Insane Ring Tweak....Where is this?? [Archive]

OldCrow

April 16th, 2009, 23:22

Many thanks Old Crow....thats what I am looking for.....my guide to processor, memory, and graphics overclocking and tweaking is simple.....

1....Spend the money, you'll thank yourself later!

2....Crank it up till you hear something snap, then back it off 1/4 turn and voila....you are there....

Now I want to learn how to adjust the application to challenge the hardware running it....

I'll play with these for the next few days and see what I can do. I have a huge over-abundance of FPS to spend on beauty and detail....right now I run the sim with all my sliders on 5, nHancer keeping all my AA settings at max high-quality settings, and FRAPS is always showing me between 70 and 120 FPS in the corner of my screen......Let me know how it goes. I'm running everything on 5 with a few addon enhancements. I can make my FPS drop down to about the mid 30's with those Insane Ring Tweaks. The problem is the stuttering. I backed off a bit on the Scenery part and got it running smooth at about a constant 60FPS(my game is capped at 60fps for some reason). Let me know if you want to try my settings. They look great still, but don't make my sim stutter.

BTW, I'm running an Intel E6600 (2.4Ghz) with 4Gb HyperX PC800 RAM, Dual 8800GTX SLI & Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatality
My Nvidia settings are AA-AF@ 16x and all others maxed out.

rouge34rtw

April 18th, 2009, 19:54

Sounds like your rig is very similar to mine in hardware. I have only one GF9800GTX 512Mb GPU, but the one I have is overclocked about as far as one can stretch......and running beautifully too. I run my E6600 at 3.2Ghz 24/7 with 4 x 1Gb OCZ Platinum Rev2 DDR2 800 (FSB @ 3200Mhz and DRAM @1600Mhz keeps my ratio at 1:1) I have my DRAM timings tightened up 4,3,3,9 and everything that can be watercooled. Built exclusively to run CFS3, its the only 3d app I run. I would be happy to try your settings. You can send them to me via PM (zipped or RAR files are no prob), or post them here....I haven't done much with exploring the rings yet, been a little busy with work, and have a question....do I play with the files in the ETO expansion (or PTO and Korean Skies), or in the main CSF3 folder? Have you checked out the beta drivers available for our GPUs? The 185.66 for Vista x64 is really showing me some incredible gains in detail without giving up any performance and I love the ambient occlusion option.....

Thanks

rouge34rtw

April 18th, 2009, 20:09

Wow....somebody stomped on those pages you sent me already.....I didn't think to copy them earlier....and now I just get a 404 error page not found when I try to get there....so, please most definitely send me your settings......

Thanks

OldCrow

April 18th, 2009, 21:00

Weird, I wonder why those links fail all of a sudden.
Here's the Insane Rings Settings. These make my sim stutter. Try these first and let me know how it goes. I'll dig mine up if you need 'em. They are inferior to these but run smoother (no stutter)on my rig.

SCENERY:
<Budget Name="Five">
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="1024" RingDim="23" LOD="10" MajorDensity="0.00015" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="23" LOD="10" MajorDensity="0.00055" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="19" LOD="70" MajorDensity="0.00055" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="15" LOD="250" MajorDensity="0.00055" />
</Rings>

TERRAIN:
<Budget Name="Five">
<ImageQualities>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="16384" ImageQuality="0"/>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="8192" ImageQuality="0"/>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="4096" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="2048" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="1024" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="512" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="256" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="128" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="64" ImageQuality="0" />
</ImageQualities>
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="16384" RingDim="7" MinMaskRadius="49152" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="8192" RingDim="7" MinMaskRadius="24576" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="4096" RingDim="7" MinMaskRadius="12288" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="2048" RingDim="9" MinMaskRadius="6144" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="1024" RingDim="9" MinMaskRadius="3072" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="9" MinMaskRadius="1536" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="9" MinMaskRadius="768" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="9" MinMaskRadius="384"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="64" RingDim="9" MinMaskRadius="192" DetailTileCount="16" />
</Rings>

OldCrow

April 18th, 2009, 21:05

Here's my settings. I'm using the stock Terrain textures due to I like the way they look and run. I only modify my Scenery right now.

SCENERY:
<Budget Name="Five">
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="1024" RingDim="31" LOD="2" MajorDensity="0.00015" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="21" LOD="10" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="17" LOD="20" MajorDensity="0.0005" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="13" LOD="250" MajorDensity="0.0005" />
</Rings>

rouge34rtw

April 18th, 2009, 21:17

Thank you sir....I have them copied to a txt document so if anyone puts the kabosh on this thread......I still have em....

rouge34rtw

April 19th, 2009, 23:35

OK, I started with your scenery settings which made a very nice improvement in scenery quality and detail, but it didn't touch my performance, FPS remained steady from 70 to 120+ depending on the circumstance....(lowest fps is night time with clouds)....so, I added the terrain settings you sent me, but I split the middle between stock numbers and the insane ring numbers you sent....just to be sure I didn't overload anything and give my rig a stroke.....wow!! the improvement in detail and visibility is remarkable.....but....hasn't even nicked the performance yet....fps still 70 to 120+, no stutter, no problem...so I am going to tweak to the terrain settings as shown tonight, and see what that does....

Now, a couple of curiousity questions.....

1) In both scenery settings you sent, the third line changes the ring patchworldDim from 2048 stock to 1024, why and what exactly does that number adjust from the cockpit perspective?

2) I noticed I cannot move my veiw as far back in the cockpit as I could before the tweak....does this have to do with question 1 above?

3) For LOD the closer to zero (or below) the number, the higher the level of detail rendered becomes correct? Image quality works the same way??

4) what does the major density number represent, or affect?

Thanks so much for the help this far Old Crow....If you are into sticking around a little longer, I want to learn a little about the why's and wherefor's of tweaking the visuals, not just be handed settings that work without any questions....any more info you can share with me will be greatly appreciated....

OldCrow

April 20th, 2009, 02:21

Now, a couple of curiousity questions.....

1) In both scenery settings you sent, the third line changes the ring patchworldDim from 2048 stock to 1024, why and what exactly does that number adjust from the cockpit perspective?

2) I noticed I cannot move my veiw as far back in the cockpit as I could before the tweak....does this have to do with question 1 above?

3) For LOD the closer to zero (or below) the number, the higher the level of detail rendered becomes correct? Image quality works the same way??

4) what does the major density number represent, or affect?

OK buddy, I'll do my best to answer from what I've learned.

1)I've checked and checked again, but my stock "patchworldDim" is also set at 1024. That number wasn't changed on my sim. I have the sim loaded in 3 different locations. All say 1024, NOT 2048. I have no idea what you got going on there.
I'd like if someone else chimed in on that one.

2)No clue on that one either. I never move the cockpit zooms around so if it did affect it, I wouldn't know.

3)I think it's the other way around. Higher is better. I tried to raise all the LODs to 250 and my system about exploded! Set them all to 2 and see how weird it looks.

4)This one I do know for sure. It's the amount of scenery objects(trees, buildings,etc.) will appear in a givin ring. The higher the number, the denser the scenery gets. On the outer rings, I had to back down this number or else choking would occur.

I've not overclocked my system anymore because I need it to survive. So I'm running a stock system, but when I have OC'ed it, though at a safer level, I really didn't see too much improvement honestly.
My PC's reliability and longevity are more important than a few FPS. So you may be able to stretch those settings a bit further than I could for sure.

IMO, you should just load all the Insane Rings settings and see where your at, then back down from there.

Also, be sure that everytime you edit those files, you delete the scenery.zx and terrdata.zx files. I guess the game won't change the settings unless you do so. CFS3 will make new ones when restarted.

rouge34rtw

April 21st, 2009, 21:33

<Budgets>
<Budget Name="Debug">
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0" MaxMilesPerHour="50">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="64" RingDim="3" LOD="250" MajorDensity="0.0001"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="7" LOD="250" MajorDensity="0.0001" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="7" LOD="20" MajorDensity="0.0001" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="13" LOD="2" MajorDensity="0.0001" />
</Rings>
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="2048" RingDim="15" LOD="5" MajorDensity="0.00005" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="21" LOD="5" MajorDensity="0.00015" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="17" LOD="5" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="13" LOD="5" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
</Rings>
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="250" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="7" LOD="20" MajorDensity="0.0001" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="13" LOD="2" MajorDensity="0.0001" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="1024" RingDim="13" LOD="2" MajorDensity="0.00005" />
</Rings>
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="500" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="13" LOD="2" MajorDensity="0.0001" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="1024" RingDim="13" LOD="2" MajorDensity="0.00005" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="2048" RingDim="13" LOD="2" MajorDensity="0.000025 " />
</Rings>
</Budget>
<Budget Name="One">
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="1024" RingDim="13" LOD="5" MajorDensity="0.00002" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="19" LOD="5" MajorDensity="0.00005" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="15" LOD="25" MajorDensity="0.00010" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="11" LOD="250" MajorDensity="0.00015" />
</Rings>
</Budget>
<Budget Name="Two">
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="1024" RingDim="13" LOD="5" MajorDensity="0.00005" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="19" LOD="25" MajorDensity="0.000015" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="15" LOD="25" MajorDensity="0.000025" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="11" LOD="250" MajorDensity="0.000025" />
</Rings>
</Budget>
<Budget Name="Three">
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="1024" RingDim="15" LOD="5" MajorDensity="0.00005" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="21" LOD="25" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="17" LOD="25" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="13" LOD="250" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
</Rings>
</Budget>
<Budget Name="Four">
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="2048" RingDim="15" LOD="5" MajorDensity="0.00005" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="21" LOD="25" MajorDensity="0.00010" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="17" LOD="25" MajorDensity="0.00020" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="13" LOD="250" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
</Rings>
</Budget>
<Budget Name="Five">
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="2048" RingDim="15" LOD="5" MajorDensity="0.00005" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="21" LOD="25" MajorDensity="0.00020" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="17" LOD="50" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="13" LOD="250" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
</Rings>
</Budget>
</Budgets>

That is the compositescenerybudgets.xml that installed stock in my CFS3 and in the ETO....I copied it and renamed it for safe keeping....check out the budget 4 and budget 5....there is the 2048 I was talking about. I used the insane rings terrain budgets as given, and your scenery budgets....looks absolutely beautiful, and it holds steady between 60 and 80 fps untill I get down below 1000' altitude, ecspecially over airbases or cities, or anything busy....then it drops to between 15 and 30 fps.......I'm not sure exactly what to tweak to back off just the 1000' and lower details....but oh boy, what a difference it makes up higher....flying through clouds looks almost real, I swear I can see the moisture in the whisps as the envelope me......and the reflection of the inside of the cockpit off the canopy is remarkable...
I will put the 2048 back into my xml and see what that does, and play with the LODs a bit too....thanks for all the help with this, I really appreciate it.
A very large part of the wear and tear on components, ecspecially overclocked parts, is the heat being generated by the electrical current. Being water cooled, my temps stay far below where they would be running stock settings with stock air cooling. My Core2Duo running at a 50% FSB overclock never rises above 32'C, even under full load....and my GF 9800GTX at a 23% overclock stays below 35'C after hours of CFS3, they have been there for almost a full year now, 24/7, and still holding steady. I do have the good furtune of having a decent notebook for backup if my desktop grenades on me, but I still watch it very closely for signs that the end might be near....and haven't seen any yet...the only point I am getting at being that the BFG mainboard, XFX GPU, Intell CPU, and OCZ RAM are proving to be very strong and dependable components even under extreme conditions, and that keeping things cool is the best thing you can do for your PC. And I see a tremendous difference in both quality and performance between stock and OC'd settings....besides, if fighter pilots don't push the envelope....who the heck will??

OldCrow

April 21st, 2009, 23:06

^ Wow, that's something. I'm going to insert the 2048 and see what it does. As matter of fact, all of those stats are different than my stock scenery. The LOD's are way different! They look really high and will probably choke me up.

I think your getting about the same performance as me on those insane rings settings. I'm biggest gripe is the stutter i'm getting when I can see the ground below me in a high speed turn. And while there's a huge ground fight going on or a factory is burning sometimes.

I've heard CFS3 doesn't like our CPUs because it only uses 1 core.

And you're very welcome for the help. I'm learning from you too. Anytime there's something I can finally help someone with, I'm there. Lord knows how much help I've gotten from the generous-genious' on this site. These guys are great here.

OldCrow

April 21st, 2009, 23:09

Here's what I have as my stock settings for budgets 4&5.. I'm starting to think some add-on a few years ago changed them or something, I don't get it. I should reinstall a clean version since mine was once a firepower version. Maybe Firepower changed them?

<Budget Name="Four">
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="1024" RingDim="13" LOD="2" MajorDensity="0.00005" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="19" LOD="2" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="15" LOD="20" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="11" LOD="250" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
</Rings>
</Budget>
<Budget Name="Five">
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="1024" RingDim="15" LOD="2" MajorDensity="0.00005" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="21" LOD="2" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="17" LOD="20" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="13" LOD="250" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
</Rings>

rouge34rtw

April 21st, 2009, 23:23

I wouldn't even want to speculate on what add on might have changed what setting....thats way too much guess work for this brain tonite. I do know I have an un-modified cfs3 install, and I just re-installed ETO three or four days ago due to messing up something using some add on aircraft. So, hopefully I have accurate original xml files.
So, I am toying with both xml files tonite, trying to keep the awesome detail at higher elevations, and ease up a little on the down-on-the-deck stuff, I get down into the 20s and even the high teens for fps, but I can't seem to find the right combination....what do the ring dim numbers change in the texture budgets? What do the patchworlddim numbers change?

OldCrow

April 22nd, 2009, 00:51

....what do the ring dim numbers change in the texture budgets? What do the patchworlddim numbers change?
OK, I think that the RingDim might be with the ring Diameter. Like how far out it stretches from you, and I think they overlap a bit.

PatchWorldDim...I don't know. I changed mine to 2048 and noticed no change.

rouge34rtw

April 22nd, 2009, 02:50

I have a Firepower CFS3 install on here too, and the 2048 number is showing up there as well. I put the 2048 back into my ETO scenery budgets and I have the backward zoom I used to back in the cockpit view. When I am taking off, landing, or not engaged in combat, I like the 3D cockpit, and I like to pan back as far as I can without the view shifting to the back of the seat. Somehow the 2048 to 1024 difference modified my range of depth there. I think I have eased off the low altitude settings to be a better balance of performance to quality now.... settings are this:

Scenery:

<Budget Name="Five">
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="2048" RingDim="21" LOD="5" MajorDensity="0.00005" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="21" LOD="25" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="17" LOD="50" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="13" LOD="250" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
</Rings>

And texture:

<Budget Name="Five">
<ImageQualities>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="16384" ImageQuality="0"/>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="8192" ImageQuality="0"/>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="4096" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="2048" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="1024" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="512" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="256" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="128" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="64" ImageQuality="0" />
</ImageQualities>
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="16384" RingDim="5" MinMaskRadius="49152" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="8192" RingDim="5" MinMaskRadius="24576" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="4096" RingDim="5" MinMaskRadius="12288" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="2048" RingDim="6" MinMaskRadius="6144" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="1024" RingDim="6" MinMaskRadius="3072" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="6" MinMaskRadius="1536" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="7" MinMaskRadius="768" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="7" MinMaskRadius="384"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="64" RingDim="7" MinMaskRadius="192" DetailTileCount="16" />
</Rings>
</Budget>
</Budgets>

Now I am seeing 50 to 75 fps down on the deck, attacking ground targets, low light, overcast, rain, busy airfield, over cities, etc....and about 70 to 120 fps for anything I do over 1000 feet up....dogfights, large formations, clouds....I was seeing the stuttering when I was pulling down into the teens and twenties, but its gone now. Image qualities are excellent and details are sharp as far as I can see....now, I need to see what these settings are going to look like over the Pacific Islands, and Korea.....WOOHOO!!! Somebody Stop me!! I dare ya too !!!!:woot::woot::ernae::wiggle:

OldCrow

April 22nd, 2009, 09:59

Sweet!

So you backed off on the MajorDensitys? Man, I like the high Density. Paris and London look amazing, but it is hard to not choke the system.

rouge34rtw

April 23rd, 2009, 00:36

I liked the higher density too, but it is a major hit on performance for me....Overclocked or not, there's still only one 512Mb GPU rendering graphics on my system....so I trade seeing 250,000 houses neatly packed into a city for being able to count the tiles on the roofs of the 100,000 I do see. Have you ever looked at the CFS3 Terrain SDK ffrom Microsoft? I downloaded that tonight, and while it doesn't just give you the equation and solution on one easy to read page, it does explain alot of the things we have been tossing back and forth here. It defines each of the properties of the Scenery and Terrain Budget XML files, provides bits of knowledge like the figure used for RingDim must be an odd number...and much, much more. I think I will spend a little time playing with the Terrain SDK and probably be able to quit guessing and experimenting when modifying the scenery or terrain budgets.....the terrain SDK is available from Microsoft Game Studios here: http://www.microsoft.com/games/combatfs3/cfs3_sdk.aspx

OldCrow

April 23rd, 2009, 02:49

Thanks bud, I'll check that out! I'm tired of guessing too.

