildings receive shadows
LandDetails=2
//groundtextures in low level flight become more multifaceted
LandGeom=2
TexLarge=1
//high-resolution textures (planes)
TexLandQual=3
TexLandLarge=1
//high-resolution textures (landscape)

Try it out! :grin:

Cheers,


KarlHeinz

True. But I said these are the best settings working for me.

Forests=3 add an additional forest-layer that causes a drop in fps with barely any visual difference at all. It even does not make the forest more visible from the sides, where I'd really like to see some more details

Water=4 causes artifacts on my machine

Effects=2 causes pink FlaK-Puffs and flickering 3D-smoke

Specular=3 has no effect, as there is only 0,1,2 supported to my knowledge, but I'd be glad if you can show me a link that defines the difference.

I don't have such problems, probably you have installed an old or too new driver
-->artifacts on water=4

Since patch 4.03:
2 = this mode corresponds Water = 3, however it runs also on ATI graphics cards with chipsets 9800, X800, X1800 and later models
3 = quick Render mode with vertex shader 3.0
4 = improved display quality with vert Shader 3.0

forests=3: "barely any visual difference" true
effects=2: immense difference in the explosions, very recommendable!
specular=3: the game doesn't alter "specular" 3 to 2 as it is always the case if anyone enters unacceptable values, therefore, there is specular 3

I know what the settings are, but yes, with the latest drivers I have installed and the betas mentioned in this thread, I still get some odd artifacts.

Can anybody confirm what "Specular=3" really changes against "Specular=2"?

There is so much confusion over the use of ProcessAffinityMask. As its name implies, its value is a mask (or more specificly a bit mask), which means the following: each bit of the value specifies a cpu (core) to be used. A value of 1 means only use CPU 0, a value of 2 means only use CPU1, a value of 3 means only use CPU0 & CPU1, a value of 4 means only use CPU2, a value of 5 means only use CPU0 & CPU2, and so on. For more info on what is going on here, do a wikipedia on binary numbers. Enjoy!

Unfortunately, if the affinity mask is not specified (the default for conf.ini), windows will run the program on all available cpus which can cause problems for IL-2.

Ow..... I don't want to have it so complicated !!!