Anyone with problems with ATI drivers read this.

[Flanker35M]

S!

Yes, good to test various settings. This is how I did it as well. The "jaggy" rivers is no real show stopper for me, as again I am not there to look at the rivers or water But it is true SuperSample AA setting helps with it.

The thing with Effects-setting. If using 10.1's without the Effects=1 you are almost certain to get graphical anomalies when explosions or gun fire near the planes. When at 1, then nothing. So is this setting tied to lighting as well on surfaces etc?

Catalyst AI. I keep it always off, it reduces FPS in IL-2, easily measured in The Black Death for example. Having it off gives a few extra FPS. Funnily enough Catalyst AI is required with some DLL's (IL2 ones, not ATI) to get rid of the terrain showing up as flickering and distorted squares. The latest 13.3.2008 DLL's work without Catalyst AI with decent perfromance. On par with the 9.2.2008 ones, very slight difference.

I also run 1920x1200 as having 16:10 scale 24" screen. My FPS in black death with current settings with VSync on is min 23 max 72 avg 53 FPS. Without VSync the minimum is the same, maximum 200+ and average around 82 FPS. I run now an AMD rig instead of Intel, just for the fun of it

[=PF=Coastie]

Yeah, the shimmering is one of those things that just drives some people nuts. It is a real eye catcher on certain maps with lots of rivers, that is why I try to get rid of, or at least reduce it a little.

People so often try to max out all this different eye candy without ever consider the real world affect WHILE FLYING IN COMBAT! If you are flying in combat, you will not notice 75% of this stuff.

Take the "effects" settings for instance. The only real differences are effects like shadows under explosions and small puffs of smoke......REALLY? Can someone honestly say they see the difference in this stuff while fighting a dogfight or attack ground targets?.......REALLY?

That said, it is still good to know what your machine can do. Maybe you like to take high res screen shots and stuff like that. Well then you really need to know what is your max settings that can still be playable so you can record tracks while playing then go back and get the best possible effects. But for 95% people much less settings will do because they will never see the difference in game in combat.

[Flanker35M]

S!

Did some more testing, results can be seen over here: http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/t...5031088038/p/4

[Flanker35M]

S!

After testing some more..I set on the Vertex Array options in conf.ini and got following results...There is an impact for sure. Hoping ATI will issue this un upcoming drivers.


Black Death track, both VertexArray option enabled

Minimum: 28fps
Maximum: 284fps
Average: 93fps

+ Increase of fps in smoke and flame intense scenes of the track and average boosted a bit.
+ No artifacts or anomalies, either no console errors.
- The "blue hue" is there with these on.


Black Death track, only VertexArrayEXT enabled

Minimum: 24fps
Maximum: 285fps
Average: 93fps

+ Perfromance still good
+ No "blue hue" noticed nor artifacting, console clean.
- Would perform better with both options on.


So ATI has some homework to do with their drivers. I post the results I got without the vertex arrays enabled below. Figure the rest


Black Death track, no vertex arrays

Minimum: 23fps
Maximum: 286fps
Average: 93fps

+ No artifacts or errors, no blue hue
- Slightly lesser overall performance in dense places of the track.


If you look at the numbers there is no big difference. The difference was in overall performance of the track playing. With both Vertex Arrays ON, the track ran at a higher consistent FPS than without them in many places so definitely has an impact on performance of IL2. This can explain the difference between nVidia and ATI in IL2 as nVidia can use Vertex Array option without problems thus giving more FPS in certain situations. If ATI and/or MG/TD can fix this issue then there is none or very small difference in performance of either card brand.

Back to testing...

[=PF=Coastie]

You should send those test results into the ATI feedback form....good stuff!

[Flanker35M]

S!

Feel free to use them if you are in direct contact with Terry I can be your tester if he asks for something

[13th Hsqn Protos]

S~! Coastie

Long time no see.

I have done a lot of experimenting with ATI and confirm flankers results with vertex. Its also the same with AnisotropicExt changing to 0 or 1 yeilds little to no difference.

I recently went to the darkside (temp rma my sapphire) with an Nvidia 275 GTX and must say that the performance increase is incredible.
Over 30 fps increase in Black Death average and minimum frames up by over 15fps.

My understanding is that SoW is going to be heavily optimized for Nvidia...... I hate to admit it but I think my move to Nvidia may be permanent.

Ati is not supporting S.o.W according to some devs..... highly doubt there will be anything really done to improve IL2

But keep pluggin

My settings FOR MAX visual quality while maintaining high frames as follows

[Render_OpenGL]
TexQual=3
TexMipFilter=3
TexCompress=0
TexFlags.UseDither=0
TexFlags.UseAlpha=0
TexFlags.UseIndex=0
TexFlags.PolygonStipple=1
TexFlags.UseClampedSprites=0
TexFlags.DrawLandByTriangles=0
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=0

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

HardwareShaders=1

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

Sky=1
Forest=3
LandShading=3
LandDetails=2

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

VideoSetupId=17
Water=0 (change as you see fit)
Effects=1 (change as you see fit)
ForceShaders1x=0
PolygonOffsetFactor=-0.0625
PolygonOffsetUnits=-3.0