Top Three Performance enhancements?

[bojote]

Hi,

 

I purchased LockOn, updated to 1.01, 1.02, then purchased 1.1 but I've not commited time to learn the sim yet.. I usually take the learning aspect very seriously and I plan to begin next week. However, there is something I would like to address first.

 

Instead of doing every single tweak and spent a month changing things I will like to do the top three performance tweaks to improve frame rates.

 

If I recall correctly from the Ubi forums water textures and the canopy scratches were performance killers.. is this still the case?

 

I have 2Gb memory, 6800 Ultra and FX-53 Athlon.. I get around 35-40 FPS on the quick start missions, but once I get into a highly populated area that will drop dramatically. So I want to optimize in advance some of the settings.

 

What would you recommend as the top three performance optimizing tweaks for LockOn? the ones with the more impact improving Frame rates.

 

Thanks,

[firesoldier845]

I have the same specs as you and tweaked my LOCK ON setup to get really awesome fps. Typically 50-100 fps and high 30's in highly populated areas.

 

These are just some tips as others probably will have some differing views:

 

Mirrors are fps killers so turn them off. There is a water mod that you should get but I still run my water at MEDIUM. With the tweak you lose the ripples in the water but you still get the nice lighting effects. This helps fps a lot.

 

Make sure you get the overcast cloud mod.

 

In your graphics.cfg file look for

 

LandLodDistances

{

LandDay

{

L01 = 10000;

L12 = 40000;

}

 

I leave my L01 to 10000 and L12 I set at 30000 - this will also give you a nice fps boost. It has to do with the distance for high and low res textures. You can set them lower but I noticed if you go lower than 30000 u will see some strange things and nasty edges of the textures in the terrain so I leave mine at 30000.

 

I use a custom view range setting

 

}

FIRESOLDIER845

{

near_clip = 0.2;

middle_clip = 4.;

far_clip = 70000;

structures = {15, 3500};

trees = {100000, 6000};

dynamic = {300, 20000};

objects = {3000, 50000};

mirage = {3000, 15000};

surface = {14000, 80000};

lights = {100, 30000};

lod = 1.5;

}

 

The settings are better than LOW but lower than MEDIUM and this helps with fps. I set my STRUCTURES DENSITY to 15 which will really helps reduce the amount of buildings over cities. Some people may want more buildings but I find this number to be good enough for me to get the feel of flying over a town but not wasting fps on useless buildings. Over the big cities I get average 40fps or higher.

 

I use the MEDIUM scene file which means you don't get all the nice huge forests and landmarks but it's good enough for me and I get great fps with plenty of overhead for AI units and explosions and stuff. Yet, you still get some nice trees and stuff like that along roads and towns. Naturally, though you can tweak everything to the way you want it. I'm still experimenting myself with settings.

 

cheers

 

firesoldier845

[DayGlow]

with LOMAN find the fast overcast mods. No real image quality drop and improve fps by about 10-15 in overcast situations. Probably the single fastest mod out there.

[SuperKungFu]

lol forget tweaking it, your rig will run lock on pretty smooth already.

[bflagg]

overcast mod is on mine cheapass site...

lockonskins, lockonfiles.. amongst others has it as well

[bojote]

Thanks guys,

 

Downloaded and installed water and overcast mods with loman and there is a noticeable improvement, however I noticed that near cities frame rate drops to 6-8, if I look in another direction frame rate goes up again.. is this normal??

[bflagg]

Thanks guys,

 

Downloaded and installed water and overcast mods with loman and there is a noticeable improvement, however I noticed that near cities frame rate drops to 6-8, if I look in another direction frame rate goes up again.. is this normal??

 

yup.. mine drops to 10-15 tho... (Depending on the size of the city and how many objects it must render)

 

On my site, hawgs water and sky fps fix is available...

I'm not sure but I think there is a uptodate version on lomacfiles.com site.

 

I just re-read your orgininal post.

Install Loman (v4b3 or 5),

Click on Graphics manager

Click on Profiles

Select p4 w/1gig

Using the sliders low haze to basic

water to medium

DISABLE exchaust checkbox

Click apply.

Your FPS should be acceptable now....

 

TIP.

When you install loman, go to it's profiles directory and edit the p4 w1gig profile file.

In there you will see bas, muyen, haut, rename then to low, medium and high.

If you can deal with seeing bas, muyen, and haut in lockon's graphic setting

then ingnore this tip.

[bojote]

Guys, I would like to thank everyone for the tips...

 

I did everything suggested, installed Loman 5, played a bit but still was getting 21 FPS over highly populated areas...

 

I checked the graphics.cfg file and I had a MaxFPS setting at 30 (which I added in the past) I removed that setting and there is NO WAY i go under 40 FPS under any circumstance now.

 

Thanks to all

[Guest EVIL-SCOTSMAN]

highly pop areas will bring any pc to its knees, 21fps is good for heavily populated area....

[Sleek]

what program do ya need to open the graphics.cfg file?

when i goto open it windows says it can't open it and ask's me what program should i use?

[NEODARK]

what program do ya need to open the graphics.cfg file?

when i goto open it windows says it can't open it and ask's me what program should i use?

