Very Low Performance with Brand New System

[dok_rp]

Hello folks,

 

I have been flying Lomac for quite some time and three days ago I bought a brand new system to go with it and play it with smooth fps's at high resolutions with all graphical settings cranked up.

 

This is the system I am running Lomac at:

 

Phenom X4 955 3.2GHz

ATI HD4980

4GB DDR3 Patriot Viper

 

I am using Windows Vista 64 due to the well-known ram detection limitation with 32bits environments.

 

I am able to play absolutely everything I have at max settings with very nice fps's. I tested Armed Assault, which is a fps killer and I was able to play it at 1680X1050 (My native 22'' resolution) with absolutely everything (except anisotropic) to the max with 40-70fps.

 

Before having this new computer I had an Atlon 3200+ and a Geforce6800XT and I ran it at 1024X768 with almost everything on max with an average of 30fps.

 

However, now I am hitting the low 20's with this new configuration. I tried reducing the graphics to a lower quality and it does indeed vastly improve on the fps's. With "medium" settings I am hitting 50-60; but, still, shouldn't a system like this one be able to handle Lomac more than fine?

 

I tried an affinity cmd file that I found at LockonFiles and that didn't improve my fps's at all.

 

I am simply dying to be able to play Lomac especially now that I got a TrackIR 5 (which by the way doesn't work with Lomac either :( It does work with all the other sims I have and that support it) and got an X52PRO on the mail. :(

 

I'd be immensely glad if some kind soul could shed some light into the matter, because I am completely in the dark. :(

[RedTiger]

Frame rate in LOMAC is VERY dependent on your altitude and what you are flying over at the time. That is the most important thing to consider. If you're getting low 20s when you're flying at 30k - 40k feet, something isn't right. Sometimes the FPS counter in LOMAC will be over a hundred for me in that case with no vsync.

 

Now, if I fly very low, almost nap-of-earth over Krasnodar where I can see that massive city stretching out all around me? I'm lucky to get 20. I've seen it go as low as 9 -- NINE -- single digits -- for a short spell during take-off. This is on a E6850 that was OC'd to the same speed as your processor. Note also that I saw a completely negligible FPS increase over the stock 3 ghz speed. I found this funny because in Crysis this small increase made a noticible impact. I gained about 5 FPS. Crysis makes use of the processor more than your average FPS due to physics, but I still assumed that this small increase wouldn't have much effect.

 

To give a "middle of the road" type of figure, in a busy mission, flying at 7500 meters flying over Sevastopol, I'll get a steady 40 fps.

 

I'd like to see someone who has done some -serious- OC'd, like 4 ghz+, (and has the hardware not to bottleneck) post what their various framerates are. I'd be interested to see if there's a point where you bottleneck due to the engine's limitation.

 

While it is true that flight sims are CPU dependent, I think LOMAC is its own beast and just runs however its going to run due to the way it is coded. I'll cite the fact that I can fly over very large cities in DCS: Black Shark and still maintain a framerate that isn't much lower than just flying across the countryside.

Edited September 3, 2009 by RedTiger

[S77th-konkussion]

If heat blur is on- shut it off. Huge hog.. You might even be able to turn other stuff back up. Shut down unneeded programs that run in background. Then take into account what Red says. Cities bring everything down.. it's incredible.

[RedTiger]

Also...consider water.

 

In case you don't know already, water is rendered under the land. It doesn't stop at the shore. The reason behind this, IIRC, is that it was harder and involved extra calculations to make the water stop rendering at the shoreline. And as you can see, LOMAC has A LOT of coastline. ;) Medium water gives you the waves and ripples. High adds sky and cloud reflection. Very high adds reflections of land, ships, planes, etc.

 

If you can run medium comfortably, you can run high. There's minimal difference. Very high, OTOH, will KILL your framerate. Remember how I said that land is reflected on very high? No one has ever been able to confirm this for me, but I swear up and down, left and right, that all the land that sits above the water is being needlessly rendered as a reflection on the water surface. If the water is rendered under the land due to engine restraints, why would it not also keep its other properties, like what it will reflect?

 

The difference between high and very high is just too great for me to think otherwise. Going from from very high to high will increase the frame rate by at least 15. Sometimes the increase will be much greater. High quality is a good comprimise. You still get a nice sky and cloud reflection that is a very noticible increase in eye-candy over using medium.

 

EDIT: I thought I'd mention this just in case. If you use high quality water or above and you have a completely overcast sky, LOMAC might crash at mission load. Modern nvidia cards (not sure about ATI) don't seem to like the way LOMAC renders overcast on the water. As I have updated my drivers, sometimes a driver set will work, but the next set usually kills the ability again. I have yet to try this with my new card, but I'm expecting the same.

 

EDIT #2: Sorry for the long-winded responses!

Edited September 3, 2009 by RedTiger

[71st_Mastiff]

hes using ATI that might be the problem?

[159th_Viper]

hes using ATI that might be the problem?

 

Now why would that be?

 

:)

 

I was averaging 60+ FPS in the T-Toad with settings maxed and Terrain Mods installed on Vista with ATI 4870x2, so not indicative of ATI, no.

[dok_rp]

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

 

I didn't know Crimea was actually floating over water. :huh: I've been flying this sim for a few years already and never had I heard of it. Very interesting. It makes all the sense in the world why very high water quality will simply decimate your fps's.

 

I have tested it with water on medium and the fp's indeed improve. I was hitting 40ish while looking outside and in the cockpit, and over 200 when looking at a clear sky. But, still, the difference is quite astonishing isn't it? I mean, when playing IL2 at SpitsX109 MOD with the AAA mod and everything cranked up at a 40+ players server in one of those 4.09 maps with huge mountains and very detailed terrain, I usually get fps's around 70 when looking out of the cockpit and if I look directly into the sky it rises to about 90. A difference, which, while being significant, is not so mind-boggling as in Lomac.

 

Don't get me wrong. I am not criticizing the game or anything, it's just that for such a big difference I could think that something wrong was going on; with the game or with my puter.

 

Armed Assault also runs as smooth as baby butt with everything cranked up to the max.

 

I was indeed very surprised to see low fps's with Lomac, a sim that I thought I'd get very smooth and uncompromised gameplay.

 

Is this the same way with BlackShark? When I assembled this computer I was looking at a good Cost X Benefit machine. I think I was able to achieve that. The sims I am most looking forward to play are Black Shark, the future A10 expansion and Armed Assault 2; along with the old ones I already play. When it comes to Black Shark, can I expect poor performance or good playability?

 

One last question: Are Intel and nVidia the best choices for playing Lomac and Black Shark? Did I make a bad move by choosing AMD+ATI?

 

Thanks a lot for all the help. It has been very much informative. :thumbup:

 

P.S.: I was able to get TrackIR 5 to work. I followed the tips found here in the forum which suggested deleting TrackIR.ini from the Lomac folder. It worked perfectly after that.

 

P.P.S.: I am trying to force V-Sync in the ATI Catalyst Control Panel, but I still can't get it to work. I've set the "Wait for Vertical Refresh" for "Always On", but the game doesn't seem to abide by that. Is that a problem with ATI boards? :(

[Mustang]

hes using ATI that might be the problem?

 

I've been using ATi cards with LO since 2003, and now with DCS, and i've never had any performance problems...why the heck would it be an issue? :huh:

Edited September 4, 2009 by Mustang

[RedTiger]

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

 

You're welcome! Flight sims are what I call "strange animals". LOMAC is an even stranger one sometimes! ;)

 

I have tested it with water on medium and the fp's indeed improve. I was hitting 40ish while looking outside and in the cockpit, and over 200 when looking at a clear sky. But, still, the difference is quite astonishing isn't it? I mean, when playing IL2 at SpitsX109 MOD with the AAA mod and everything cranked up at a 40+ players server in one of those 4.09 maps with huge mountains and very detailed terrain, I usually get fps's around 70 when looking out of the cockpit and if I look directly into the sky it rises to about 90. A difference, which, while being significant, is not so mind-boggling as in Lomac.

 

Don't get me wrong. I am not criticizing the game or anything, it's just that for such a big difference I could think that something wrong was going on; with the game or with my puter.

 

Armed Assault also runs as smooth as baby butt with everything cranked up to the max.

 

I was indeed very surprised to see low fps's with Lomac, a sim that I thought I'd get very smooth and uncompromised gameplay.

 

You're not the first person to scratch their head at this one! There have been cries of "unoptimized coding" for a long time -- whatever that means. ;) IMO, LOMAC is a very good example of what happens when you try to make a game future-proof. I play MMOs from time to time, and I have found very similar issues to the ones you find in LOMAC in a game called Everquest 2, a game that the developers specifically said they developed to be "future proof" -- in other words, you couldn't run it at the time cranked, quality was supposed to improve as technology improved. This was supposed to increase longevity and keep the game looking up to date over the years as people continued their subscriptions. Unfortunately, technology didn't happen the way they thought it would.

