next DCS game essentials....

[EtherealN]

Fair enough. There's been so many people talking about multithreading as if it was just flipping a compiler flag that I might overreact to the topic.

 

Though my personal bias is that the more people are caused to overclock, the better. It's the best hobby ever. :)

[Chibawang]

I fully realise that the task of multi-threaded conversion is not a small one, but I can't recall having read whether or not it is planned for the somewhat near future. As I will soon begin building a new rig for the Warthog, this leaves me wondering what to invest in. I know it's far too early to say whether or not it will be supported in the next module, but has there been any official word on this at all? Also, would you get better performance at this point from a good dual core than you would from a better quad core?

 

Forgive me if this has already been covered, as I know this topic has come up a few times already.

[GGTharos]

There has been no official word other than 'when we get around to it'.

 

I'd invest in GHz, not in number of cores. Two at high GHz will give you nice performance.

 

I fully realise that the task of multi-threaded conversion is not a small one, but I can't recall having read whether or not it is planned for the somewhat near future. As I will soon begin building a new rig for the Warthog, this leaves me wondering what to invest in. I know it's far too early to say whether or not it will be supported in the next module, but has there been any official word on this at all? Also, would you get better performance at this point from a good dual core than you would from a better quad core?

 

Forgive me if this has already been covered, as I know this topic has come up a few times already.

[mjolner]

The most important thing from future DCS games is the FRAME RATES,with Lock On I can get more than 150 frs,Arma2 about 80,Fs X around 70 all full,but in BS I can only get around 15 en battle,some times only single digits,flight along I get around 25.:

 

Been an OFP, ARMA, ARMA2 player for awhile. I built my new system specifically for ARMA2. I am fairly certain any rig that gets 80 FPS in ARMA2 will run DCS very well.

 

The Armaholic site has a nice benchmarking program for ARMA2, the name escapes me at the moment. I would be curious to see what your numbers would be like if your claim of 80 FPS holds any merit. Not saying its not possible but I would feel more comfortable knowing your rig.

 

ARMA 2 and FSX are far more demanding on processor cycles than DCS. Hopefully on this forum you find some answers to solve your performance issues.

[Vitesse2l]

I was wondering regarding FPS...

 

In regular steady flight with low FPS (such as I get!) the physics calculations are pretty simple - the helo is not deviating or being over controlled so it's state between one frame and the next is basically similar. The sim looks smooth.

 

In manoeuvring flight, with deviations caused by large control inputs (who put those power lines there?) the steps between frames become more obvious as the calculations take more work. The scenery then starts to jerk past the cockpit.

 

Does flight modelling lose realism with lower FPS as the CPU struggles to keep up? I would imagine so.

[26-J39]

Does flight modelling lose realism with lower FPS as the CPU struggles to keep up? I would imagine so.

 

No actually, the flight model is never compromised, what is tho is your ability to control the aircraft properly because your CPU is not able to render ALL the frames needed for it to appear like smooth flight..

 

Also re: "How many FPS can a human eye see" doesn't actually make sense.

Its like asking how many apples does it take to change a light bulb?

How many FPS do RL piolts get when flying there RL aircraft! If there was an answer to the question it would be this: infinite. You can't classify the mind with information tech terms.. OH i will be shot down for this.. haa :P

[swepain]

i'd guess 3 or 4

 

Also re: "How many FPS can a human eye see" doesn't actually make sense.

Its like asking how many apples does it take to change a light bulb?

How many FPS do RL piolts get when flying there RL aircraft! If there was an answer to the question it would be this: infinite. You can't classify the mind with information tech terms.. OH i will be shot down for this.. haa :P

[Bucic]

18? Well you must have the slowest brain known to mankind then.

:thumbup:

 

Professional simulators work closer to 100 FPS for a reason. It's hard even for professionals to compete with internet community "knowledge". So first acknowledge that ~15-20 FPS is barely enough to produce illusion of motion. Second - simple example:

 

You have an animation of movement of a ball going up and down for a distance equal the distance from your foot to your knee. It does 5 such up and downs per second. That's 5 Hz frequency BTW. The animation is at 20 FPS. Hell, I'll give you stunning and unnecessary 30 FPS. This kind of movement is easy to observe in real life. You will see the ball at every point - up, down and in every possible position in between. Now, how many frames have you got for the movement of the ball up and down one time? 30/5=6 frames. Frames for one movement up - 3. I guess it's where "quality over quantity" plays a role, right? Needles to say bumpy race track in a race sim working at 20 FPS can cause disorientation.

Edited November 26, 2009 by Bucic

[Feuerfalke]

Professional simulators work closer to 100 FPS for a reason.

 

Which simulators are you referring to?

 

The (military and civilian) simulators I saw worked with 50Hz projectors in "synchronized" mode, some really advanced full-motion-simulators (like most from Airbus) work with 75Hz monitors in sync'ed mode.

[Bucic]

Which simulators are you referring to?

 

The (military and civilian) simulators I saw worked with 50Hz projectors in "synchronized" mode, some really advanced full-motion-simulators (like most from Airbus) work with 75Hz monitors in sync'ed mode.

 

"Closer" I said? I exaggerated ;) But you know yourself that this kind of simulators don't settle nowhere near 20 FPS.

[Warbird_242]

Isn't it the case here ( and someone might have already said this ) that the brain does not see things in 'frame rates' but in perfect seamless motion because the optic nerve streams constantly to the brain, so it is impossible to put the brain's capability for seeing motion into frame rates. So there cannot be a single figure because it will never be completely smooth until it starts doing it in complete real time ( infinity FPS)? Correct me if I'm wrong though :P

[Feuerfalke]

Why do some posters keep over-exaggerating at all?

 

20FPS is non-sense, professional simulators running with 100FPS as well.

 

 

The question was is 25-35 FPS enough or not, if there is much of a difference running the game at 25/35 or 100 and in either case, why that is.

 

At least IMHO it doesn't help getting forward in the discussion if people just keep hacking down on exaggerating statements with other exaggerated statements. Well, IMHO at least. :dunno:

Edited November 26, 2009 by Feuerfalke

[Feuerfalke]

Isn't it the case here ( and someone might have already said this ) that the brain does not see things in 'frame rates' but in perfect seamless motion because the optic nerve streams constantly to the brain, so it is impossible to put the brain's capability for seeing motion into frame rates. So there cannot be a single figure because it will never be completely smooth until it starts doing it in complete real time ( infinity FPS)? Correct me if I'm wrong though :P

 

In a sense you are correct - the problem is, though, that e.g. movies are able to compensate for that by blurring the single pictures. For the human eye, that corresponds with fast moving objects. Most PC-Games don't. They simply have single renders. So you can run the game at 200FPS and movement won't look as real as a movie with 24 FPS.

Only way out is applying blurring-filters to games as well.

 

Then still, we have the difference that FPS does not only determine the output for the eye, but also the input for the controls ;)

[swepain]

Why do some posters keep over-exaggerating at all?

 

20FPS is non-sense, professional simulators running with 100FPS as well.

 

 

The question was is 25-35 FPS enough or not, if there is much of a difference running the game at 25/35 or 100 and in either case, why that is.

 

Yea..

Was talk about fps being not the best messurment for games, it should be in ms instead, like they do in Americasarmy3, its (as far as i understand it) milliseconds/frame.. messuring the time betwen frames instead of how many frames per second

[Bucic]

@ Feuerfalke:

I didn't really feel obliged to be precise as my intention was to oversimplify in the first place so everyone could get the idea. That said if you'd try to sell a simulator working at 100 FPS no one would complain. Try to do the same with a simulator working at 20 and you'd be asked to get the hell out of the office/line/whatever. Simple as that.

 

For the same reason (to keep it simple) i didn't go for motion blur and for more than 5 Hz as well.

 

@swepain:

It's the same ;) You can calculate it from FPS.

[Feuerfalke]

@ swepain:

Agreed. That would make it a lot more representative - on the other hand, there are enough people playing AA, who think that the ms is 1:1 an FPS counter....

 

@Bucic:

That argument is a bit hollow, honestly.

 

You don't make a simulation or any game to make it run at 100FPS.

In fact, it works the exact other way around: You make a game that barely runs on modern PCs, so you can get the maximum out of graphics and or gameplay. The basis calculation is that people will upgrade their PCs anyway and by aiming as high as possible, they will still play the game in 5 years and buy the sequels based on the same engine in the meanwhile.

As it was posted from several managers (EA, Activision, Ubisoft), with todays development times a game is only successful if it will work for several sequels as well, so you can actually make a profit from it.

 

You can also watch that happening on Consoles as well. In either case, an average FPS of 35 is much more the set goal than an FPS-rating of 100.

[Bucic]

@Feuerfalke:

It got off from rails too much for me so I'll better stop there.

[EtherealN]

I was wondering regarding FPS...

