Shimmer on Nvidia cards need help

[rattler]

Yeah I've tried the BS tweakguide thread and been playing around with Nhancer settings but can't seem to get my fps up to something workable, especially exterior view is really killed on clear day. What's weird is absolutely nothing I do seems to have any noticeable effect one way or another, game options medium or high doesn't change anything. Plus my cpu is at 100% everytime it switches to a loading screen, I think it could be the cpu here.

I know it's only a single core amd3200 but other people seem to have no better cpu and get it working okay.

 

This simulation is certainly CPU heavy but your GPU is also a factor as is your power supply to run all this. FC2.0 runs better under windows 7. It may not be just your CPU but everything related to power. How fast is your CPU? If it is around 2.2 it may have a problem with FC2 under windows xp. If 2.8 or above, it should be fine. I don't know much about AMD. I always use Intel at or above 2.8ghz. Your graphics card would appear to be reasonable. Your power supply should be a good quality 550 watt or higher. This is sometimes overlooked. You have to look at your whole system. Your Ram is at max with 4gb ddr2. If you have all the latest drivers for everything plus Nhancer, you should be able to play FC2. Check your screen resolution and game resolution. Set everything to Med. under options. Use all planar, water at normal. In other words get everything down to Med. settings and see what happens. Check forum for windows xp sp3 and see if there are any issues.

 

Look at min. and max requirements for FC2 and see where your system falls. At the moment and with the info given this is the best I can do for you until you give more info on your system specs.

 

Make no mistake though, this game is CPU demanding. Cheers . Keep posting info. The more we know the better we can help.

[Slayer]

I finally managed to update my driver and installed Nhancer. What sort of settings are you using, I've still got the black lines and shadows problem and my fps has actually gone down to virtually unplayable.

I'm using pretty conservative settings at 8x combined ss and 4x anisotropy; game options at medium.

 

cpu amd3200 single core

4gig ram

geforce 7600gs 512

 

it should run okay with workable frame rates for this sim unless I max everything out, so something's definitely up.

 

You should set water to normal in the game if its not, thats a huge FPS killer. If you are having problems with shadows I'd try the setting in game for "all planar"

 

It's hard to tell from your post exactly what you are seeing as far as shadows and such so a screenshot might help. Also helpfull if we know what resolution you are running at. There are a couple of issues with the DCS:BS graphics engine that cannot be fixed with driver updates and settings tweaks no matter how hard you try or what settings you change.

 

The game is mostly CPU bound so you are only going to get so far.

[vanir]

@rattler, power supply is 850watt in a pretty trick gaming case, being single core amd (3.2g equivalent but actual clock speed is 2.0-2.4g with overclocking, it'll run anything a P4 3.2g will), it's pretty okay among single core systems a few years old.

This is why it should run anything not specifically meant for dual core setups and tandem vid cards, even those it runs fine at medium settings like WH40K DoW2, whilst anything that came out around 2003-4 I can max out and it runs smooth as (IL2 1946, LOMAC 1.02, Kotor2).

 

At the moment I've fiddled around with Nhancer settings and managed playable FPS at least with single aircraft like the training missions or a simple mission edit with one aircraft and a couple of waypoints. There's a noticeable drop in external view but inside the cockpit is okay and I can mouse around the view smoothly and manoeuvre without lags.

 

The problem I'm having at the moment seems related to the FC2 3GO Flanker and Gys F-15C I've installed in Modman 7.3 because it doesn't happen to the stock aircraft.

On the skins the shadows are weird and there are black lines all over the plane on both these models. The stock aircraft are fine.

 

@slayer, yes I've observed the FPS gains in the threads for tweaking FC2/DCS:BS, the water is set to normal and shadows are maxed

I have a small 19" widescreen so 1440x900 works best but apparently this isn't supported by Nhancer so I've got 1360x768 at 16:9 going.

I figured it's probably not a very good idea to run both the Nvidia control panel and Nhancer at the same time, otherwise I'd stick with 1440x900 at 16:10 which is better.

[vanir]

Here are a couple of screens

You can see they've got like a tiger stripe thing going on there, it's to do with the shadows functionality, it doesn't do it in shadowed areas of the airframe, only in light and it's some kind of bug. It does the same thing with the Gys F-15C but not any of the stock models. Both these models are the FC2 specified versions and installed with the latest version of Modman.

Edited July 10, 2010 by vanir

[rattler]

Here are a couple of screens

You can see they've got like a tiger stripe thing going on there, it's to do with the shadows functionality, it doesn't do it in shadowed areas of the airframe, only in light and it's some kind of bug. It does the same thing with the Gys F-15C but not any of the stock models. Both these models are the FC2 specified versions and installed with the latest version of Modman.

 

Well your system would be ok with everything set to med. etc as mentioned. I myself have a problem with gys f15. I have no canopy texture at all but everything else works. Can;t find that bug yet. I would suspect that it may be a setting issue. Only a bit of trial and error can confirm whether or not Nhancer can over come your issue. With 850 watts you should be perfect providing it is kept cool but you would have more problems than just these, so I would assume the PSU is ok as well. After trying a few tweaks with Nhancer, if no luck, I think I would turn next to the Nvidia drivers. You may have to go back and get an older version. This has been mentioned here a few times. Lets see if anyone else has a few more ideas but I would try these two first before trying anything else. Even if it just eliminates them as problem areas helps in zeroing in on problem. Keep us updated. cheers.:smilewink: