Much needed new dll's

[gprr]

Hi all

Is anybody working on new set of core dll's to support ATI 5XXX cards?
As I see it, we have at least 1 year of playing IL-2 at full throtle(Look at the future patches planned) And many of us have new powerfull ATI cards which have "stupid" slow downs around explosions and firing and more,These problems need to be fixed - it is only fair for ATI users.
I think we are all here to stay with this fantastic game which have more life to it, wether the problems will be taken care or not but new dll set will make me and a lot of others happier

gprr

[Flanker35M]

S!

Team Daidalos has no plans of making new DLL's as it is out of their scope and resources. It would be up to Oleg's team to make them and now they are tied up with SoW, so not very likely soon anyway. It would be great to have more support for ATI, but as we speak ATI is working on driver issues with IL-2.

What I have read from forums around it seems this nVidia/ATI thing is just a matter of who smooches devs best. Both brands can do same tricks and effects, but some devs have decided to implement code to prevent stuff working on ATI for example. Because if you fool an application to think you are using nVidia, the effects and all magically work..Go figure. Needs no rocket scientist to see that business and money speaks there a lot.

But back to topic. We can wish Oleg & Team could spare some time or help TD to release a set of more updated DLL-files

[Feuerfalke]

Actually the instructions are via DirectX, so there is little difference on what a dev implements into a code and how that is rendered on a graphics card. The difference is mostly the driver and setup and as such, this is also the best choice to avoid problems: Simply deactivate additional features the graphics card offer, which are beyond the normal scope of DX and rendering instructions, like Catalyst AI, which I've never ever experienced to produce anything positive for any game or application.

On the other hand, it's no real secret that modern gaming-cards no longer support older features for OpenGL and DX. And IL2 definitely IS old. That doesn't change the fact that it's still a good game, especially due to Oleg's prophetic abilities to implement graphical features that were not even supported at the time it was released. But these features are not optimized very much. If you have enabled Effects=2, this will still cause modern graphics-cards a lot of trouble, simply because it's based on stuff that was not available at that time and causes more trouble than it helps, now.

I guess that's the third part of this problem: The state of mind. Just because something is newer doesn't mean it will make things better in all aspects. You can't just plug a Porsche Cayman-Engine into a Porsche 356 and expect that oldie to perform as well as the new Cayman. And then just changing tires won't help it.

After all, limitations like these were the exact reason why Oleg started to build a new engine for SoW.

[KG26_Alpha]

Originally Posted by gprr

Hi all

Is anybody working on new set of core dll's to support ATI 5XXX cards?
As I see it, we have at least 1 year of playing IL-2 at full throtle(Look at the future patches planned) And many of us have new powerfull ATI cards which have "stupid" slow downs around explosions and firing and more,These problems need to be fixed - it is only fair for ATI users.
I think we are all here to stay with this fantastic game which have more life to it, wether the problems will be taken care or not but new dll set will make me and a lot of others happier

gprr

It wont be a .dll problem.

Its a ATI driver issue.

If you want more life out of IL2 1946 buy an Nvidia card.

[Flanker35M]

S!

Alpha, there is no need to go nVidia just because of IL-2 ATI is already looking at the issues with their drivers. And there is some additional information from The Man himself what is causing this. So I will just wait for the updates from ATI. Until then will use the workarounds for IL-2, other games just work out of the box So a very satisfied customer of ATI 5870HD..and DirectX 11 titles look stunning

Feuerfalke. True what you wrote. I do not use Catalyst AI either. From what I understood it is for CrossFire to determine the mode of it, so pretty useless for a single GPU. Otherwise ATI performs admirably for me at least.

It is just funny to see that if you fake the DeviceID of an ATI card to be nVidia, with ATT for example, in certain games running DirectX it enables all features. ATI can handle them without a problem, but this stupid war GFX brands have just hampers gaming industry more than helps it. OpenGL is another issue. Not a programmer myself, but would it even be possible to update IL-2's OpenGL instructions to a more modern one? With DLL's you can achieve some things, but not cover all..from what I have understood.

[Feuerfalke]

Catalyst AI features advanced texture filtering and image enhancements. It has nothing to do with running a game in crossfire-mode or not.

Switching the ID with ATT does not "enable" features. It just changes the way DX communicates them with the graphics card. As such some features might look different, maybe even "better", but it's usually slower and it decreases rendering-speed, as some features are rendered in emulation-mode. On older games, of course, this emulation won't have much of an impact with modern graphics cards.


To the ATI vs nVidia fanwar: Both have their pros and cons. It may not be satisfying, but it is as simple as that. Some games work better with card x, some with card y. And this not necessarily only changes from ATI to nVidia, but also between driver versions, chipsets and of course with the combination of hardware you use with the cards. I used both, ATI and nVidia and I have made many good and bad experiences with either.

[nearmiss]

This won't help if you already have an ATI card

Going back and forth between nVidia and ATI was pretty well the thing we all had to do in the past. The last ATI card I used successfully was the 9800 PRO for AGP. It was probably the best ATI card I ever used.

ATI got bought out by AMD, but I think they must have fired the driver devs that were with ATI.

I pay very close attention to postings about video cards, because you can almost buy a new computer for the price of one card.

Now I am with nVidia and I am very pleased with performance. WHen I build a new system I will spend several days or possibly weeks reading everything I can on upgrading my video card/s.

Having wait on someone to devise a fix or dlls for your video card is bad.

I didn't write this to knock any card mfgr, etc. It's just a tip to be very wary about your Video card purchases. If you know all this, good. There are some that will read this that don't know.

There are third party VC drivers floating around. I have used Omega drivers many times, but right now nVidia drivers are working for me. That may not be the case, if I upgrade my system.

[Flanker35M]

S!

I tend to disagree a bit here as there are many posts that if Catalyst AI is on Standard there is only one GPU seen in XFire setups, with Advanced they both are there, some say AFR mode or similar. Also XFire users say that perfromance is less with Cat AI on Std rather than Adv. So it might have a relation to XFire anyway.


As of the feature faking the ID. These fakes were tested on new titles and enabled some new shadows and smoke without a performance loss. Take a look at Rage3D forums for example EA games titles are mentioned there among others. I did ask how to do it and it had no effect in IL-2 as I run in OGL except slow down. So true these fakes can cause performance loss, but it is said also that these smokes in question over Rage3D are fully compatible with ATI, not a nVidia exclusive gimmick.

This war between brands is just so stupid. But what can one do? Nothing actually. I run with ATI and happy with it. I have used nVidia as well up to 280GTX, was happy with it too. So not a fanboi here As nearmiss said, study what suits you best and get it. Brand can be whatever

As of DLL's..there are some older ones that had ATI optimizations so I dare to claim that tweaking the DLL files would have an effect on the game, but biggest impact is with the drivers AND dll's combined. Will wait and see what these ATI guys come up with regarding the driver issues with IL-2, they are working on it.

[Qpassa]

I agree with you,if ATI doesnt fix the issues I will buy a Nvidia 285GTX ( not a ATI 5850-5870)

[Flanker35M]

S!

Qpassa..why 285GTX when SoW will be DirectX 11? If you want a nVidia card, then wait for Fermi being released this spring. Should be fast and support DirectX 11 like ATI. Bashing ATI for having problems because of IL-2..well..no comment And waiting for the driver release from ATI that should fix the problems we have at the moment.