Squid

This game, owned since March, feels maybe like my best spent money on a simulator (bought on limited time reduced price offer played a role too ofcourse lol), despite its few features shortcomings and "arcadish" impression at first (which is got over quickly) . I still cant get enough of the graphics and the virtual world where the action takes place ... SO beautifully done .... amazing work with light. This sim hits on some specific points that are of priority for me personally in sims. While most people look for all flight , combat and physics dynamics and avionics accuracy my weakness lies on "feeling and looking real" visually / audio wise mostly and this is one of the points that influence me about this title. The other things is that i ABSOLUTELY had to do nothing graphics (or audio) settings wise to get the sim running in all its graphics beauty and TOTALLY smoothly .......... install, max-out settings and go !! no matter what settings i have in catalysts, it always works perfect and totaly smooth. The best stutter-free, smoother flow of motion i have ever experienced in a sim while in a densely populated and immersed world . First time ever too i saw SO many buildings and trees in a simulator , totally impressive cities representation while at the same time there is NOT the slightest notion of hick-up in motion flow, smothness ..... Planes even have bumb maping, awesome water on canopy effects, HDR, and and ....... The first sim ever for me that it hasn't trouble me graphics wise .... And that part is majorly important for me personally. Amazing. Besides the awesome combination of heavy loaded eye-candy with totaly smooth performance, i hadn't had the slightest graphics glitch , bug or issue ever , all work as they are supposed to. And just only using the game settings panel . No tweaks, no mods, no cfg no third party apps not even catalysts panel. Ofcourse the theatres of action are always confined in a rather small area maybe, but i find it hard to believe that this is what makes the difference in performance with sims like LockOn / DCS lets say, as i can't believe either that if that's what sabotages jet "hard core" simulators , that a smart solution / technology isn't out there or can't be developed to deal with the area size issue (eg smth like action and world outside a certain "bubble" dont have to be rendered and calculated until the player "bubble" is in their region etc) I cant help thinking that with LO series , most of my time has been spent researching and trying to solve issues, with little time left for actual play, and trying to get it to look and flow as advertised, as i want, as it should had been and still never manage to get it there .....

The more i experiment with full screen on/off the more i discover the difference in smoothness to be colossal ... with vsync on (riva d3d overider) so practically same fps in both cases , full screen "off" feels like running 100 fps more ... Looks crispier, cleaner, sharper and absolutely motion smooth. It just screams for bit of AA (like 2x) and shimmering elimination (urban areas) . Besides the AA and shimmering, feels exactly as the sim SHOULD feel. Solid, Smooth, crisp. feels actually like 3D .. Full screen "on" offers jags elimination and shimmering reducing (although not totally) by Super Sampling AA, but with my settings being AA 2x (no matter mode, keeping SS for shimmering control), AF 8x, Performance mip maps, the image feels mudy compared to Full Screen off, and the overall performance is nothing but smooth, stutters, micro breaks everywhere, feeling like a 15-20 fps flat thing Cant help keep wondering if there's a way to have AA (i am not sure what is going on with AF) in full screen off ..... :( .

the other thing though is that smoothnes and framerates are significantly better with full screen off ... could that be just because of absense of FSAA ? i would be surprised of just 2x AA is what can make such a difference in smoothness

It appears that disabling "full screen" from the FC2 settings is not allowing AA to apply (maybe AF too?) . Thats with my ATI 5850 win 7 64 , 10.8 Cats. Is it possible to have AA working with disabled "Full Screen" ? (btw what's the difference between enabled and disabled, both seem full screen to me)

Which one you prefer (if you do) and what are for you the advantages and disadvantages of each :)

hmmm ... interesting ... although HD5850 here. care to post comparing screenshots ?

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=52180

With AA to "Application managed" do you still have any AntiAlias in the game or is it jaggy ? Currently i am noticing that with "Full Screen" disabled i am getting the smoothest & fastest motion, but no AA at all, no matter what i set in the Ati catalysts control panel (CC). AA seems to be working only when i enable "full screen" in FC2 but the difference in smoothness and framerate is big .... Any clues? .

... i have to say this again , i miss being able to see the actual livery selection on loadout ... especially when have tons of skins , ESPECIALLY useful for skinners .... trying to complete a skin work and having to enter a mission every time to check ....

isn't the the triple buffering of CCC (refer to OGL?) actually working ? (with DX)

did you notice any FPS boost with D3Doverider vsync and its DX triple buffer option ? stutter improvement ? Is D3Doverider included in MSI afterburner too?

updated.

at last, i have just found that v-sync works with FC2 (stoping tearing-up / waving of screen) when i just UNCHECK full screen option in FC2 settings ..... So, reverting graphics.cfg to its original maxFPS=0 and just leave Radeon vsync forced on, tearing-ups / wavings dissapear and i get back the smooth and crisp feel of 50+ fps. Micro stutter still here although slightly improved in some viewing angles. i also noticed that for some reason i think things are smoother with russian birds ...(?)

Have you tried maybe the SuperSampling method in AA?

theres is a list like that which is being updated at lockonfiles.com

You mean maybe maxFPS ? is there a minFPS setting?

i have the same kind of micro stutter as asparagin and annoying tearing up / waving like a V-Sync off would cause which gets somehow reduced only by maxFPS=40-50 but not eliminated. I have found also that those two are related. The more the stutter the bigger the tearing up. (vsync from the radeon panel doesnt affect it). I wish ii could get read of this tearing up / screen waving somehow .... I always had that with LO and FC1 and any card, either nvidia or ATI. I suspect that maybe all rigs maybe have it but most people dont pay attention, or realise it. FPS could be high but microstuttering would always be there when looking at the terrain from either cockpit or external plane camera especialy when on low level

- do you have "scenery" at "high" ? - in your second screen looks like as if your AA is poor. Also shouldn't the objects in the airfield be visible from that distance? some of them might be potential targets for example. airfield looks empty, just taxiways / runways. Thats something i dont like about those tweaks, some do improve performance without reducing eyecandy but usually have an effect on objects visibility. Also theres the infamous mix of low res ground textures amongst high res ones; the texture surrounding the airfield. - in your first screenshot looks like theres definite shimmering close to the horizon gtx295 thats a powerful card :)

lol lol will send you the luas when i get home ... gee you simers :P

Really ? you can't control the cursor by hat / ministick ??? this then has to be fixed ASAP I REALLY MISS having 3D views in loadout and livery setup. (and encyclopedia) i cant stress that out enough ................. for me thats MAJOR step BACK after almost 10 years of such features. And encyclopedia could use some attention more. There's some more information needed in many systems especially for the uninitiated (eg names missing like Harpoon, HARM, Standard, Hellfire etc and some comments and few more details on exact usage purpose in some cases would be nice)

the million dollar question lol will post when i find time comparative screenshots

what if we just want to add dust (and smoke if there is) or only reduce ricochet a little instead of eliminiate? i like the fires and smoke of 6.jpg

Thanks :) i am updating my cumulative graphics solutions thread with this. Although i wish the cloud cast shadows on the ground would still remain (as they did in LO when choosing planar shadows option) http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=870072#post870072

- what tweaks ? care to post maybe if possible ? :) - Tried over a thickly populated city ? similar to sevastopol ? - scenes set to High ? - nvidia or ati ?

it would be nice to see as screens here the results of your various tweaks experiments :) and its also nice to see RL personel joining the chats here and share their input :)