You are right about the density deal. You're right about the density performance hit too. I'm more concerned about viewing distance instead.

rouge34rtw

April 23rd, 2009, 03:29

Well, the Terrain SDK had some good definitions in it....I couldn't do much with the rest. I have the .net framework 3.5 SP1 installed, I installed the DX9 SDK with managed DX, and don't have a clue how to use any of it...so I am just happy to have the info I got from the terrain and global layer docs.....Think I'll throw out a search on yahoo or google for CFS3 terrain and scenery and see what comes back. There has to be a good tutorial on it somewhere, that just clearly explains what each line and each number changes and how to work with them. There has to a point where you would reach maximun detail at maximum distance at maximum performance for the system running the application.....I keep dropping one of the three trying to improve the other two.....I have even reached the point that I am changing only one line in one of the budgets at a time and re-starting the sim to see what changed, but I can't pick out the detail that I just changed because I don't know exactly where to look for it....Grrrrr!!
Well....on the bright side...this should keep me occupied untill the next set of missions, scenery, or update for one of the expansions is released...not that the current versions ever get to be boring at all.....but its always so fun to get new stuff. Its like Christmas every time a new release is uploaded....
Ok...back to my quest for knowledge and guidance.....HI-HO Sliver, AWAY!!!!

MajorMagee

April 23rd, 2009, 18:28

If you really want to crush your system take a look at these.

Scenery:
<Budget Name="Five">
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="4096" RingDim="11" LOD="17" MajorDensity="0.00004"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="2048" RingDim="13" LOD="17" MajorDensity="0.00008"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="1024" RingDim="23" LOD="17" MajorDensity="0.00018"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="23" LOD="20" MajorDensity="0.00045"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="19" LOD="70" MajorDensity="0.00065"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="15" LOD="250" MajorDensity="0.00065"/>
</Rings>
</Budget>

Texture:
<Budget Name="Five">
<ImageQualities>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="16384" ImageQuality="25"/>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="8192" ImageQuality="0"/>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="4096" ImageQuality="0"/>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="2048" ImageQuality="0"/>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="1024" ImageQuality="0"/>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="512" ImageQuality="0"/>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="256" ImageQuality="0"/>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="128" ImageQuality="0"/>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="64" ImageQuality="0"/>
</ImageQualities>
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="16384" RingDim="7" MinMaskRadius="49152"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="8192" RingDim="7" MinMaskRadius="24576"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="4096" RingDim="7" MinMaskRadius="12228"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="2048" RingDim="11" MinMaskRadius="10240"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="1024" RingDim="17" MinMaskRadius="8192"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="17" MinMaskRadius="4096"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="17" MinMaskRadius="2048"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="15" MinMaskRadius="896" DetailTileCount="16"/>
</Rings>
</Budget>

OldCrow

April 23rd, 2009, 23:08

^ That's ridiculous! I wonder if a system Earth will even run that smoothly.

LOL, i'm gonna try it!

OldCrow

April 24th, 2009, 02:30

BTW, Major Magee, could you post your stock Scenery budget 5 here for me please? It seems mine's different than Rouge's and I want to see who's actually is stock and who's isn't.

I hope you don't post a totally different one! HaHa, then I'm really screwed!

loverboy1

April 25th, 2009, 19:08

you guys on to somethign using the set up from //// posted earlier in this thread .......appears land - scnery cleaner and better looking ,,,, sliders at 5 and all ,,,, little sutter , if any odd time , so far so good ,,,,pls keep working on this ...eto rocks

rouge34rtw

April 25th, 2009, 20:33

HOLY CHESTY PULLER'S PRIVATES........ What are you running for a system Major?? Would you mind posting your system specs? I tried those settings and the detail was incredible, but my poor little GF9800GTX could only manage single digit frame rates......I can't even claim it was stuttering, it was more like watching a slide show......with long winded narration for each slide............

OldCrow

April 25th, 2009, 22:48

I got decent frame rate on those(Major's) settings, but more stutter than I can handle. My FR was all over the place though, from 50 down to 15.

loverboy1

April 26th, 2009, 03:58

i tried majors, didnt like it used the outline by both crow and rouge34rtw

MajorMagee

April 27th, 2009, 03:57

It's a home-built:
E8400 @ 3.6 GHz,
4GB RAM,
XP SP3,
GTX285 1GB @ 680/1549/1300,
3 x 19" LCD @ Matrox TH2Go @ 3840 x 1024
Process Priority set to High with Process Lasso

On those settings I only get 12-18. ;)

rouge34rtw

April 27th, 2009, 09:03

That is a nice build you have there Sir. I am still debating whether to upgrade my GF 9800GTX 512Mb to one of the GTX 2XX series, or just add a second 9800GTX to my rig. I think I am leaning more toward the additional 9800GTX, for the cost effectiveness. The one I have is water cooled, and you can find the 9800GTX for around $140 to $160 and a waterblock for another $75 to $90.....$250 total compared to $400 to $500 for a GTX 2XX + water block setup. My 680i SLI mobo is ready for full speed 3 way SLI, so if I save for a while, I can add two more....that should more than handle my gaming needs. CFS3 is all I play...... Have you ever used the GF 9800GTX? I am just wondering how much of a difference or performance gain the GTX 285 actually has in comparison...

I am locked into some settings now that seem to be a pretty decent balance of image quality to performance.... In addition to the scenery and terrain xml adjustments, I also set the cap on my FPS to 65 so my rig isn't wasting effort trying to hit frame rates beyond video clip smooth ( in your CFS3 or ETO folder find the "default" folder, in that edit the "CFS3".xml, the line where is says <Graphics OldAircraftRender="No" MaxFPS="(Enter your max FPS here)" />). Then, in the configuration utility>Texture info settings I pushed the composite aircraft texture max dimensions slider up to 4096, and in the Z-bias settings I pushed the Z-bias resolution up to 22....both settings come from "enabling 2048x2048 textures" at Groundcrew/Regs Hanger........the aircraft detail is markedly improved.....and my two .xml file for slider 5 settings follow:

Scenery:

<Budget Name="Five">
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="2048" RingDim="15" LOD="5" MajorDensity="0.00005" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="21" LOD="25" MajorDensity="0.00010" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="17" LOD="100" MajorDensity="0.00020" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="13" LOD="350" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
</Rings>

Terrain:

<Budget Name="Five">
<ImageQualities>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="16384" ImageQuality="0"/>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="8192" ImageQuality="0"/>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="4096" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="2048" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="1024" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="512" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="256" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="128" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="64" ImageQuality="0" />
</ImageQualities>
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="16384" RingDim="5" MinMaskRadius="49152" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="8192" RingDim="5" MinMaskRadius="24576" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="4096" RingDim="5" MinMaskRadius="12288" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="2048" RingDim="5" MinMaskRadius="6144" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="1024" RingDim="5" MinMaskRadius="3072" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="5" MinMaskRadius="1536" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="7" MinMaskRadius="768" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="7" MinMaskRadius="384" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="64" RingDim="7" MinMaskRadius="192" DetailTileCount="16" />
</Rings>

Now I don't see wild 125+ fps over water or above 30k feet, 66 is as high as it will go, and I don't drop below 38 fps even down on the deck with hate and discontent spewing forth around me in abundance. I only noticed a slight stutter when banking hard from over water to over a busy shoreline as the detail went from nothing to everything...but it wasn't too painful. I added the 1024 terrain textures from SOH addons, and I am really happy with the scenery detail I'm getting here......and in the infamous words of the Keebler Elves......" KEEEEEP TWEAKING!!!"

The Marines.....making mayhem and misery.....its what we do best. :pop4::isadizzy::173go1:

loverboy1

April 27th, 2009, 09:24

i will try yours ... i run quad 4 vista .... etc.........amd etc.......sliders at 5 etc...all ok ,,,, now will try yours .....see if and what occurs , this is fun like self destruct if screws up ...lol

ok will let ya know on this recent post

loverboy1

April 27th, 2009, 09:59

think we are missing .........something in this one ,,,versions

Scenery:

<Budget Name="Five">
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="2048" RingDim="15" LOD="5" MajorDensity="0.00005" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="21" LOD="25" MajorDensity="0.00010" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="17" LOD="100" MajorDensity="0.00020" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="13" LOD="350" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
</Rings>

loverboy1

April 27th, 2009, 10:11

</Budget>
<Budget Name="Five">
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="2048" RingDim="15" LOD="5" MajorDensity="0.00005" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="21" LOD="25" MajorDensity="0.00020" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="17" LOD="50" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="13" LOD="250" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
</Rings>
</Budget>
</Budgets>

thius is from asset section i think the missing part if matters is

<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">

MajorMagee

April 27th, 2009, 18:15

Here's my base from ETO:

Scenery:
<Budget Name="Five">
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="2048" RingDim="15" LOD="5" MajorDensity="0.00005" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="21" LOD="25" MajorDensity="0.00020" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="17" LOD="50" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="13" LOD="250" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
</Rings>
</Budget>

Texture:
<Budget Name="Five">
<ImageQualities>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="16384" ImageQuality="100"/>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="8192" ImageQuality="80"/>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="4096" ImageQuality="60" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="2048" ImageQuality="40" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="1024" ImageQuality="35" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="512" ImageQuality="30" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="256" ImageQuality="20" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="128" ImageQuality="15" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="64" ImageQuality="10" />
</ImageQualities>
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="16384" RingDim="5" MinMaskRadius="49152" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="8192" RingDim="5" MinMaskRadius="24576" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="4096" RingDim="5" MinMaskRadius="12288" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="2048" RingDim="6" MinMaskRadius="6144" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="1024" RingDim="6" MinMaskRadius="3072" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="6" MinMaskRadius="1536" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="7" MinMaskRadius="768" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="7" MinMaskRadius="384"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="64" RingDim="7" MinMaskRadius="192" DetailTileCount="16" />
</Rings>
</Budget>

MajorMagee

April 27th, 2009, 18:19

As far as I can tell these are the original CFS3 settings.

Scenery:
<Budget Name="Five">
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="1024" RingDim="35" LOD="2" MajorDensity="0.00005" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="21" LOD="2" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="27" LOD="2" MajorDensity="0.005" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="15" LOD="150" MajorDensity="0.005" />
</Rings>
</Budget>

Texture:
<Budget Name="Five">
<ImageQualities>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="16384" ImageQuality="80"/>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="8192" ImageQuality="80"/>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="4096" ImageQuality="80" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="2048" ImageQuality="80" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="1024" ImageQuality="75" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="512" ImageQuality="50" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="256" ImageQuality="25" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="128" ImageQuality="25" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="64" ImageQuality="25" />
</ImageQualities>
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="16384" RingDim="7" MinMaskRadius="49152" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="8192" RingDim="7" MinMaskRadius="24576" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="4096" RingDim="7" MinMaskRadius="12288" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="2048" RingDim="7" MinMaskRadius="6144" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="1024" RingDim="7" MinMaskRadius="3072" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="7" MinMaskRadius="1536" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="7" MinMaskRadius="768" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="7" MinMaskRadius="384" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="64" RingDim="7" MinMaskRadius="192" />
</Rings>
</Budget>

rouge34rtw

April 28th, 2009, 02:38

Has anyone had a chance to fly the settings I last posted yet? MajorMagee, OldCrow, Loverboy1, or anyone else following this thread (though I can't imagine why anyone would want to follow this too closely, its starting to resemble my lecture notes from 12th grade Calculus....just a neverending string of numerical expressions.....) ?? I'm just curious to know if my settings are what they appear to me to be.....I've been tweaking and restarting this sim so much for the past week I don't know if I am actually seeing a difference between settings anymore or just believing it to be true therefore it must be....lol.

Also...what, if any, 3D tweaking/enhancing software are you using and have you made any adjustments there instead of in the sim .xml files?

Personally I use RivaTuner 2.24 for overclock and DXT/D3D configurations, and I use nHancer 2.50 Beta2 for AA and 3D rendering configurations. Pretty much I have Core/Shader/GDDR3 clocks pushed to the highest stable settings I could obtain, 855Mhz/2050Mhz/1260Mhz. In Rivatuner I force DXT3 rendering, and requisition 2046Mb of my 4098Mb DDR2 800 system RAM for 3D texture rendering. In nHancer, I use Multi-Sampling AA @ 16XQ, Aniso Filter @ 16X, and super-sampling for transparency AA, Texture Filtering is high-Quality, all optimizations are off, vertical synch is off, and I force all AA rendering thru the GPU driver. I can can back any one of the settings down a notch and I have no stutter ever, even with the insane rings (but not with Majors' Cannon Cockers Carnival Rings) but I sacrifice what I estimate to be 25% to 35% of the image quality and detail to do so....which is, of course, unacceptable collateral damage. So...everything stays tight to the firewall, and all my adjustments are being made in the .xml files, and the few I mentioned earlier in the config utility.

I think more computers with mid-range to high-end PCI-E graphics adapters, 2Gb or more RAM, and multi-core CPUs are being used to run CFS3 now, and all the glorious expansions that have been so beautifully crafted for us to enjoy. The more ground work and example we can lay down here the easier it will be for those with newer machines to unlock the potential in this sim....and really get to enjoy the time and/or money they put into a computer to make gaming as real as it can get.....point being, the more input we stack on these pages, the more info there is to be gleaned from reading them. Lets share....

OldCrow

April 28th, 2009, 02:39

Thanks Major.

Pat Pattle

April 28th, 2009, 03:20

Any chance of some screenies please. If you use photobucket or similar, rather than uploading to SoH you can preserve the detail. I'd love to know how good cfs3 can look.

loverboy1

April 28th, 2009, 03:44

rouge34rtw (http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/member.php?u=49808)

ive used yours and all ,,, not sure now whats what but seems tweaked ...

like the grade12 ...comparison, i flunked , but made it cause i was close to my teacher .....if you know what i mean .

hows it working on your rig :guinness:

OldCrow

April 28th, 2009, 09:33

My latest settings, GREAT performance and good looks IMO. I can see scenery almost all the way out to horizon. No stuttering, even in Paris.

Scenery:
<Budget Name="Five">
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="1024" RingDim="31" LOD="5" MajorDensity="0.00015" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="21" LOD="25" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="17" LOD="50" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="13" LOD="250" MajorDensity="0.00025" />

Terrain:
<Budget Name="Five">
<ImageQualities>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="16384" ImageQuality="25"/>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="8192" ImageQuality="0"/>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="4096" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="2048" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="1024" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="512" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="256" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="128" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="64" ImageQuality="0" />
</ImageQualities>
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="16384" RingDim="5" MinMaskRadius="49152" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="8192" RingDim="7" MinMaskRadius="24576" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="4096" RingDim="7" MinMaskRadius="12288" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="2048" RingDim="7" MinMaskRadius="6144" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="1024" RingDim="9" MinMaskRadius="3072" UseMips="y"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="9" MinMaskRadius="1536" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="9" MinMaskRadius="768" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="11" MinMaskRadius="384" DetailTileCount="16" />

loverboy1

April 28th, 2009, 10:43

ok crow im on it about to edit for the 8th time and see , or at least on my system rig how it works so far all good .......will let yee know

lb/joshua

hairyspin

April 28th, 2009, 11:54

That is a nice build you have there Sir. I am still debating whether to upgrade my GF 9800GTX 512Mb to one of the GTX 2XX series, or just add a second 9800GTX to my rig.

You probably know this, but the GTS 250 and the 9800GTX are basically the same card, so you'll want something better than the GTS 250 for an upgrade. Tom's Hardware (http://www.tomshardware.com)has some usefully up-to-date comparisons if you're interested.

loverboy1

April 28th, 2009, 13:13

ROCKS ME SOCKS CRIOW , FOR ME ..... i say laddey . tks added configured and flying in the skys and looking down with gleam and a smile , almost thinking its reral at times, i realize its not when i hear my name being called for duties ,,,,,off the wifes ROSTER ....CALL LOL

TKS

joshua . lb:guinness:

OldCrow

April 28th, 2009, 23:02

That's great, glad you like it! Any issues with stutters or frame rate drop?

loverboy1

April 29th, 2009, 10:14

on low level ... fighting in flight at times small suttering nothing to be worried about ....the rest for me rocks ,,,thanks

lb/ joshua

OldCrow

April 29th, 2009, 22:51

on low level ... fighting in flight at times small suttering nothing to be worried about ....the rest for me rocks ,,,thanks

lb/ joshuaYeah, I'm getting that also now. I didn't a few days ago. Not sure why. I might tone it down a little bit. Stuttering ruins it for me.

loverboy1

April 30th, 2009, 03:08

if you get it fixed , dont forget me ....lol

:isadizzy:

OldCrow

April 30th, 2009, 10:03

I put my ingame(CFS3 config) Anti-Aliasing back to 8x with my card at enhancing program @ 16x and it's good again.

For some reason, the more I AA this program, the smoother it runs.

rouge34rtw

April 30th, 2009, 21:03

OldCrow....from what I've read on using AA settings, the most efficient way to implement AA is using the in-game settings, versus forcing all rendering thru the driver. The ingame settings are built into the program and specify where the driver should apply AA and where it is not needed....if it is forced thru the video card driver only, AA is applied to everything equally and produces a performance hit. I am finding that I get the best results with the game configuration set at 8X AA, and in nHancer my AA is set to 16XQ with the "enhance ingame AA setting" checked. So the game is telling my video card where to apply AA, but my card is applying 16X AA to the specified visuals instead of 8X......make any sense?

I am getting ready to give the settings you posted last a whirl and see how they do.....woohoo!! This is getting to be kinda fun.....

OldCrow

May 1st, 2009, 00:08

I am finding that I get the best results with the game configuration set at 8X AA, and in nHancer my AA is set to 16XQ with the "enhance ingame AA setting" checked.
I'm using those same settings, except I opted for 16X(no "Q").

rouge34rtw

May 1st, 2009, 19:50

I tried those settings of yours OldCrow, they looked pretty good, but I had some terrible shimmering where the rings overlapped and LOD changed....so I ended up tweaking them to somewhere between what you last posted and the original insane ring settings. I pulled my cloud scale slider down from 10 to 6 in the configuration utility>texture info page (cloud slider still set to 5 for image quality) and it gained me about 15 to 20 FPS, also had to choke up the densities a little, but you get the idea when you are over a populated area....here is a link to my ETO Screenies album at photobucket.... http://s205.photobucket.com/albums/bb201/rikwatts/ETO%20Screenies/

Should be shared with the public, someone let me know if it isn't please....

Enjoy....

OldCrow

May 1st, 2009, 22:38

Cool rouge, I'm trying that cloud scaler setting out. I've never messed with that before. What does it do to the look? Is it the size of the clouds?

rouge34rtw

May 2nd, 2009, 23:50

I think the scale only effects the dimensions and densities of said clouds....my best damn guess anyway....but the detail quality is still determined by the quality slider at 5, and the budget .xml's settings.

rouge34rtw

May 2nd, 2009, 23:52

SO...my GPU is still drawing the same gorgeous clouds....just less of them, and less time filling in the detail.

OldCrow

May 3rd, 2009, 23:49

I'm currently working on improving performance a bit more(obviously degrading appearance unfortunatly). I simply can't have stuttering. The smoother the sim runs, The more realistic the feeling of movement/motion is.

I've also noticed that it seems the AI becomes more intelligent if the game running smoother. This could have to do with freeing up CPU to utilize for AI "thinking" instead of geometry for graphics? Not sure, maybe it's in my head. I've heard pople mention that a faster CPU makes the AI more formidable and useful...I assume this is similair in effect to that.

loverboy1

May 4th, 2009, 18:00

:jump:

rouge34rtw

May 5th, 2009, 06:47

Yes....the AI runs entirely off the CPU...unless you hired the little man that tuns on the light in the refridgerator to fly against you....all of its thinking and doing anyway....If your sim is stuttering (and by stuttering, I mean you are averaging decent rates constantly, be it in the 20s, 40s, or more....and the game just unexpectedly freezes foe a couple seconds, the n goes right back to the rates you have been averaging....with no explanation for why, and keeps doing that every know and then.....) thats stuttering....you haven't just overloaded the hardware on the GPU(s).....you have overloaded the driver that gives it instructions, and the CPU that tells the driver what to do.

OldCrow

May 5th, 2009, 12:46

rouge34rtw

May 6th, 2009, 06:35

try cutting the major densities by 0.00003 or 0.00004 taking a couple hundred-thousandths off makes a slightly noticeable visual difference ( I had to look really hard to maybe see it) but it made usually around 6 to 9 fps increase for 0.00003 reduction across the board

OldCrow

May 6th, 2009, 10:19

I think this Scenery is best all around for me. It's a little thin(density) up close, but draws stuff way far out there and runs smooth overall. Right now, I'm working vigorously on the Texture.

<Budget Name="Five">
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="1024" RingDim="31" LOD="5" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="21" LOD="20" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="17" LOD="20" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="13" LOD="250" MajorDensity="0.00025" />
</Rings>

gianlucabagatti

June 21st, 2009, 03:19

MajorMagee

February 8th, 2010, 02:50

:bump:

rouge34rtw

February 10th, 2010, 00:59

Gianluca, I run a GF 9800GTX myself.... things that give me stutter problems are:

in nHancer, Transparency anti-aliasing set on supersampling will really hit your performance hard. I use multi-sampling setting and see 25 to 30 fps increase over supersampling....but cannot see a substantial decrease in visual quality to match.

GeForce drivers are fickle sometimes, some versions work better than others, some don't work well at all. I have had really good results from both the 195.62 (my current driver) and the 190.62 WHQL versions....and large problems from all the other versions released....but this is really dependent on your complete system...I am an nForce 750i w/C2Duo E6750 4Gb DDR2 800 9800GTX and they are all overclocked severly (and liquid cooled to maintain stability and servicable lifetime) If your system is different, different driver versions may work better/worse for you....

Overclocking: I keep my GF 9800GTX OC'd to 750Mhz core, 1900Mhz shader, 1172Mhz Memory.....and see a HUGE loss of fps and consitency if I revert to defaults of 700/1725/1100....I also liquid cool with a full coverage block.....air cooled these OC settings pushed my temps to 60 degrees C and more, with liquid cooling it maxes out around 37 or 38 degrees C after hours of heavy gaming. My C2Duo E6750 (2.66Ghz/1333Mhz fsb defaults) is kept OC'd to 3.4Ghz/1750mhz fsb and liquid cooling keeps it topped out at 27 or 28 degrees C, and my 4x1Gb OCZ Plat. Rev 2 DDR2 800 is running at 850Mhz air cooled....backing the clocks off to default or lesser settings bring on noticable stutter and hesitation. Let me emphasize though....OVER CLOCKING requires OVER COOLING.....and some patience and testing to find where your hardware tops the stability to increase ratio.

The composite scenery and texture budgets that I keep in my assets folder for the sim to use to define the scenery and texture detail.....its taken a lot of trial and error to find the tweaked settings for these two files that gives me the most detailed graphics without causing stutters or hesitations.... PM me your email addy and I will send you my current scenery and texture budget files to try out if you'd like....these two files set the levels of detail, the density of ground effects, and the overall stress level of your graphics card....and take alot of flying then adjusting then flying then adjusting then flying then....well you get the idea.....

so, I suppose the answer is that there are more than a few factors, files, components, and tweaks that can bring about stutter or hesitation while dictating the level of detail and realism you will experience while in the cockpit.....and I reccomend trial and adjustment of each of them to suit your machine.....and I definitely reccomend trial and adjustment of only ONE PARTICULAR ITEM OR SETTING AT A TIME.....when you get that one where you like it, move on to the next.....adjusting, OC'ing, or tweaking multiple things at once can overload your rig easily, and if you dont like the results it is hard to determine which one(s) are incorrect....

There are a multitude of help and how to forums available online to assist with the specific hardware/software you have in rig....use them...they're great.

Hope that helps you....

MajorMagee

January 5th, 2013, 10:28

:bump:

Human Drone

January 6th, 2013, 17:20

Two bumps, MajorMagee! Must be some pretty good stuff here. Since the originals posts are from 2009, wonder how much further these settings could be taken today? Is the idea to make theh scenery better than the sliders give you?

Thanks,

Tom

Daiwilletti

January 22nd, 2013, 13:06

Wow this is a long thread! Shame some of the images showing settings have gone.

Its a bit long to absorb easily, but I'd be curious to know how the xml files I uploaded together with my meshbuilderbudgets file, compare with the budgets files some of the above posters are using? has anybody compared them?

Of course I'll probably have to get around to it myself, :icon_lol:. But summer is here and the sea is warm and inviting. CFS3 computer is gathering cobwebs sadly.

MajorMagee

January 22nd, 2013, 13:40

I just didn't want to lose track of this thread, and when I occasionally have to go back to find something from it, I give it a bump.

vonOben

January 25th, 2013, 01:22

Its a bit long to absorb easily, but I'd be curious to know how the xml files I uploaded together with my meshbuilderbudgets file, compare with the budgets files some of the above posters are using? has anybody compared them?

