LOFC PC optimization tweaks?

[capttrob]

My System,

 

WinXP Home SP2

Gigabyte 81PE-1000G rev 4 865PE Intel chipset (been very good to me)

P4 3.0 HT Prescott stock (29C idle/45C under load, Zalman Cu cooler, Artic Silver)

3GB Ram single channel (waiting for 1 more gig to have double dual channel)

100 GB Maxtor SATA partitioned C/D with XP on C and LO-FC on D.

120 GB Seagate ATA IDE for storage mainly

BFG 6800GS 256 AGP stock(53C idle/62C under load)

550w PSU

3 case fans

TIR4 Pro

CH Fighterstick, Pro Throttle, Pro Peds

 

Ive read the posts regarding that program (procaff?) for dual core processors, but i havent seen any problems with LOFC on my system. Or maybe i just dont notice them?

 

I get about 20-40 fps on the ground and 50-70 airborne. Med-High settings, heat blur off. However, the F-15C seems like it eats more fps than the A-10. FPS drops significantly flying through smoke from something i just destroyed on the ground with the A-10. I downloaded and installed manually some of the FPS tweaks from lockonfiles. ALT/TAB to desktop does mess up the graphics if i do it too much. When i click off full screen mode, it doesnt appear to do anything. Im running LOFC in 1360x768 60hz with Vsync off and Trip Buff on. 4xAA, 0 AF. My LCD native is 1366x768, but my BFG card wont customize that setting so i also run XP in 1360x768.

 

Anyone have any tips, tweaks, suggestions, i can further apply to optimize my setup? After a few hours of playing LOFC, the FPS does seem to drop quite a bit, especially on the ramp at respawn. If i reboot, im good to go. Thanks in advance....

 

edited for typos.

[brewber19]

Hi Capttrob,

 

I'm guessing wiser heads than me will reply to you soon but....you're getting reasonable FPS for your rig.

 

I have a P4 3.2Ghz prescott (socket 478) with a GF6800 Ultra and 2Gb of ram and I get about the same frames as you....difficult to compare directly cos I fly the Su-25 or the 'T', which is much more of an FPS killer - even in the frog I get 25FPS online...or I did until my mobo died so I'm upgrading at the moment.

 

I did find there is a real balance between applying tweaks for FPS versus how the game is affected...let me try to clarify what I mean.

 

I did some 'visibility' testing in the Su-25T to see how close/far I could detect ground targets. At the initial test I had a few mods installed, including the FPS tweak "2.0". I could detect targets up to 15km away.

 

I then did a reinstall of LO and only installed mods such as teka's HUD mint mod, realistic sun/moon and stuff like that....no FPS related mods though.

 

I retesed visibility and now I can see ground targets up to 25km away...if I know where to look in the first place.

 

In other words, be careful what FPS tweaks you install, because its always a compromise between speed and quality. As a mud mover its really important to me to see ground targets and scenery as far away as possible....whereas as a fighter jock you won't need to care as much about that.

 

Anyways, to answer your question....you get reasonable frames already...there is no easy solution to 'stuttering' when flying through smoke...no CPU/GPU seems powerful enough and...if you do install an FPS tweak do some before and after testing to make sure you are getting some benefit at a reasonable 'cost' (i.e. not dramatically reduced visibility of 'xyz').

 

Again, some wiser minds may chip in here and offer some more productive advice.

[Pilotasso]

Since you have lots of RAM this will help you. I found the following somewhere on this forum:

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's possible to turn swap file off, but it can cause problems - some applications may not work properly. IMHO it's better to tweak a regedit.exe this way:

 

Find the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\SessionManager\Memory Management

 

1. Find the dword DisablePagingExecutive, double click it and set the value to 1 decimal - this allows Windows to keep data in memory instead of paging to harddrive.

 

2. Find the dword LargeSystemCache, double click it and set the value to 1 decimal - this allows Windows kernel to run in memory - improves system performance a lot.

 

Reboot your PC for the changes to take effect.

 

I use these settings with 1,5 Gig of RAM and it improved system performance significantly - especially in Lomac (actually Lomac is the only application that forced me to upgrade RAM to 1,5 Gig :rolleyes

 

Finally I found one more tweak tip, but haven't tried it yet so don't know if it works - here it is:

"Create a new dword and name it IOPageLockLimit - double click it and set the value in hex to 4000 if you have 128MB of RAM or set it to 10000 if you have 256MB or set it to 40000 if you have more than 512MB of RAM - this tweak will speed up your disckcache."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Hope this helps.

[Guest ThomasDWeiss]

exactly - it is a trade off, after applying it you can edit it with

 

web page

 

 

 

what does this tweak do (2.0d) ?

it allows this:

this

and

all these are fps killers

 

this tweak is based on those made by many others - and although I have a good rig, I use them, although I edit some higher values and run it at 1600x1200.

