Extremely odd behavior with IL2 yielding very poor performance

[henrique_rp]

Hello guys,

I am losing my hairs trying to understand an extremely weird behavior I'm having with IL2. The problem worsens the more objects I have in the screen. When this happens, GPU utilization can drop to a mere 20% and my FPS simply plunge to the ground. The exact contrary happens when there are few or no objects on screen. My GPU utilization increases consistently and I get up to 120FPS when V-Sync is disabled.

I simply don't understand. On the very situations when the GPU should be used to its fully extent, all I get is some bellow mediocre fps because the game (drivers?) don't push it the way it should. And when there's almost nothing to render on screen I get a huge amount of FPS because GPU utilization has increased.

Let me show you some screen shots and I think it'll be better illustrated.

I've set an A20 in the little town of Nitra in the Slovakia Map. The grid is D2 keypad 4 for reference. There's a tiny village to the East of this town and we'll use it as reference.

When I look to the West in the direction of the Town, GPU use drops to 20% and my FPS hit 16 (they're always bellow 20 in this scene).



Now, when I look to the right at the tiny village where there are extremely few objects GPU utilization simply doubles and my FPS skyrockets. It'll hit 60 on the SS, but when V-Sync is disabled it reaches 120 and stays there.



Some external shots to further exemplify such bizarre behavior






My system specs are as follows:

Phenom X4 955@3.7GHz
Radeon 4890@930MHz
4GB DDR3 Viper Patriot

I am running the game at 1680x1050 using 8 AA and 4 Aniso. No matter how low I leave AA and Aniso, the FPS will vary in less than 2%.

I am using the version 9.10 of the catalyst drivers, but I have already tried 9.9, 9.11 and 9.12 Beta. The result is always what I have in the above SS.

I am also including a copy of my Conf.ini file in case someone would want to take a look.

[il2]
title=Il2-Sturmovik Forgotten Battles
hotkeys=HotKey game

[window]
width=1680
height=1050
ColourBits=32
DepthBits=24
StencilBits=8
ChangeScreenRes=1
FullScreen=1
DrawIfNotFocused=0
EnableResize=0
EnableClose=1
SaveAspect=0
Use3Renders=0

[GLPROVIDER]
GL=Opengl32.dll

[GLPROVIDERS]
Open GL=Opengl32.dll
DirectX=dx8wrap.dll

[NET]
speed=8000
routeChannels=0
serverChannels=7
localPort=21000
remotePort=21000
SkinDownload=1
serverName=199RAF_Server
serverDescription=
remoteHost=
localHost=189.63.228.93
socksHost=
checkServerTimeSpeed=1
checkClientTimeSpeed=0

[MaxLag]
farMaxLagTime=10.0
nearMaxLagTime=2.0
cheaterWarningDelay=5.0
cheaterWarningNum=-1

[chat]
region=(dx=0.69285715,dy=0.11523809,x=0.0,y=0.0)
adr0=ALL

[game]
Arcade=0
HighGore=1
mapPadX=0.66785717
mapPadY=-0.043809526
viewSet=53
Intro=0
NoSubTitles=0
NoChatter=1
SubTitlesLines=3
NoHudLog=0
NoLensFlare=0
iconTypes=3
eventlog=eventlog.lst
eventlogkeep=1
3dgunners=1
TypeClouds=1

[HotKey game]
PrintScreen=ScreenShot
P=pause
Pause=pause

[HotKey gui]
Escape=activate

[HookViewFly Config]
timeFirstStep=2.0
deltaZ=10.0

[HookView]
MouseLeft=Len

[HookView Config]
AzimutSpeed=0.1
TangageSpeed=0.1
LenSpeed=1.0
MinLen=1.0
DefaultLen=20.0
MaxLen=3000.0
Speed=6

[HotKey builder]
MouseLeft=objectMove
MouseRight=popupmenu
Enter=freeView
Shift MouseLeft=worldZoom
Alt MouseLeft=select+
Alt MouseRight=select-
Alt Ctrl=unselect
PageDown=change+
PageUp=change-
End=change++
Home=change--
Ctrl MouseLeft=insert+
Insert=insert+
NumPad-0=insert+
F=fill
Ctrl MouseRight=delete+
NumPad.=delete+
Delete=delete+
Backspace=cursor
Tab=cursor
F10=land
F11=onLand
NumPad-=normalLand
NumPad+=toLand
NumPad-5=resetAngles
NumPad-8=resetTangage90
NumPad-7=stepAzimut-5
NumPad-4=stepAzimut-15
NumPad-1=stepAzimut-30
NumPad-9=stepAzimut5
NumPad-6=stepAzimut15
NumPad-3=stepAzimut30

[MouseXYZ]
F1=SpeedSlow
F2=SpeedNormal
F3=SpeedFast
MouseRight=XYmove
F4 MouseRight=Zmove
MouseMiddle=Amove
F5 MouseRight=Amove
F6 MouseRight=Tmove
F7 MouseRight=Kmove

[MouseXYZ Config]
RealTime=1

[HotKey Console]
Shift Tab=Activate
[Console]
HISTORY=1024
HISTORYCMD=1024
LOAD=console.cmd
SAVE=console.cmd
LOG=0
LOGTIME=0
LOGFILE=log.lst
LOGKEEP=0