Of course I'll probably have to get around to it myself, :icon_lol:. But summer is here and the sea is warm and inviting. CFS3 computer is gathering cobwebs sadly.

Well sort of, since it was rouge34rtw who uploaded the eto-perf visuals and I have tried those budgets and settings.

But I prefer your budgets, they work great on my set-up!
Thanks again for making them available! :applause:

Cheers

Daiwilletti

January 25th, 2013, 18:51

No worries, von O, I hope everybody shares things when they happen upon a good idea! Thats why this thread is so good, open discussion of a technical area, doesn't seem to happen much these days, mind you the "standard" settings of the major theatre upgrades are so good, and new computers are so good, compared with back in 2004 :isadizzy:

OldCrow

February 10th, 2013, 21:21

The good thing is, the newer these computers are getting the better they are getting making these Texture rings we talked about no problem at all.

MajorMagee

January 4th, 2014, 17:33

Annual Bump :bump:

MajorMagee

December 21st, 2014, 05:10

Since the question just came up again...

:bump:

MajorMagee

September 18th, 2015, 14:26

Must be time for a :bump:

starbage1

September 18th, 2015, 14:58

Guys this is my CFS3 settings I get anywhere from 70-150 FPS except when using the skip to location feature I get 45.
Graphics are great but could be improved by tweaks. I followed flanders field settings for my texture info.
If you have any way to improve this please post it!

GTX750ti Quad core Windows 764bit

-Nvidia settings
Anisotropic to 16
ALL Antialiasing off.
Texture filtering high quality
vertical sync off

-In game all setting set to high -32bit selected for quality in the game display options while game is running- 1600x900x32

-Running .exe as administrators as well as all other exe files in the folder with no compat mode checked. XP3 checked gave me skipping problems and high fps.

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/attachment.php?attachmentid=29201&stc=1http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/attachment.php?attachmentid=29202&stc=1
DAMN They came out too small when posted!

MajorMagee

September 18th, 2015, 15:10

You'll have to turn off dual pass rendering on the first screen if you want to use AnKor's shadow mod.

<Config>
<FileVersion val="60"/>
<Adapter val="0"/>
<Device val="0"/>
<Mode val="31"/>
<MultisampleType val="D3DMULTISAMPLE_NONE"/>
<VendorId val="4318"/>
<DeviceId val="4489"/>
<VersionNumberLowPart val="857550"/>
<VersionNumberHighPart val="655378"/>
<TextureLimits>
<aircraftmodels Scale="0" MaxDim="0"/>
<compositeterrain Scale="0" MaxDim="0"/>
<compositeterrainsource Scale="0" MaxDim="0"/>
<effects Scale="0" MaxDim="256"/>
<hud Scale="0" MaxDim="0"/>
<nonaircraftmodels Scale="0" MaxDim="0"/>
<precompiledterrain Scale="0" MaxDim="4"/>
<shadows Scale="0" MaxDim="0"/>
<ui Scale="0" MaxDim="0"/>
<uncategorized Scale="0" MaxDim="0"/>
</TextureLimits>
<ConfigOverrides>
<DisableWarningBoxes val="n"/>
<DisableSound val="n"/>
<DisableIntroMovie val="y"/>
<DisableMovieUI val="n"/>
<DisableUIAnimations val="n"/>
<SafeMode val="n"/>
<NoDXT1 val="n"/>
<NoDXT3 val="n"/>
<NoDXT5 val="n"/>
<DisableIndexBuffers val="n"/>
<DisableVertexBuffers val="n"/>
<Disable1600x1200 val="n"/>
<Disable1280x1024 val="n"/>
<Disable1024x768 val="n"/>
<DualPassRender val="n"/>
<HighResolutionZBuffer val="y"/>
<TerrainDetailTexture val="y"/>
<DisableWindowed val="n"/>
<DisableValidateDevice val="y"/>
<DisableWriteOnlyVB val="n"/>
<DisableWriteOnlyIB val="n"/>
<DisableTriangleStrips val="n"/>
<UnsupportedHardware val="n"/>
<UnsupportedDriver val="n"/>
<DisableCompositeTerrainTextureMips val="n"/>
<DisableCompositeTerrainTextures val="n"/>
<DisableCompositeGroundPlaneTextures val="n"/>
<DisableCompositeAircraftTextures val="n"/>
<DisableScenery val="n"/>
<DisableEnvironmentMapping val="n"/>
<DisableShadows val="n"/>
<DisableWhiteOut val="n"/>
<DisableTerrainLighting val="n"/>
<DisableSceneryLighting val="n"/>
<DisableSun val="n"/>
<DisableStars val="n"/>
<DisableRenderText val="n"/>
<DisableLabels val="n"/>
<DisableTacticalDisplay val="n"/>
<DisableTargetCone val="n"/>
<DisableHUD val="n"/>
<DisableChat val="n"/>
<DisableAdvisor val="n"/>
<DisableSimWarnings val="n"/>
<DisableTimeCompress val="n"/>
<DisableWeather val="n"/>
<DisableClouds val="n"/>
<DisableBlendToOffscreen val="n"/>
<DisableClear val="n"/>
<DisableTerrainRender val="n"/>
<DisableTerrainUpdate val="n"/>
<DisableSceneDBRender val="n"/>
<DisableWaterRender val="n"/>
<DisableWaterShorelineRender val="n"/>
<DisableWaterReflectionRender val="n"/>
<DisableWaterAnimationRender val="n"/>
<DisableTerrainTextureRingBlend val="n"/>
<DisableFog val="n"/>
<DisableRain val="n"/>
<DisableTexturedAlphaMaterial val="n"/>
<DisableShellCasings val="n"/>
<DisableTerrainDiffuseLighting val="n"/>
<DisableTerrainDecalRender val="n"/>
<DisableVCFog val="n"/>
<DisableInCloudEffect val="n"/>
<DisablePropDiscs val="n"/>
<CompositeAircraftTextureBudget val="10240"/>
<CompositeAircraftTextureMaxDim val="2048"/>
<CompositeAircraftTexturePool val="D3DPOOL_MANAGED"/>
<CompositeAircraftTextureUsage val="D3DUSAGE_RENDERTARGET"/>
<CompositeTerrainTextureBudget val="five"/>
<VertexBufferPool val="D3DPOOL_MANAGED"/>
<IndexBufferPool val="D3DPOOL_DEFAULT"/>
<PreCompiledTerrainTextureBudget val="four"/>
<UserShadowTextureBudget val="1"/>
<AIShadowTextureBudget val="30"/>
<ObjectShadowTextureBudget val="500"/>
<UserShadowSize val="512"/>
<AIShadowSize val="512"/>
<ObjectShadowSize val="512"/>
<MaxParticles val="50000"/>
<ZBiasBitsResolution val="15"/>
<ZBiasTerrainDecal val="0"/>
<ZBiasWaterPolyNear val="1"/>
<ZBiasWaterPolyFar val="0"/>
<ZBiasWaterLineNear val="1"/>
<ZBiasWaterLineFar val="0"/>
<ZBiasFlatEffects val="1"/>
<ZBiasShadow val="0"/>
<ZBiasTerrainAlphaNear val="0"/>
<ZBiasTerrainAlphaFar val="0"/>
<ZBiasObject val="0"/>
<ZBiasObjectFar val="0"/>
<ZBiasEffects val="1"/>
<ZBiasClouds val="1"/>
<TerrainVertexBufferCapacity val="10000"/>
<TerrainIndexBufferCapacity val="10000"/>
<VertexCacheSize val="64"/>
<BackClipDist val="128748"/>
<InteriorWaterLoadingFactor val="0.800000011920929"/>
<WaterDetailTextureSize val="5"/>
<WaterElevationBias val="4"/>
<WaterElevationBiasFactor val="0.5"/>
<NearPassBackClipDist val="13200"/>
<FarPassNearClipDist val="13000"/>
<FogStartDist val="128748"/>
<CloudScale val="10"/>
<TerrainBestImageQuality val="0"/>
<MaxLandClassVariations val="0"/>
<TerrainMaxBlenderInstPerFrameNear val="256"/>
<TerrainMaxBlenderInstPerFrameFar val="128"/>
<SceneryTriangleBudget val="five"/>
<TerrainTriangleBudget val="five"/>
<MaxModelLOD val="100"/>
<FullscreenSwapEffect val="D3DSWAPEFFECT_FLIP"/>
<CompositeTerrainTexturePool val="D3DPOOL_MANAGED"/>
<CompositeTerrainTextureUsage val="D3DUSAGE_RENDERTARGET"/>
<TextMaxTextures val="0"/>
<OverallGraphicDetail val="5"/>
<AircraftDetail val="5"/>
<SceneryDetail val="5"/>
<TerrainDetail val="5"/>
<EffectsQuality val="5"/>
<CloudsQuality val="5"/>
</ConfigOverrides>
</Config>

starbage1

September 18th, 2015, 15:21

Great thanks I will try them!
May I ask how you interpreted all this for the settings? Microsoft left no docs.

