Hierarchy Video settings

[Randy1]

Here is the first pass based on limited testing and some guesses so If I am wrong then post a change in order.    

If you were starting from a clean plate using the high res download, here is the order I came up to enable in order of usefulness and a machines video resources.

Bump Map Terrain
Bump Map Buildings
Bump Map my plane(Just eyecandy)
Detailed Water


Try the sliders in this order

Object Detail slider
Ground Detail Range slider
Environment Update


Then if your frame rate is still good for bigger better machines

Detailed Terrain
Bump map other planes and objects
Air clutter
Enable ground clutter
Local water Reflections
Object Self Shadow
Shadow on others
Smooth Shadow

[Chalenge]

Bump mapping buildings and your plane are just eye candy and do not add anything functionally to the game. Bump mapping the terrain and water can help with depth perception (artificially at least), but ground clutter is not very useful at all. In fact, I have made films of shooting at vehicles and field objects when hull-down where turning ground clutter on only hides the targets.

[Randy1]

I agree on the ground clutter albeit kind of neat looking when you are on the ground.  i removed it from the first of the list as you suggested.

At least on my machine the bump mapping is a good use of the video processor so I get a lot of bang for the buck so I bump map everything to give me my best detail.

Eye candy to me is good for the immersion into the simulation so I agree eye candy yes but it still has a value.  Your point is well taken and I have no room to argue beyond the single point I made.

Would you move the Object and the distance sliders to the top of the list?  I could not tell a lot of visual difference past a middle setting

[Dragon Tamer]

My system is nearing 7 years old and had a graphics card upgrade about 4 years ago. The upgraded card is a NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT, and can hold up surprisingly well with a lot of the graphics settings enabled... for the most part.

The settings in the settings that I use are:

In the video settings (before joining an arena) Antialiasing on the 3^rd notch and V-synch off

In game:

Detailed terrain
Bump map terrain
Detailed water
Bump map plane with environment map on second slider setting
Object self shadow- 2048
Ground detail maxed (except for certain maps which tend to be harder on the GPU for unknown reasons)

Everything else is left untouched.

[Chalenge]

Randy the problem is that there are so many different computers out there and people doing different things in the game that it is hard to suggest what is most important. I do think that there is a minimum setting for ground detail distance because my squad has one member with a fairly minimal system and if he is in a fast airplane near the ground he finds the invisible trees without fail. Environment was one of my requests on the wishlist but it is something I do not have on unless I am making a movie, and I have one of the fastest systems possible. I also do not use smoother shadows and I don't use bumpmap buildings or shadows on others. Also, I don't think local reflections is for me. However, I do not like to see inconsistent frame rates. I like to see FPS at maximum all the time. Problem is, I get lazy and fly without minimizing processes and probably something running on my network is interfering with achieving that, so I have a few things I mentioned turned down. With that said you should see now how results will vary from system to system.

On top of all that when you start talking about all the variances that custom sounds can throw into the mix you get very inconsistent results.

[Randy1]

Chalenge, the idea of a video hierarchy was a good one but the implementation was a bigger problem than I thought.

As I understand it bump mapping is much faster since it allures to detail by surface deformation instead of actual graphic detail making it a better first choice before detailed terrain or water on slower systems.  A point I think is not well understood by the populous or maybe just me.

 I will let this thread slide away.  LOL I have worst ideas.

Thank you for the feedback and good advice.

[Torquila]

Randy, this is a very solid idea. You just need to present it to those looking for specific things.

There are generally four types of people here.

- Highest detail
- Default users who want extra detail
- Default users who want exta fps
- Highest fps users

Default users exist in their pure form from time to time, but after coming in contact with anomolies in-game or comparisons of their graphics against someone else's you will find they don't exist for long.

So, brand the performance to each of these accepted "archetypes" and you will find that your idea will stick much better.

[The Fugitive]

What I think would be cool is if HTC made a list of each of the options and the effect each of those settings have on the CPU, video, and memory. This way a player could look at the list and see that those setting that effect the CPU more are "blah,blah and blah" so if they are a bit short in the CPU department they could cut back on those first. The same with video and ram. It would take a lot of the "hit or miss" out of the testing when trying to tweak systems.

The problem is that might be getting a bit too close to the proprietary information that HTC doesn't like to release 

[Bizman]

I think I've seen something about this issue somewhere, Fugi. As Chalenge said, there's a gazillion of different computer setups. Each individual computer, either hardware or software wise, is different, so the effect of each setting varies from computer to computer. What's good for an old timer with one core wouldn't necessarily have the same effect on a quad-core rig. So far this game can run on computers having one or more cores on the CPU, using two cores on Intel and at least one on AMD. It can be run on four versions of Windows, a couple of versions of DirectX etc. The variables are too many to count, so a complete list of options would be bigger than the Bible.

