IL-2 Beauty Pageant

[Zak33]

Hi you gorgeous pilots

Would each of you put up your tech knowledge on HOW to make IL2 FB and AEP look the bestest...

SKii has details of the Config settings which we all need to understand...

Deckand Trig now have new cards....the power hungry monsters

Luke has a 9600 and so does TiG.....

so lets have them....

the basics.....

I use Open GL.....is that what everybody else uses? Or does anyone set Direct 3d for it?

[[GSV]Trig]

I'm still tweaking
OGL tho...

[Skii]

OpenGL if you want to play in perfect mode, otherwise I'd use Direct3D - many say its faster, particularly on current Ati cards

[Kezzer]

Direct3d runs faster than OpenGL although OpenGL renders certain attributes better iirc

[Zak33]

now thats funy....cos I always ALWAYS forund OPEN GL faster......on both 9600 Pro and 9800 Pro....

soo....Open GL it is for detail...

NOW WHAT....what do we tweak ?

In the vid card properties what do we do?

[Kezzer]

There's always certain hidden features that you can modify to help up the frame rate. Google it imo

[Skii]

OK - off the top of my increasingly hairless head...

AA and AF. On Raddy cards AA is a luxury, most of the time you can bung AA up to max and enjoy beautifully smooth edges and no jaggies with no big hit on framerates, Nivvy cards are less capable of AA. The opposite applies to AF ,Nivvy cards tend to be better

I only use 2AA, no AF. For example there is little point in sacrificing framerates in this respect, particularly in a full real server where the only times you see another plane is flashing across your gunsight if you are lucky

[Skii]

Ati boys + girl go HERE

[Zak33]

to remind everybody.....

Anti Aliasing is the cards way of smoothing.....getting rid of jaggies on EDGES....so a planes wing tip looks smother than a set of steps it helps you play at 1024 x768 instead of going to 1600x1200..in fact full max power AA at maybe 6x looks better than 1600x1200 to my eyes.

Anisotropic filtering is the way a card manages to deal with textures that scroll into the distance, that lean, that havea perpspective.....and in a flight sim....nothing is EVER straight in front of you (specially Trig)...it's all over the place...AND moving away or toward you...up or down, varying angles constantly.

Custom PC has a blinding description this month....but basically imagine the titles for Star Wars the film, at the beginning.....scrolling away into the distance....

now...the words ARE smooth (UPRIGHT)....until they lean over and scroll away..and the PC has to try to to make it look correct at the million different angles it might scroll away at....

So.....Anti ALising at that point is all well and good, BUT if the item in question is flying away and down-right below you....its still gonna need filtering...

And as Trig mentioned.....he's still tweaking.....so its a case of getting your's right.

[Skii]

You peeps might find this useful when considering a graphics card for IL2

[Zak33]

courtesy of Main Marlin Man, Hat.....

how to show FPS in IL2

shift+tab (to bring up console)
then type...

fps START SHOW


then hit SHIFT+TAB again to toggle console off


the commands are:

fps SHOW
fps HIDE
fps STOP
fps LOG x (where x = time interval)
fps START

these can be combined...e.g.

fps START SHOW
fps STOP HIDE


thks Hat

[Skii]

OK - how to get perfect mode running as smooth as poss.

Open up the conf.ini file in the FB directory and scroll down the bottom to the OpenGL values -

forest=0 draws zero individual trees (fast)
forest=3 draws max individual trees

perfect &
water=0 fastest water ... no reflections from sky or landscape (fast)
water=2 maximum reflections/ waves stuffs

Have a tweak and find what works best for you, I have water=0 and forest=1, seems to be a nice balance of eyecandy and fps.

[Knoxville]

Nice one guys, May have a tweak as after i put AA up its hit my framerates slightly in perfect mode

[Allen]

You peeps might find this useful when considering a graphics card for IL2

Interesting, my card outperforms both of the 9800SE's used there...

Wonder what rates I get now it's overclocked... I'll try and check later.

Cheers for the help guys, need to get back into IL-2, LO:MAC has had me for ages now... Just can't resist that A-10.....

:edit: Just realised there's an overclocked 9600XT in there, but it's core is at 625!! How?? My memory is at 700 at the mo, might try it higher too...

[Skii]

9800SE's are pants, ATI's equivalent of the GF MX's

[luke313]

I use a mixture of those settings you mentioned above Skii to do with the conf.ini - Full water and forest for screenies etc, and the same settings as you for online flying. On OpenGL at 1024 x 768 and 2xAA, 4xAF. Going to go check out my fps ingame right now