Smoke Toggle

[Soda]

Pyro/HT,

I know this will offend some people but could we get an option to turn off smoke from buildings in the same manner we can turn off ground clutter.  The smoke costs me in upwards of 20 frames/sec and takes my graphics to a crawl.  I can't even fly through smoke since I only get about 5 frames/sec max while in the cloud.  Once out the other side I'm getting 30+.  I know you guys have done as much as you can to get the smoke to have as little impact as possible on the graphics but it still handcuffs me badly.

For the people who argue about smoke as a place to hide, remember, you all have icons and I've managed to land hits and kills on someone in the smoke with no vis before.  Secondly, how many people really run tank battles with the ground clutter on?  I bet very few since it can get in the way, same goes for smoke.  Have it so you can toggle it on and off just like ground clutter.

Just my thoughts and before you say "buy a new computer", I just don't have the coin and the only thing that'll help my computer is a major overhaul... already done the 128MB RAM thing and all that.

Soda

[Ghosth]

I'm in pretty much the same boat Soda.

2 yr old puter here & ZERO coin for a new one or a major upgrade.

Even if there was a toggle to make the smoke stream thinner or reduce it a bit.



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Maj Ghosth
XO 332nd Flying Mongrels
Scenario Corp, AH Trainer Corp

[Ripsnort]

They have the ability to make it less dense, thus better Frame rate...they should make it less dense, 6 FPS here flying thru smoking airfields  

[Soda]

Pulling out and not hitting the ground at 6 frames/second is the goal isn't it Rip  

Everywhere else in AH is just fine for me and my framesrates are good, it's only smoke, and to a lesser extent clouds, that are a problem.  I can even get in a 10 bomber formation and still have in the low 20's... it's just smoke that really kills me.

I can't even land at a field where all the buildings are down unless I find a runway that isn't pointed into the smoke... it's just too dangerous.  It's like the game only sampling the position of your stick once every 2 seconds... you are flying on shear luck.

Soda

[easymo]

 Smoke kills my FR also.

[715]

There is also a "realism" reason to tone down the smoke that I posted awhile back under "bugs".  The smoke plumes spread out way too wide compared to RL.  Real pool fire smoke plumes pretty much go straight up due to bouyancy.  Significantly narrowing the smoke plumes (by ca cutting out those streams that seem to move out at 45 degrees or more) would be more realistic and lead to greatly increased frame rates (less volume filled with smoke).

715

[funked]

Unplayable in smoke.  I just stay away from smoky fields when I'm in a plane.

[Minotaur]

Not a perfect fix, but try this.

 

By Minotaur
Another very helpful hint that I just remembered...
When attacking a base I often go into a "Clipped View Mode". I call it my "Attack Mode".

After you have hit and have destroyed a structure it starts to smoke. This smoke really eats up frame rate. By going into "Clipped View Mode" I can gain usually around 10fps in my frame rate, which really helps out a lot. I have a toggle macro set-up on my joystick to do this.

The default key strokes are:

Shift F1 --> Normal view clipping range (default)
Shift F2 --> Medium view clipping range
Shift F3 --> Maximum view clipping range

If I suspect smoke will appear or the base is heavily defended I toggle into "Maximum view clipping range".

Good Luck!

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Mino
The Wrecking Crew

"Anyway, more golf..."
Humble

[funked]

Thx Mino!

[CJ]

Phew!  I thought I was the only one.  I tried to strafe an osty two days ago, and he was in the smoke of a burning VH.  I got to pullout range and my FR dropped to about 2 or 3 fps.  I pulled and the next thing i knew, it was in a snap roll.  By the time i recovered, I was basically burying my nose in the Ostwind... Some way to reduce the FR hit in smoke would be great..

CJ

[Lephturn]

I just don't see a big FR hit anymore.

I flew through smoke the other day and watched my FR drop from th 50's to the 30's... but that's it.  I think 28 was the lowest number I saw.

That's an Athlon 700 and a V5 at 1024 32 Bit and 2XFSAA.  I expected the FR to get SLAMMED with the FSAA turned on, but it didn't seem to make a very big difference.  Hmmm.

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Lephturn - Chief Trainer
A member of The Flying Pigs  http://www.flyingpigs.com


"My P-47 is a pretty good ship, she took a round coming 'cross the Channel last trip.
Just thinking 'bout my baby and lettin' her rip, always got me through so far."
 - Steve Earl

[sourkraut]

Although I suffer from FR loss too, I don't really like this idea. I have a problem with potentially different levels of fidelity for each FE, since this will typically give either one or the other an advantage. Will we do this with clouds too?
Sour

[Fishu]

Yea.. do something for the smoke, it is most annoying graphic issue in AH.
How could I play if FPS is somewhere sub-10...

Okey.. I know, I did play alot with FPS being maximum at 14 FPS with Pentium 133mhz.. but that was beta time and new puter has got me forgot how to play like that.

I agree with smoke being too wide.. I have seen burning houses in real life and those surely didn't smoke like that - more likely thin smoke that raised up high.

[Snoopi]

 

Originally posted by sourkraut:
Although I suffer from FR loss too, I don't really like this idea. I have a problem with potentially different levels of fidelity for each FE, since this will typically give either one or the other an advantage. Will we do this with clouds too?
Sour

The different "advantage" exists now.
Lephturn with his athalon 700 or some other "NEW" machine vs others with older boxes.
Try flying with a high framerate box and a low framerate box. The high framerate box will have the combat advantage.

Then again I can see where you are coming from. You fire smoke shells to hide your position while in a tank...the guy in the other tank just turns off smoke and blows you to bits. Same idea in the clouds.
I doubt this will be ever set up as a toggle.

BTW I have:
-Pentium2-233 that is overclocked to 300.
-A Diamond Fire GL1000pro permedia2 8meg AGP
 Overclocked to 83mhz
-64 megs of ram
with no apps running except AH I get 16-20fps in the terrain (even Luzon) without smoke.
When I get smoke and some targets near it (usually why there is smoke) my FR drops to 4-5.

There will always be people with an advantage. That is what life is all about.
Me, with my older box, using keyboard rudders/trim and rarely throttle is severely handicapped against the Athlon 1 Ghz,Geforce,HOTAS setup that some may have.