MajorMagee

September 18th, 2015, 15:34

Most are just the defaults. The rest are trial and error.

MajorMagee

December 12th, 2015, 18:23

I needed this info again... :bump:

starbage1

December 12th, 2015, 19:45

What is this used for
<TerrainVertexBufferCapacity val="10000"/>
<TerrainIndexBufferCapacity val="10000"/>

MajorMagee

December 12th, 2015, 19:57

After trying every imaginable tweak ever listed for resolving micro-stuttering, I discovered that it would only go away if I turned off the scenery entirely by disabling it in cfs3config. That put me onto rebalancing the compositescenerybudget.xml file again. What I ended up with is a somewhat limited density, but one that looks natural, in that it does not suddenly pop into existence (uniform density), or change it's size and shape (uniform LOD) as you approach it.

<Budget Name="Five">
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="2048" RingDim="13" LOD="35" MajorDensity="0.00015"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="1024" RingDim="23" LOD="35" MajorDensity="0.00015"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="23" LOD="70" MajorDensity="0.00030"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="19" LOD="70" MajorDensity="0.00030"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="15" LOD="70" MajorDensity="0.00030"/>
</Rings>

This lets me run 3840 x 1024 at 55 fps pretty smoothly now.

Daiwilletti

December 12th, 2015, 20:22

What is this used for
<TerrainVertexBufferCapacity val="10000"/>
<TerrainIndexBufferCapacity val="10000"/>

Um, cos I don't understand this stuff I've pulled a useful description off the net:

2.1.

Rasterization
Rasterization is a technique for rendering a three-dimensional scene. This method treats a 3D model as a set of polygons, usually triangles, and performs projectivetransformation to a plane.

This is the standard technique used by current graphics hardware. The Rasterization algorithm’s execution time is proportional to the number of triangles submitted, although the process is highly accelerated by parallelization. It is common in computer graphics to minimize the number of polygons used to draw a model by avoiding those which are not truly necessary.
This includes polygons outside the camera’s view and also any polygons which are behindother objects and cannot be seen. These are effective techniques for increasing the algorithm’sperformance. A common metric for measuring performance of a computer graphics algorithm is frames per second (FPS). This is a count of the number of images rendered within one second. 30 FPSis typically regarded as the lower - bound for the human-eye to perceive the frames as a continuous motion.

Vertex buffers are data structures used in graphics application development. A vertex buffer is filled with some data, specified by the developer.
This is typically data corresponding to a 3D model, which usually includes vertex data, normal data and texture coordinates. Data is generated on the CPU, either from a file or a procedural algorithm, which is then buffered into the GPU memory. This allows for faster access when rendering a scene. One limitation with vertex buffers is that the data cannot be modified, once it has been transferred, without the use of costly buffer function calls. For this reason, vertex buffers tend to be generated once and remain unchanged until no longer needed.

http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/research/reports/HonsReps/2014/hons_1401.pdf

So my guess is that to render all the bitty terrain triangles smoothly, a reasonable sized buffer is required. I seem to remember reading somewhere that making the buffer too big may not be a good idea. However with the sort of computer power and video cards we have these days, most CFS3 settings can be cranked up.

MajorMagee

January 1st, 2016, 12:04

After some more work to minimize the stutters, and to optimize the appearance out to a reasonable distance so that the objects don't suddenly pop into existence or change appearance suddenly, I came up with this for ETO at 3840 x 1024.

Scenery
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="4096" RingDim="9" LOD="25" MajorDensity="0.000044"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="2048" RingDim="15" LOD="25" MajorDensity="0.000044"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="1024" RingDim="23" LOD="75" MajorDensity="0.000044"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="21" LOD="75" MajorDensity="0.000044"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="19" LOD="125" MajorDensity="0.000044"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="17" LOD="125" MajorDensity="0.000044"/>
</Rings>

The density of 0.000044 objects / sq m provides scenery objects spaced out on a 500 ft grid, out to a diameter of about 7-1/4 miles. (PatchWorldDim x RingDim / PI measured in meters.) creating about 4,600 autogenerated objects.

The resolution of one pixel changes as the PatchWorldDimension divided by the texture patch dimension (256 in ETO). So with these budgets it goes from 1/2 meter per pixel in close up to 16 m per pixel at the far perimeter.

Texture
<ImageQualities>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="16384" ImageQuality="0"/>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="8192" ImageQuality="0"/>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="4096" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="2048" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="1024" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="512" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="256" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="128" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="64" ImageQuality="0" />
</ImageQualities>
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="16384" RingDim="7" MinMaskRadius="49152"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="8192" RingDim="7" MinMaskRadius="24576"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="4096" RingDim="7" MinMaskRadius="12288"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="2048" RingDim="9" MinMaskRadius="8192"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="1024" RingDim="11" MinMaskRadius="5120"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="13" MinMaskRadius="3072"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="15" MinMaskRadius="1792"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="17" MinMaskRadius="1024" DetailTileCount="16"/>
</Rings>

This provides textures out to a diameter of about 22-1/2 miles. (PatchWorldDim x RingDim / PI measured in meters.)

The resolution of one pixel changes as the PatchWorldDimension divided by the texture patch dimension (256 in ETO). So with these budgets it goes from 1/2 meter per pixel in close up to 64 m per pixel at the far perimeter.

The MinMaskRadius is calculated as the ((RingDim - 1) x PatchWorldDim) / 2 to provide smooth transitions of the overlay between rings.

MajorMagee

January 25th, 2016, 17:05

I did some research into the classification of real world object densities. It turns out that we measure trees in a similar way to buildings.

Trees, Buildings, Scenery Density, Objects/hectare, Objects/sq mile, Spacing in ft
Prairie, Rural, <0.00005, 0 - 0.5, <129.5, >464
Savanna, Residential, up to 0.00050, 0.5 - 5, 129.5 - 1295, 147 - 464
Woodland, Mixed Residential, up to 0.001, 5 - 10, 1295 - 2590, 104 - 147
Forest, Urban, >0.001, >10, >2590, <104

The implication is that our scenery budgets should ideally be tailored to each particular landclass area rather than universally as they are now.

After some gpu setting changes I was able to increase my scenery density to 0.0004 or 4 objects per hectare (Savanna / Residential) while maintaining 60 fps.

MajorMagee

June 17th, 2016, 10:34

Time for a :bump:

mongoose

June 18th, 2016, 10:52

"Someone" needs to take a copy of the essence and add to project knowledge base. :)

mongoose

July 12th, 2016, 09:25

:bump: Forgot about this

Dornil

July 14th, 2016, 01:04

Which files exactly should I put those settings into?

MajorMagee

July 14th, 2016, 03:07

In the cfs3 assets folder there should be these three files compositescenerybudgets.xml, compositetexturebudgets.xml, and landclasses.xml

Dornil

July 14th, 2016, 03:12

Thank you!

Daiwilletti

July 14th, 2016, 14:42

I did some research into the classification of real world object densities. It turns out that we measure trees in a similar way to buildings.

The implication is that our scenery budgets should ideally be tailored to each particular landclass area rather than universally as they are now.

After some gpu setting changes I was able to increase my scenery density to 0.0004 or 4 objects per hectare (Savanna / Residential) while maintaining 60 fps.

Majormagee,
does this mean that you can edit the landclasses xml to provide scenery densities tailored to landclass? How did you edit densities purely for savanna/residential? Sorry am away from my cfs3 puter so can't poke around the files.... :wavey:

MajorMagee

July 14th, 2016, 18:56

Yes, it can be done with just a text edit.

MajorMagee

July 24th, 2016, 13:45

Just needed this information again to adjust the scenery density to tune the FPS again after my migration to Win 10

FOO FIGHTER

August 8th, 2016, 12:45

This appears to be no longer available in the DL section. Could someone please post a link to, or maybe re-upload Winding Man's original files? If it is just a text file, perhaps copy & paste into this thread. :mixed-smiley-010:

MajorMagee

August 12th, 2017, 16:52

Another bump to answer a question. :bump:

FOO FIGHTER

August 12th, 2017, 17:32

FYI: These are in the Terrains folder in Rising Sun.