 

Notepad.exe in windows works just fine, just pick it form the list when windows asks :)

[SIX oclock]

with LOMAN find the fast overcast mods. No real image quality drop and improve fps by about 10-15 in overcast situations. Probably the single fastest mod out there.

 

Excuse me friends, but I've found two overcast mods, and I'm a bit confused on what's better or the one you're talking: One was made by Mitch Janssen, the other was made by BoboCop... can you give me a tip on which I should pick?

 

thanks ;)

[Guest ruggbutt]

Use bobocops medium overcast, then the fast undercast underside. You really need both of those. Mitch's was a different type of cloud mod.

[Arizona]

Performance Enhancements

 

I just upgraded from P4 2.8G w/ 1G w/ Nvidia TI-4800SE to

P4 3.4G w/ 2G w/ ATI X800XL.

 

I used to have LOMAC on mostly meduim graphics settings.

 

Now, with Loman 5, I have all maxed out except water, which is medium. Exhaust effect is unchecked.

 

I have my precache set to Land = 220,000 and Objects = 22,000.

 

After I installed the upgrades, I ran LOMAC and my wife said: "Look at all the trees!" - which was what I was thinking, but I was impressed she noticed. I didn't think she paid that much attention.

 

Anyway, whole new sim now. I haven't had time to fly SU-25T low over a city yet, but I'm happy for now. Very few pop-ups (I have to look for them) and smooth framerates.

 

I haven't pushed the graphic settings, so it may work with everyhting maxed out, but I slowly added stuff to see if I noticed a slow down on the system. Now, If I can get some more time between night/weekend classes, I'll add some more of the high-res skins, etc to see what they do...

 

I credit the graphics card first, then it is a toss up between the add'l memeory and the quicker processor (which has a larger cache too).

 

By the way, I remember a lot of negative vibes on Janes WW2 Fighters when it came out since it was very taxing on systems at the time. It is still loaded on my system now, with everything maxed out and it looks great. As a matter of a fact, that is why I went to ATI - my NVidia card trashed Janes WW2 Fighters after driver ver 45.23 and they never fixed it. Anyways, I'm glad to think that LOMAC will be on my hard drive a long time.

 

Arizona

[S77th-Paralyzer]

In your graphics.cfg file look for

 

LandLodDistances

{

LandDay

{

L01 = 10000;

L12 = 40000;

}

 

I leave my L01 to 10000 and L12 I set at 30000 - this will also give you a nice fps boost. It has to do with the distance for high and low res textures. You can set them lower but I noticed if you go lower than 30000 u will see some strange things and nasty edges of the textures in the terrain so I leave mine at 30000.

 

 

I am also using this tweak. It's the only tweak I use (since 1.02). It works great!

[junae]

Use bobocops medium overcast, then the fast undercast underside. You really need both of those. Mitch's was a different type of cloud mod.

 

 

Ruggbutt, just to see if I got it: I have to D/L both addons, install Bobocops Fast overcast and set it to medium quality? Then install this Mitch's fast undercast? Hummm... I think I'm a bit confused... LOL

[firesoldier845]

I just upgraded from P4 2.8G w/ 1G w/ Nvidia TI-4800SE to

P4 3.4G w/ 2G w/ ATI X800XL.

 

I have my precache set to Land = 220,000 and Objects = 22,000.

 

 

Anyone sure on what the max amount these can be set to for a computer with a gig of RAM?

[Sleek]

Notepad.exe in windows works just fine, just pick it form the list when windows asks :)

 

Thx NEODARK ;)

[TucksonSonny]

Hi,

 

I purchased LockOn, updated to 1.01, 1.02, then purchased 1.1 but I've not commited time to learn the sim yet.. I usually take the learning aspect very seriously and I plan to begin next week. However, there is something I would like to address first.

 

Instead of doing every single tweak and spent a month changing things I will like to do the top three performance tweaks to improve frame rates.

 

If I recall correctly from the Ubi forums water textures and the canopy scratches were performance killers.. is this still the case?

 

I have 2Gb memory, 6800 Ultra and FX-53 Athlon.. I get around 35-40 FPS on the quick start missions, but once I get into a highly populated area that will drop dramatically. So I want to optimize in advance some of the settings.

 

What would you recommend as the top three performance optimizing tweaks for LockOn? the ones with the more impact improving Frame rates.

 

Thanks,

 

In 1600x1200, except for screenies there is no need to set higher the AA,AF than 2xAA, 4xAF.

The FX-53 is basically the AMD64 4000+ which is already very fast and your 6800 Ultra with 0xAA, 0xAF can beat the latest 7800GTX.

 

My computer vendor told me that AMD with 1GB (2x512 MB, dual memory actually is faster)

(2GB gives only higher load times)

My only tweaks are: water medium, no mirrors, no traffic, no heat blur and 50km… I guess.

 

PS. I was never running any game less than 16x12 on my rig.

[DayGlow]

My computer vendor told me that AMD with 1GB (2x512 MB, dual memory actually is faster)

(2GB gives only higher load times)

 

What happens is that when you have more than 2 sticks of ram with a AMD64 it's onboard memory controller requires that T2 command setting be set, which is slower than T1.

 

Your real world performance hit is around 1%-2% in framerates, so really you wouldn't notice it all that much.