 

I don't think ED has ever said they designed LOMAC this way, but there are similarities between the two, with EQ2 being the only game I've ever heard the developers say was intended to be future proof. Both would seem to expect you to have a very fast single-core processor. Both do not seem to take advantage of video cards in any special way beyond bump mapping and specular effects. The way to get good performace out of both is a blazingly fast CPU with the hardware to eliminate bottlenecks. Even at 3 ghz, you still can't get a steady 30+. You will never get the 40, 60, 80 at all altitudes as you might see in a modern PC game that is more dependent on GPU.

 

Is this the same way with BlackShark? When I assembled this computer I was looking at a good Cost X Benefit machine. I think I was able to achieve that. The sims I am most looking forward to play are Black Shark, the future A10 expansion and Armed Assault 2; along with the old ones I already play. When it comes to Black Shark, can I expect poor performance or good playability?

 

This is my experience with Black Shark; I get much better FPS at those lower altitudes than I would in LOMAC, but overall I don't get nearly as good a framerate as I do in LOMAC on average. This probably has less to do with the sim and more that you don't spend any time at high altitudes and get those really smooth FPS spikes. Black Shark is far more optimized that Flaming Cliffs, IMO. I have never gotten around to playing a campaign in Black Shark, but in very small missions the frame rate has been very playable.

Edited September 4, 2009 by RedTiger

[CHola]

I was indeed very surprised to see low fps's with Lomac, a sim that I thought I'd get very smooth and uncompromised gameplay.

 

No help here. Most of the stuff is hardcoded. However, such high level of optimization (hardcoding) made LOMAC work very fast (in respect to details), back in 2003, with lower hardware power.

 

P.P.S.: I am trying to force V-Sync in the ATI Catalyst Control Panel, but I still can't get it to work. I've set the "Wait for Vertical Refresh" for "Always On", but the game doesn't seem to abide by that. Is that a problem with ATI boards? :(

 

Smart...

No need to overdrive the card, especially during summer temperatures ;)

 

What drivers do you use?! You say Control Panel, not CCC?!

Anyway, if you can't force Vsync from Control/something, try using "ATI tray tools". They're pretty reliable in this low level operations and may successfully force Vsync, even if CCC won't.

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[mrbinkels]

Which drivers are you using?

 

 

 

Also...consider water.

 

In case you don't know already, water is rendered under the land. It doesn't stop at the shore. The reason behind this, IIRC, is that it was harder and involved extra calculations to make the water stop rendering at the shoreline. And as you can see, LOMAC has A LOT of coastline. ;) Medium water gives you the waves and ripples. High adds sky and cloud reflection. Very high adds reflections of land, ships, planes, etc.

 

If you can run medium comfortably, you can run high. There's minimal difference. Very high, OTOH, will KILL your framerate. Remember how I said that land is reflected on very high? No one has ever been able to confirm this for me, but I swear up and down, left and right, that all the land that sits above the water is being needlessly rendered as a reflection on the water surface. If the water is rendered under the land due to engine restraints, why would it not also keep its other properties, like what it will reflect?

 

The difference between high and very high is just too great for me to think otherwise. Going from from very high to high will increase the frame rate by at least 15. Sometimes the increase will be much greater. High quality is a good comprimise. You still get a nice sky and cloud reflection that is a very noticible increase in eye-candy over using medium.

 

EDIT: I thought I'd mention this just in case. If you use high quality water or above and you have a completely overcast sky, LOMAC might crash at mission load. Modern nvidia cards (not sure about ATI) don't seem to like the way LOMAC renders overcast on the water. As I have updated my drivers, sometimes a driver set will work, but the next set usually kills the ability again. I have yet to try this with my new card, but I'm expecting the same.

 

EDIT #2: Sorry for the long-winded responses!

[mrbinkels]

On another note, Install the 9.8 drivers, which are the latest. Install over whatever you're running now even if 9.8 are installed. Make sure you uncheck folding app that installs unless you want to install it. Make sure shadows are on all planar.

[RedTiger]

On another note, Install the 9.8 drivers, which are the latest. Install over whatever you're running now even if 9.8 are installed. Make sure you uncheck folding app that installs unless you want to install it. Make sure shadows are on all planar.

 

9.8? You read the part where I said NVIDIA, right? :D

[mrbinkels]

9.8? You read the part where I said NVIDIA, right? :D

 

I'm actually referring to the original poster, dok_rp. Your post is too long for me to read. I lose interest after the first four or five lines. Nothing personal though. :thumbup:

 

 

Duh I saw where I quoted you, musta been too early in the morning, my apologies.