 

my advise is to get used to LO first and then find the sweet spot were you get good FPS and quality.

 

There are some problems that unfortunatelly surfaced with 1.12a that this tweak cannot change.

[brewber19]

Oops, I missed ur last question about spawning/rebooting fixes things...well...apparently LO has a memory leak where ppl who have less that 2Gb of RAM can only play for about 45 mins before their PC craps out (frames reduce to slide show). You have stacks of RAM so I'm a little confused but...I have experienced playing online for about 2 hours and my frames gradually dropping from 25 to 10! I noticed this because I died alot in that game (thanks pilotasso :), yeah, the 504 server :D) and had to respawn alot...I respawned in the same place most times and could see my FPS nudge lower and lower with each respawn..dunno if this is the same memory leak but ppl with less RAM seem to be affected much quicker that ppl with 2Gb.

 

I bought my extra Gb of RAM for Battlefield 2...now that IS a RAM whore! (as is star wars battlefront 2).

 

PS: Remember I exclusively fly the Su-25 or 'T' so get lower FPS than if I was in any other A/C.

[brewber19]

exactly - it is a trade off, after applying it you can edit it with

 

web page

 

 

 

what does this tweak do (2.0d) ?

it allows this:

this

and

all these are fps killers

 

this tweak is based on those made by many others - and although I have a good rig, I use them, although I edit some higher values and run it at 1600x1200.

 

my advise is to get used to LO first and then find the sweet spot were you get good FPS and quality.

 

There are some problems that unfortunatelly surfaced with 1.12a that this tweak cannot change.

Hi Thomas,

 

Man, thanks for chipping in here..I couldnt remember the name of the mod and as I am at work I got distracted and didnt have time to check its name.

 

Agreed, it is all a compromise and I dig your mods...I just have more and more of them turned off/down these days as spotting that strela at 10km becomes more and more important. I gotta say...it wasnt until I joined the vvs504 and played online with labels off (I know, I know, stop laughing at me) that I really had to start compromising between FPS and fidelity.

 

I'm just hoping my new rig (parts on order atm) allow me both FPS and fidelity.

[Guest ThomasDWeiss]

Indeed - if you need to spot a target without labels you need to see as far as you can and quickly spot the target.

 

I still haven't myself found the best trade off - that's because I like the immersion of eye candy and don't bother with labels being there.

 

Try that GUI app, it allows you to find the settings you need , but it takes time to find it.

[capttrob]

Wow, thanks for all the great tips guys.

 

Im not really that experieced with editing the registry, but i guess you have to start sometime... i'll check it out.... veeeery carefully...

 

 

Thanks for those screenshots Thomas. Those sure look sweet. I probably can do that on my rig, but im sure it will turn into a slide show. I dont have any experience with the GUI configurator, but i'll take a look see. Thanks!

 

love your site by the way...

 

:cheers:

[Guest ThomasDWeiss]

Thanks :)

[capttrob]

Welcome... it my pleasure really.... :icon_supe

 

You know, now that i think of it, i really dont get any "stutters" in the game (at least not like i do with IL2) except when flying through smoke at low level after blowing something up. I guess there sint much you can do about this according to others. So at the risk of screwing up my registry, i probably should just leave it till i get the dual channel hooked up.

 

Do you guys think i would be better off taking 1GB out and running 2GB in dual channel instead of 3GB in single? Unfortunately, this Gigabyte MB doesnt offer any provision for running one in single with two in dual. I have to wait till i get my 4th stick.

[Kula66]

Since you have lots of RAM this will help you. I found the following somewhere on this forum:

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's possible to turn swap file off, but it can cause problems - some applications may not work properly. IMHO it's better to tweak a regedit.exe this way:

 

Find the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\SessionManager\Memory Management

 

1. Find the dword DisablePagingExecutive, double click it and set the value to 1 decimal - this allows Windows to keep data in memory instead of paging to harddrive.

 

2. Find the dword LargeSystemCache, double click it and set the value to 1 decimal - this allows Windows kernel to run in memory - improves system performance a lot.

 

Reboot your PC for the changes to take effect.

 

I use these settings with 1,5 Gig of RAM and it improved system performance significantly - especially in Lomac (actually Lomac is the only application that forced me to upgrade RAM to 1,5 Gig :rolleyes

 

Finally I found one more tweak tip, but haven't tried it yet so don't know if it works - here it is:

"Create a new dword and name it IOPageLockLimit - double click it and set the value in hex to 4000 if you have 128MB of RAM or set it to 10000 if you have 256MB or set it to 40000 if you have more than 512MB of RAM - this tweak will speed up your disckcache."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Hope this helps.

 

If you want to try these and don't like editing the registry, Google for CacheManXP ... its free

[capttrob]

Thanks Kula, thats a good idea. I used to have Cacheman when i had Win98. It wasnt that great. I still needed to reboot to get a really good cleaning of the cache. Gotta look into it for XP.