Self Shadowing frame rates

[katanaso]

True, but that's okay for a 5970.  It's still damned hot though, and I'd want good flow moving that air out of the case.

[Pudgie]

I have all ingame graphic settings at max (max detail, max distance, horizon, all shadows settings enabled w/ max of 8192, gamma set at 1.0, AA set to Most, textures set at 1024 hi res). VC driver setup in Application-Controlled settings for AA, AF & Vsynch w/ TB. Transparency AA set Multisample, Gamma Correction AA enabled, Textures set at Quality settings w/ trilinear optimizations enabled. Driver vers 260.99 being displayed on a HP 2710m LCD at 1900 x 1080 x 32 (native res). FPS runs consistently between 58-60 w/ lowest dip in 1 instance to 56 FPS.

Setup:

Win Vista HP 64
Intel C2D E8600 OC'd to 4.0 Ghz
EVGA 780i FTW mobo
OCZ Reaper 4.0G PC 8500 DDR2 at 1067MHz 5-5-5-18 2.2v (factory stock)
EVGA GTX 470 SC running at stock clocks (625/1250/1701) & voltage (.997v)
Asus Xonar DS 7.1 Sound Card thru a Klipsch THX 2.1 speaker/subwoofer setup or Sennheiser PC 350 headphones (depending on the mood I'm in at the time).
WD 74Gb Raptor HDD's (no RAID)
PC P&C Silencer 750W PSU

All housed in a CM 690 Nvidia case.

 

[Vinkman]

Vinkman I recommend you set fan speed to manual and 100% when playing games. You can turn it down to 30% for normal use or put it back to auto. You'll see a big difference in temps.

I wanted the two screens so I could watch the temp and fan speed while playing. You don't trust the software to increase fan speed as needed? I though of just setting at 100% but thout there might be a down side other than noise, like burning out the fan, but of course I have no clue. Thoughts on that?

<S>

[Kazaa]

8192 shadow textures is overkill to the max.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

8192 shadow textures is overkill to the max.

Perhaps but I've always wondered why such a large texture is required to display a plain shadow on a plane and why is the shadow tearing up on lower texture size?

[FLS]

I wanted the two screens so I could watch the temp and fan speed while playing. You don't trust the software to increase fan speed as needed? I though of just setting at 100% but thout there might be a down side other than noise, like burning out the fan, but of course I have no clue. Thoughts on that?

<S>

I expect the auto fan speed  setting is more of a marketing decision due to the noise than an engineering decision. As long as the card doesn't shut down you can run it hot but you might want to look at the temps you get with different fan settings.

[katanaso]

I expect the auto fan speed  setting is more of a marketing decision due to the noise than an engineering decision. As long as the card doesn't shut down you can run it hot but you might want to look at the temps you get with different fan settings.

Agreed with FLS here.

It's also important to consider the temperature of other components if you're not expelling the hot air created by the vid card.

[Vinkman]

I expect the auto fan speed  setting is more of a marketing decision due to the noise than an engineering decision. As long as the card doesn't shut down you can run it hot but you might want to look at the temps you get with different fan settings.

And you were right, the temp was ruinning around 71 deg and the fan was not going over about 40%. I manually set the fan to 80% and the temp dropped to 40 deg C. Huge difference. It's noisier, but with the headset on and the game blasting I don't hear it at all.

Also I have a correction, It turns out that I was running 1024 resolution and not 2048. When I upped it to 2048 the frate rates ran in the 30s, so I had to back the shadow textures off to 4096. At 4096 the frame rates were back in the high 50s. So I went back and dropped the res to 1024 and re-upped the shadows to 8196. This game similare Frame rates fo high 50s.

I do think the shadows look better in 2048 mode but the rest of the game looks the same to me. I have teh screan res set at 1920x1200 which may also be overkill for the game since my monitor is only 24"

Perhaps but I've always wondered why such a large texture is required to display a plain shadow on a plane and why is the shadow tearing up on lower texture size?

I'm wondering the same thing. The shadows are very pixilated compared to the rest of the game. But they look really cool when you can get them smooth. The frame hit to do so seems unexpected, but I'm not a 3D render expert...or even novice.  

I'll keep tinkering


Vinkman

[FLS]

The 2048 texture setting only makes a difference with the 2048 cockpits, I think there's only a couple of those so far. I would go with settings that maintain 60 fps at all times.

Aces High will always look best at your monitor's default resolution.

[Vinkman]

The 2048 texture setting only makes a difference with the 2048 cockpits, I think there's only a couple of those so far. I would go with settings that maintain 60 fps at all times.

Aces High will always look best at your monitor's default resolution.

Only plane I fooled around with yesterday was the P-38.  Do the cockpit details include the canopy frame structure? Those are the shadows that seem most effected by the 2048 vs. 1024 res. They also seem sharper when reflecting out on the wing than they do on the dashboard and closer surfaces.

[FLS]

I think we're talking about 2 different settings. I was referring to the max texture size in the video setup not the shadow texture size.

[Pudgie]

From testing the game by running it strictly off the vid card's drivers for AA, AF, V-synch w/ ingame AA set to None & then running the game w/ the vid card's drivers set to Application-Controlled settings for AA, AF, V-synch w/ ingame AA set to Most I found it to be a no contest that the game ran best, rendered best & thus looked best when the VC drivers are set for Application-Control by 2-to-1.

This was clearly visible to me by Precision showing the VC mem usage between the 2:

Nvidia drivers @ 445 mb while flying (16x AA, 16x AF, V-synch Force On & AHII ingame AA set to None)
AHII Ingame @ 835 mb while flying (AA set to Most & Nvidia drivers set to Application-Control in AA, AF & V-synch)

Clearly Hitech & Co have done a bang-up job in tuning the in-game graphical sets for the best blend of graphics rendering w/performance IMHO.

There is a reason why Hitech set the upper shadow texture range at 8192.

And I LOVE it!