Frame Rate Limit?

[jrlaudio]

Hi all,

Not that I am complaining, is there a frame rate limit on AHIII? I have a dual Xeon 20-core workstation and a Titan Xp and it seems the framerate goes to 60fps and that's it. Is there a limit and if so is there a way to increase it (or turn the limiter off)? Not that I really need to, just curious.

[The Fugitive]

It is synced to your monitor. 60mhz will give you 60 FPS, 144 will give you 144. You can turn off the sync in the video setting, but it should only be used for testing. If you leave it off it could cause some abnormalities.

[jrlaudio]

Of course ... that makes sense. I'll give it a shot and see how it works. Have to get a faster monitor someday, but I'll see how wonky this gets turning off sync. 60fps is perfectly fine with AHIII, but it will be fun to see regardless.

[Bizman]

Fugi is absolutely right.

If you want to know more exactly what and why, I'll try to explain it short with layman terms: With vertical synchronization (V-sync) on a finalized image is shown as many times in a second as the refresh rate says, limited to the refresh rate of your monitor. Think about a slide show, changing pictures 60 times a second. With V-sync off you unleash the power of your video card. Instead of showing full images you may see slices from several images at the same time because the monitor can't handle that much information. The frame rate would be high, though, showing what the video card would be capable of. That information is good when buying a faster monitor - no use to get a 144Hz one if your video card only goes to 75 FPS, or the other way around, a 100Hz monitor would still be bottlenecking your frame rates if your video card could run 200 FPS with ease.

Of course speed is not the only thing you can achieve with a powerful video card. You can use the power to show more details as well. Cranking all settings to the max may well sink your frame rates even on your current monitor. Same goes if you get a monitor with a higher resolution. 4K literally quadruplicates the load at 60Hz, at higher speeds on that resolution the multiplier is even higher.

[Edit] From your other post I noticed that you're a computer builder so you probably already knew all this. Maybe someone else may find it useful.

[atlau]

How much is ah3 even affected by the cpu? My understanding was that the GPU is what usually limits frame rate in this game.

[Skuzzy]

It is a balancing act.  If the CPU is not fast enough to get all the data needed by the video card, then performance suffers.  The CPU has a lot to in the game as it handles the flight model and bunch of other non-graphic data.

[atlau]

Skuzzy,  im running a i5-6600. Any noticeable impact to upgrading the cpu?

[Skuzzy]

Depends on the video card.  There is a point where a faster CPU will not help graphic performance as the games graphic performance is capped by the video card performance.

Then again, a faster CPU can allow for smoother game play, regardless of the video card, due to all the other things the CPU must handle for the game (network, flight model, resource management, sound, inputs...) along with all the external software being run as well.

To say it would be "noticeable" is very dependent on what you mean by that along with the specific system.  Every computer running Windows can have the same exact hardware, but all run radically different due to every other program loaded which could impact the hardware performance.

It is really a difficult question to answer without having intimate knowledge of the specific system.

[atlau]

Does checking the cpu usage provide a meaningful way of seeing if the cpu is limiting the game? When i run gpuz it seems that my gtx1060 is bouncing off the upper limits at 1440p

[Skuzzy]

Does checking the cpu usage provide a meaningful way of seeing if the cpu is limiting the game? When i run gpuz it seems that my gtx1060 is bouncing off the upper limits at 1440p

A 1060 should be getting beat up a bit at 1440p.  That is about the upper limit of its good playable resolution support.  A CPU change will not make that any better, but it could help in other areas, depending on the system and its configuration.

[atlau]

That seems to check. I usually can hold 75 fps under medium settings.

Hoping to get a cheap 1080 when crypto prices finally bottom out and the 11xx series is released