[715]

I've often tried to understand AH graphics performance and I have pages and pages of test results.  The only conclusion I've come to is "it's complicated".  It depends on which terrain you're on, even what part of what terrain, and how many other people are nearby and what is smoking etc.  I've seen bizarre interactions; example: bump map buildings will drop my performance by only a few fps, local water reflection also drops it by just a few, but both together will, on some terrains in certain views, drop it by 30 fps, and this is true even if there is no water visible!  I've given up on trying to understand it and I just select what eye candy is important to me, and if it stays above 30 fps 90% of the time, I'm good.  The only thing I never turn on is Environment mapping; it really kills fps and I've never even noticed a difference in appearance with it on vs off (probably because I don't fly shiny planes).

[guncrasher]

I have a very nice system and I play with everything on except em and shadows at 4096 and mostly have 55 to 60 fps.  but there's one area of a single map where if I go my fps drop to the 30's.



semp

[Dragon Tamer]

I have a very nice system and I play with everything on except em and shadows at 4096 and mostly have 55 to 60 fps.  but there's one area of a single map where if I go my fps drop to the 30's.



semp

My FPS will drop pretty low on certain maps as well. For me the issue seems to be the trees. When I turn the render distance down the FPS goes back up. First the trees wreck my tank and now they wreck my FPS!

[Chalenge]

Well, just a hint of part of the problem can really make you aware of how large a project this would be. For instance, one of the most important aspects of video processing for a flight simulator is the ability to process texture filtering (anisotropic filtering). Another might be processing transparency, especially considering flight down low in the trees. As far as the texture filtering goes the reason in is important is because of the horizon shimmering that so many of us don't like. The reason it is a problem is because the rectangular, or square texture is either clamped or wrapped across a non-rectangular, or non-square area of the terrain. The graphics card can do so much processing of any texture before it must move on to the next frame even if you have the AF set to high. If the card has enough time to complete processing of every frame then the results will be more consistent and no shimmering will appear. Now if you look for AF capabilities in a GPU you have to look at Texel Fill Rates. If you compare the 8800 GT to the GTX 480 you will see that there was not a lot of change between the TFRs (33.6MTs vs 44.2Mts). In the case of the GTX 680 it is nearly three times faster than the GTX 480. Even the Radeon HD 7970 cannot hit the pace the 680 does. Close though.

Now, because the 480 is in the same region as the 8800 for AF you might think that you must pull the object distance down, or refrain from using the Hires Texture Pack. Not so. What it means is you should not increase AF beyond 2x, or possible 4x with the 480, and settings like Negative LOD Bias become very important to the 8800. Normally, if you enable AF in the Control Panel then the Neg. LOD Bias is automatically clamped. Not everyone should change these settings, because it will only cause them headaches and because the very people that should not are also loading their drivers incorrectly (check your NVidia drivers folder and if you have more than a single ###.## folder then you are not installing corrrectly). Improperly loading drivers and a few other things can cause a driver set to stray outside of normal behavior and cause inconsistency (at best). Which is why if you are forced to use older equipment in order to play something like AH then you should probably take the time to learn how to set things up.

Hate to leave anyone hanging but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

[The Fugitive]

I wasn't looking for anything that detailed. I was looking for something along the lines of this.

 *PLEASE NOTE* I haven't any idea about the posted notes below, there are just an example!

Bump Map Terrain 5% more CPU PWR, 15% more GPU PWR
Bump Map Buildings3% CPU PWR, 15% GPU PWR
Bump Map my plane(Just eyecandy)1% CPU PWR, 15% GPU PWR
Detailed Water5% CPU PWR, 5% GPU PWR


Try the sliders in this order

Object Detail slider
Ground Detail Range slider
Environment Update


Then if your frame rate is still good for bigger better machines

Detailed Terrain
Bump map other planes and objects
Air clutter
Enable ground clutter
Local water Reflections
Object Self Shadow
Shadow on others
Smooth Shadow

and so on.

This way if your trying to tune your computer and say your low on the GPU side of things then you would turn off the things listed the pull higher percentages from the GPU first and test from there.

It's basically a "cheat sheet" for those who are NOT computer gurus to know "where" to start to adjust the settings to try and get the game a bit more playable on a weak computer. Most people don't "know" what bump mapping is or whether shadows or smooth shadows will help or slow them down more. The easier it is to adjust, the less frustration there is. 

[Randy1]

http://www.lca.ympsa.com/ahgfxguide.pdf

I had forgotten about this well written article.