[sound]
SoundUse=1
SoundEngine=1
Speakers=1
Placement=0
SoundFlags.reversestereo=0
RadioFlags.Enabled=1
RadioEngine=2
MusicVolume=0
ObjectVolume=11
MusState.takeoff=0
MusState.inflight=0
MusState.crash=0
MusFlags.play=0
MasterVolume=14
Attenuation=7
SoundMode=0
SamplingRate=2
NumChannels=2
SoundExt.occlusions=0
SoundFlags.hardware=0
SoundFlags.streams=1
SoundFlags.duplex=1
SoundExt.acoustics=0
SoundExt.volumefx=0
SoundFlags.voicemgr=0
SoundFlags.static=1
VoiceVolume=12
Channels=2
SoundExt.extrender=0
SoundFlags.bugscorrect=0
SoundSetupId=7
ActivationLevel=0.02
Preemphasis=0.85
RadioLatency=0.5
AGC=1
PTTMode=1
SoundFlags.UseRadioChatter=0
SoundFlags.AutoActivation=0
RadioFlags.PTTMode=0
RadioFlags.PlayClicks=0
ActLevel=0
MicLevel=0
SoundFlags.forceEAX1=1

[rts]
ProcessAffinityMask=0
mouseUse=2
joyUse=1
trackIRUse=1
DisableIME=0
locale=

[rts_mouse]
SensitivityX=1.0
SensitivityY=1.0
Invert=0
SensitivityZ=1.0

[rts_joystick]
X=0 1 4 9 16 25 36 49 64 81 100 0
Y=0 1 4 9 16 25 36 49 64 81 100 0
Z=0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
RZ=0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 0
FF=0
U=0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 0
V=0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 0
1X=0 0 36 54 63 68 74 79 85 91 100 0
1Y=0 13 39 55 62 68 76 80 86 92 100 0
1Z=0 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 0
1RX=0 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 0
1RY=0 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 0
1RZ=0 0 42 53 64 72 79 80 85 91 100 0
1U=0 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 0
1V=0 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 0

[Render_DirectX]
TexQual=3
TexMipFilter=3
TexCompress=2
TexFlags.UseDither=1
TexFlags.UseAlpha=0
TexFlags.UseIndex=0
TexFlags.PolygonStipple=0
TexFlags.UseClampedSprites=0
TexFlags.DrawLandByTriangles=1
TexFlags.UseVertexArrays=1
TexFlags.DisableAPIExtensions=0
TexFlags.ARBMultitextureExt=1
TexFlags.TexEnvCombineExt=1
TexFlags.SecondaryColorExt=1
TexFlags.VertexArrayExt=0
TexFlags.ClipHintExt=0
TexFlags.UsePaletteExt=0
TexFlags.TexAnisotropicExt=1
TexFlags.TexCompressARBExt=1
TexFlags.TexEnvCombine4NV=0
TexFlags.TexEnvCombineDot3=0
TexFlags.DepthClampNV=0
TexFlags.SeparateSpecular=0
TexFlags.TextureShaderNV=0

HardwareShaders=0

Shadows=2
Specular=2
SpecularLight=2
DiffuseLight=2
DynamicalLights=1
MeshDetail=2
VisibilityDistance=3

Sky=2
Forest=2
LandShading=3
LandDetails=2

LandGeom=2
TexLarge=1
TexLandQual=3
TexLandLarge=1

VideoSetupId=15
ForceShaders1x=0
PolygonOffsetFactor=-0.0625
PolygonOffsetUnits=-1.0

[Render_OpenGL]
TexQual=3
TexMipFilter=3
TexCompress=0
TexFlags.UseDither=1
TexFlags.UseAlpha=0
TexFlags.UseIndex=0
TexFlags.PolygonStipple=1
TexFlags.UseClampedSprites=0
TexFlags.DrawLandByTriangles=1
TexFlags.UseVertexArrays=0
TexFlags.DisableAPIExtensions=0
TexFlags.ARBMultitextureExt=1
TexFlags.TexEnvCombineExt=1
TexFlags.SecondaryColorExt=1
TexFlags.VertexArrayExt=0
TexFlags.ClipHintExt=0
TexFlags.UsePaletteExt=0
TexFlags.TexAnisotropicExt=1
TexFlags.TexCompressARBExt=1

TexFlags.TexEnvCombine4NV=0
TexFlags.TexEnvCombineDot3=1
TexFlags.DepthClampNV=0
TexFlags.SeparateSpecular=1
TexFlags.TextureShaderNV=0

HardwareShaders=1

Shadows=2
Specular=2
SpecularLight=2
DiffuseLight=2
DynamicalLights=1
MeshDetail=2
VisibilityDistance=3

Sky=2
Forest=2
LandShading=3
LandDetails=2

LandGeom=2
TexLarge=1
TexLandQual=3
TexLandLarge=1

VideoSetupId=17
Water=2
Effects=1
ForceShaders1x=0
PolygonOffsetFactor=-0.15
PolygonOffsetUnits=-3.0

[Mods]
BombBayDoors=0

[DeviceLink]
port=10000
IPS=127.0.0.1
host=127.0.0.1

The only game I have such strange behavior is with IL2. I also play Crysis, Assassin Creed, Armed Assault 1 and 2 and all of them offer very good performance.

I know I don't have a top-of-the-line system, but it should suffice to run IL2, should it not?

I thank you for any help as I am out of ideas on how to fix this problem.