IL-2 and OpenGL

[Flanker35M]

S!

This is directed to TD as they have the knowledge and access to the inner works of IL-2 engine, namely the OpenGL/shader part. So PLEASE leave out any fanboyism from EITHER brand New year, fresh start!

IL-2 uses a rather old and dated version of OpenGL and was optimized to NV in this case. This hampers the AMD users with lower FPS etc. Now both brands support OpenGL 4.1 in their drivers and features. Furthermore AMD cards fully support the features that were new at yearly years of IL-2, like Shader 3.0 etc. So there should be no restriction to allow AMD cards to use the Shader 3.0 feats at all anymore.

So the question is could TD check this and see if the OpenG/shader stuff can be upgraded to a more recent version? This would help ALL players with better performance. Sure not an item of most importance, but for sure havíng quite an impact on the game and how it runs.

So how about it TD? A possibility in future to look into this? I do not plan to change my GPU for one game when all others run perfectly fine

[albx]

+1

I think it is a good idea but probably will need too much work?

[FS~Phat]

I have been able to run hardware shaders with water 3 for quite a while now on both 4870 and 5870 ATI cards. They just wont support water 4 which isnt really any better than water 3 anway. I'd rather ATI get their act together to support IL2 with proper crossfireX support so my quadfire setup can push some extra frames with high antialiasing!

[Ernst]

+1

[Flanker35M]

S!

Just tested on 4.10m with AMD 6970HD. Setting Water=3 reverts to Water=1. Highest setting for AMD is AFAIK Water=2. Anyways, back to topic.

[EJGr.Ost_Caspar]

Regarding water... from readme patch 4.04m:

Graphics:

Reworked water render

To see the updated water render please modify the Water section in the file conf.ini in the [Render_OpenGL] section.

Water = 0 or 1 – No changes in version 4.03.
Water = 2 – This mode is visually similar to water = 3 but it runs on ATI cards 9800, X800, X1800 and later models.
Water = 3 – Fast render mode with Vertex Shaders 3.0 (NVIDIA 6600 and later models)
Water = 4 – Better quality mode with Vertex Shaders 3.0 (NVIDIA 6800 and later models)
Reminder:
ATI supports modes: 0, 1, 2
NVIDIA 6600 and later models support: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4
NVIDIA cards before the series 6xxx support 0, 1, 2 (2 is not recommended)

I don't think, anything has changed since then.

[SturmKreator]

I ask that way back then, said to them was impossible, very difficult

[KG26_Alpha]

Originally Posted by Flanker35M

S!

This is directed to TD as they have the knowledge and access to the inner works of IL-2 engine, namely the OpenGL/shader part. So PLEASE leave out any fanboyism from EITHER brand New year, fresh start!

IL-2 uses a rather old and dated version of OpenGL and was optimized to NV in this case. This hampers the AMD users with lower FPS etc. Now both brands support OpenGL 4.1 in their drivers and features. Furthermore AMD cards fully support the features that were new at yearly years of IL-2, like Shader 3.0 etc. So there should be no restriction to allow AMD cards to use the Shader 3.0 feats at all anymore.

So the question is could TD check this and see if the OpenG/shader stuff can be upgraded to a more recent version? This would help ALL players with better performance. Sure not an item of most importance, but for sure havíng quite an impact on the game and how it runs.

So how about it TD? A possibility in future to look into this? I do not plan to change my GPU for one game when all others run perfectly fine

Sorry to interject on this but ..............

To understand the OGL shader part of IL2 you need to be able to program in OGL and make new reworked water renders for the shaders to work and asking TD to do this is a probably beyond them as the il2core.dll will need to be reworked also and this file is a nightmare inside

ATI should be the ones to ask for optimizing the driver.

[HanneG]

4.04 was released, what, five years ago? ATi cards at the time didn't support some SM3 features (VTF, if I remember correctly). All recent cards, 3xxx+ do. You can't be serious about performance, anything that is not totally ghetto smokes Il-2, whether it's NV, AMD, Intel.

[Flanker35M]

S!

Easy enough to check for the optimizations and what is enabled when you use either NV or AMD card: shift + tab to bring up the console when a track starts ora mission. When NV card is selected and properly detected(have tested this) you get more shader nad NV optimizations for use. With AMD card the list is shorter and it loads a generic 3D algorithm.

These days AMD can do all the same tricks in OGL than NV can. And there is not much AMD can do if the code is specifically tailored to suit NV. Or should they create a profile in drivers that cheats IL-2 to believe all cards are NV? I do not think they would do that.

I have ran nVidia and AMD with IL-2, there is a clear difference between them. For example now even IL-2 runs at solid 60fps with VSync on I get some stutters and slowdowns in certain conditions where NV did not have them. All because of a piece of code done for NV.

There has been discussions about this that if it would be possible to do anything. Sure yes, but not for free as TD or other enthusiasts do. So the ball is at TD now IF they at some time could even check this. IF not then must live with it