Another FPS Hunt. iMac & Eyefinity & Slight Insanity

[Juris]

Ok I'm pretty sure I'm fighting an impossible battle but I like fighting impossible battles so I'm going to fight (its an Irish thing). I'm trying to get an Eyefinity setup working with semi-decent framerates. So far I'm getting around 10-12. I need 20.

 

Its an iMac so I can't upgrade anything such as GPU unless I sell the machine and replace it with another. This may happen at a later stage but I don't have the funding right now. Again as its an iMac there is no BIOS to tinker with. I will be trying to set it to AHCI later on but thats a bit more in depth and will take a bit of time to get setup.

 

i5-2500S CPU @ 2.70GHz, 2701 Mhz, 4 Core(s)

1tb Hdd (DCS on external 500gb mobile HDD over usb 2.0)

24gb DDR 3 ram

Radeon 6770 512mb (not good for this I know)

 

Monitors resolutions native:

iMac 2560x1440

2x 23" Cinema Displays 1920x1200

 

Due to Apple being idiots both the iMac and Cinema displays only have a few available resolutions which limits how I can set this up.

 

The 23" Cinemas can only display

 

1920x1200

1680x1050

1280x800

800x600

 

The iMac can only display

2560x1440

1920x1080

1600x900

1280x720

800x600

 

AFAIK Eyefinity will only run on panels with identical resolutions so I'm limited to certain resolutions. In DCS I can select

 

5760x1200

5040x1050

 

Both of which are simply too much for my card to handle. When I ran Battlefield 3 and Metro Last Light I was able to select a res of 2400x600 but this is not available by default in DCS and when I try to input this into the DCS GUI it won't allow it and reverts instantly to 5040x1050. I've tried following the instructions in this thread to add a custom res http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=87104 but it doesn't show in my DCS graphics options afterwards. Any ideas. I reckon if I get 2400x600 it'll be silky smooth (as on other games) and I can AA it and change other settings up to compensate for the low res.

 

 

* I've applied mods from this thread, namely the configtweaks and smallfx mods http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=68060

* I've also applied the 'high performance framerate' mod from here http://lockon.co.uk/en/files/203584/ (am I conflicting with the other mods above, sorry I'm a newbie to lua modding)

* I've defraged my Hdd's (I keep DCS on an external portable 5400rpm mobile drive with main C drive for Windows on an internal 3.5" 7200rpm)

* Pagefile disabled (24gb ram on the system)

* Running Razer Gamebooster to reduce system load (MOM.exe & CCC.exe, anti-virus, dropbox etc shutdown on DCS launch)

* Used ProcessLasso (which is brilliant & free btw) http://bitsum.com/processlasso/ to give DCS high priority and set a permanent CPU affinity for cores 3+4 only so 1+2 can take care of other tasks.

* Aero Disabled.

* Preload is maxed (with 24gb why not)

* TSSAA, shadows, vis, cockpit shadows, water, civ traffic, trees, clutter all low/minimum or off were available

* Scenes and textures to medium (haven't seen any real gain from low)

* In CCC everything is turned off or set to application settings (morphological filtering off as it caused a 50% drop in fps and text was appalling)

 

 

 

The question is what else is there I can try to boost framerates. Mods, utilities, throw a few rounds into an Anglo Irish Bank executive (no wait thats just for my own pleasure), altered textures, smoke alterations. Anything (apart from buying a new pc). In single monitor I can get 31 fps (it appears locked at this possibly due to the mods applied???).

 

I also have a Vaio Duo 11 Win 8 Hybrid tablet as seen in the attached pic which I was hoping would be able to take some of the load off regards instruments and use as a touch panel as possible in FSX but I believe this isn't possible in DCS at present. Any help would be great. Cheers.

Edited June 25, 2013 by Juris