 

In regular steady flight with low FPS (such as I get!) the physics calculations are pretty simple - the helo is not deviating or being over controlled so it's state between one frame and the next is basically similar. The sim looks smooth.

 

In manoeuvring flight, with deviations caused by large control inputs (who put those power lines there?) the steps between frames become more obvious as the calculations take more work. The scenery then starts to jerk past the cockpit.

 

Does flight modelling lose realism with lower FPS as the CPU struggles to keep up? I would imagine so.

 

Now, I haven't been in the internals of the DCS code so I cannot state this with perfect certainty, but I don't think the simulation becomes more complex to do just because you are maneuvering. You still have to calculate airflows and momentums - it's just that the results are different from the previous one. It doesn't work in the way of "he didn't make a control input so I don't have to calculate all of that again".

 

However, when you maneuver you cause things to have to be loaded into the process either from memory or from disk - for example you might force an increased workload on the GPU since it now has to model a new type of tank that it didn't have to model 10 seconds ago, and the information for that has to be moved to the GPU if it isn't already there.

 

Though as I said, I've never seen a single line of DCS source code, but I don't see a reason why the engine would have a bigger simulation load for the CPU just because you are maneuvering. However, there are other parts of the simulator (as opposed to the actual simulation engine) that might very well cause an increased workload. A way to test this is to have an FPS tracker on and look around the cockpit - first look in the direction of nothing, note the FPS, then look over in the other direction where you have a whole bunch of tanks. If you experience is like mine, there will be a minor effect on the FPS - but this is due to your view changing, not the helicopter's maneuver changing the sim load.

[Wolf Rider]

The eye doesn't appreciate much difference over 30 PS but an LCD monitor running at less than 60FPS does appear jerky.

 

A higher FPS does equal better game play

 

(The high FPS in FSX, mentioned earlier, more than likely had no trees, zero traffic, zero boats and very low airport goodies and possibly a low resolution. Even Aces gulped when they realised that drawing the world, with all those tree polygons was bringing even hot machines to their knees... Add 500 trees to Il2 and watch what happens :cry: )

 

which brings me ask... it seems Windows7 has broken vsync, where Vista and nVidia had vsync working.

Edited November 26, 2009 by Wolf Rider

[Distiler]

The basis calculation is that people will upgrade their PCs anyway and by aiming as high as possible, they will still play the game in 5 years and buy the sequels based on the same engine in the meanwhile.

 

I just hope the economic crisis does allow us to keep with this. Might be a strategic moment to put more hands into into perfomance instead of features.

Edited November 26, 2009 by Distiler

[Vitesse2l]

Thanks for the replies to my flight modelling / fps query earlier.

[Feuerfalke]

I just hope the economic crisis does allow us to keep with this. Might be a strategic moment to put more hands into into perfomance instead of features.

 

Economic crisis might slow down this development, but it won't change or even stop it.

[amalahama]

Economic crisis might slow down this development, but it won't change or even stop it.

 

I think you misunderstanding the point: People aren't so wealthy like old times, so maybe ED should try to wring performance out and to take advantage of each little transistor in our system, instead of more new fps-hungry features, often bad optimized (FSX?) -> X-Plane is doing very nice with this, thinking not only in high-end computers, but average and low-end computers too.

 

Regards!!

[GGTharos]

If $15 is too much for you, turn off the computer and save on electricity. Really, if it's THAT bad, make the right choice and turn off the non-essentialls - your ocmputer shouldn't even be on.

 

Can't afford a new one? Tough. Games advance, that's how it is. If your current computer barely plays FC, it'll barely play FC2. Those of us who can afford new parts will buy them, and I see no reason to hold back because some people cannot afford them. That would simply be the wrong thing to do ... this isn't some app that you need for your livelyhood.

 

I think you misunderstanding the point: People aren't so wealthy like old times, so maybe ED should try to wring performance out and to take advantage of each little transistor in our system, instead of more new fps-hungry features, often bad optimized (FSX?) -> X-Plane is doing very nice with this, thinking not only in high-end computers, but average and low-end computers too.

 

Regards!!

[EtherealN]

Amalahama, note that the system recommendation is mainly composed of components that are so old as to not even be on the market anymore.

 

Further, a big optimization job (it's already a good system if you compare with other software products and what they manage to do with equal hardware requirements) would pretty much mean multithreading, and that would most likely take years - at which point this little recession will be a memory long gone.

 

Things that are multi-year on their timescale just aren't worth changing because there's temporary setbacks in the economy.