Should the entries given be entered at each and every 'Budget Name' or just the first one?

MajorMagee

August 12th, 2017, 17:38

That depends on what detail settings you want to use in cfs3config.exe.

I've always had mine set to all fives, so that's the only level I bother to modify.

FOO FIGHTER

August 13th, 2017, 10:25

Got it sorted. Thank You!

MajorMagee

January 11th, 2018, 09:31

I needed the information from post #82, and #83 again.

AnKor

March 1st, 2018, 08:21

I have something interesting for you.
I've been investigating WOFF performance and found that terrain texture rings are probably the main contributor of bad FPS (another one is facility trees, but that's WOFF specific).

MajorMagee's example defines rings with dimensions from 7 to 17, with the most detailed having resolution = 128m/256px = 0.5m/pixel.
The total number of texture patches is the sum of squares of their dimensions and in this case equals 1032. Each texture is 256*256*4 bytes = 256 Kb, so the total memory usage is 258 Mb.
Everything seems good?
Well it does, but really it isn't.

For some reason CFS3 performance is very sensitive to the number of patches. It seems to run some kind of tesselation code on CPU for each frame even if you don't look at the ground. Maybe it has exponential complexity and 1000 patches means 1 million operations -- I don't know for sure, but I'm absolutely sure it is very slow.

What I found is that you can replace these patches with larger ones, reducing their total number and greatly increasing the FPS.
Here is my proposed settings:

<Budgets PatchPixelDim="1024" MinPatchDimUseThumb="4096">
....
<ImageQualities>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="32768" ImageQuality="0"/>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="16384" ImageQuality="0"/>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="8192" ImageQuality="0"/>
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="4096" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="2048" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="1024" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="512" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="256" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="128" ImageQuality="0" />
<ImageQuality PatchWorldDim="64" ImageQuality="0" />
</ImageQualities>
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="32768" RingDim="3" MinMaskRadius="65536"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="8192" RingDim="5" MinMaskRadius="16384"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="2048" RingDim="5" MinMaskRadius="4096"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="1024" RingDim="5" MinMaskRadius="2048"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="5" MinMaskRadius="1024" DetailTileCount="64"/>
</Rings>

I've skipped 4096 and 16384 rings to save memory but this should not be noticeable. However it seems you have to either make all budgets the same or remove other budgets (i.e. if you use "Five", just clone it into budgets "One" to "Four" or remove them), otherwise cfs3 will merge missing rings from different budgets.

Note the most detailed ring has the same 0.5m/pixel resolution.
The total number of patches is just 103 here, though their memory usage is higher because of 1024*1024 texture (i.e. total is 4Mb * 103 = 412 Mb).
Unfortunately RingDim="3" looks bad at edges ("1" doesn't work at all), that's why I only use it for the outermost ring, otherwise we could have even less patches.

How is the performance?
To be honest I haven't tested it with existing DX9 shaders yet, but my development build produces more than x2 FPS with these new settings.

Since texture resolution is increased I recomment reducing texture blending operations per frame, in ConfigOverrides.xml default values are:
<TerrainMaxBlenderInstPerFrameNear val="256"/>
<TerrainMaxBlenderInstPerFrameFar val="128"/>
Try setting them to something really low like "16" to avoid occasional stutter when textures are updated.

By the way, AboveGroundLevel can be also used to optimize rings at high alt (you don't need 0.5m/px res when you are at 5 km), but it has to be done carefully to avoid flicker when switching levels.

MajorMagee

March 1st, 2018, 10:21

At least on my system, when I gave it a quick try in ETO, it didn't seem to make a difference.

AnKor

March 1st, 2018, 10:41

Most likely your FPS is limited by GPU. Perhaps it is the common case (but I have an unusual PC with i7 860 from 2009 coupled with GTX 970, so I am rarely limited by the GPU).

I was also testing new code for my shaders and focused purely on CPU performance that's why I noticed a big impact there and wanted to share my observations :)

Daiwilletti

March 1st, 2018, 11:38

slackerbg

March 1st, 2018, 13:07

My system runs at 60fps, got maybe 61 with this ring setup. What did change is that it eliminated all the stuttering, never seen this before, smooth as glass. Awesome. Checked out with eto and maw43 on a i7-6700 cpu 3.4ghz/16gb ram/64bit/GTX 1060 6Gb system.

Thanks everyone involved in getting cfs3 to where is today.

slacker

slackerbg

March 2nd, 2018, 02:02

After some more flying, have to say that I don't really see that much of a difference. I guess it was wishful thinking at first, hoping I'd seen the last of stutters. Compared to the early days, the stutters on my system are really not a issue. Just have to ignore those that are left.

By the way I don't understand any of these technical details, so I'm grateful to all that have shared their knowledge and experience.

Thanks.

regards,

slacker

greycap.raf

March 2nd, 2018, 03:33

I was also testing new code for my shaders and focused purely on CPU performance that's why I noticed a big impact there and wanted to share my observations :)

I may have an even more extreme situation - an old Core2Duo, E6750 to be exact, paired with a 670 GTX. Previously I had a 470 GTX and with the rest remaining unchanged the FPS change was barely noticable so I'm very likely limited by CPU power. As a conclusion I should see quite a difference, results coming during the weekend.

MajorMagee

March 2nd, 2018, 10:45

After some more work to minimize the stutters, and to optimize the appearance out to a reasonable distance so that the objects don't suddenly pop into existence or change appearance suddenly, I came up with this for ETO at 3840 x 1024.

Scenery
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="4096" RingDim="9" LOD="25" MajorDensity="0.000044"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="2048" RingDim="15" LOD="25" MajorDensity="0.000044"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="1024" RingDim="23" LOD="75" MajorDensity="0.000044"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="21" LOD="75" MajorDensity="0.000044"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="19" LOD="125" MajorDensity="0.000044"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="17" LOD="125" MajorDensity="0.000044"/>
</Rings>

The density of 0.000044 objects / sq m provides scenery objects spaced out on a 500 ft grid, out to a diameter of about 7-1/4 miles. (PatchWorldDim x RingDim / PI measured in meters.) creating about 4,600 autogenerated objects.

I spent some time doing this again for ETO on my new system. i7 7700K @ 4.6 GHz, 16 Gb DDR4 @ 3.2 GHz, 4 Gb GTX 980, and 100 mHz G-Sync ASUS monitor @ 3440 x 1440.

I tried this
<Budget Name="Five">
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="1024" RingDim="80" LOD="20" MajorDensity="0.00025"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="25" LOD="50" MajorDensity="0.00025"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="25" LOD="70" MajorDensity="0.00025"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="25" LOD="100" MajorDensity="0.00025"/>
</Rings>
</Budget>

versus this
<Budget Name="Five">
<Rings AboveGroundLevel="0" MaxDistEyeInnerRing="0">
<Ring PatchWorldDim="8192" RingDim="10" LOD="20" MajorDensity="0.00025"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="512" RingDim="25" LOD="50" MajorDensity="0.00025"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="256" RingDim="25" LOD="70" MajorDensity="0.00025"/>
<Ring PatchWorldDim="128" RingDim="25" LOD="100" MajorDensity="0.00025"/>
</Rings>
</Budget>

I was careful to account for AnKor's discovery that the budget files will substitute values from lower budget levels if you try to skip over the intermediate values, so deleted those as required.

Both of the tests look the same in game and provide a density of 647.5 objects / sq mile on a 207 ft grid, which is in the middle of the Residential / Savanna scenery class, out to 26 km (16 miles). This now involves displaying 130,800 autogenerated objects!

In the first case, flying along at 2500 ft everything is nice and smooth with a steady 77 FPS on my system.

In the second case, the game still hits 77 FPS, but suffers from long pauses on a regular basis.

I suspect the problem with making an outer ring extend inward farther is that it creates a lot of overlapping segments that has to get sorted out. I really did not expect that simply making an inner ring extend farther out would work so well.

gecko

March 2nd, 2018, 19:00

I tried Andrey's texture budgets mod, and got a modest 5-10 fps increase in built-up areas, but odd effects on terrain bump mapping at airfields. Up close it looks like heavily exaggerated bump mapping, and in the distance, it looks like this:
https://i.imgur.com/37YSZHr.jpg

AnKor

March 2nd, 2018, 21:59

MajorMagee,
I've tried using RingDim="5" with huge PatchWorldDim for scenery budgets and just 2 or 3 rings to get different LODs, but couldn't get conclusive result (I haven't tested much though). It reduces the number of draw calls (i.e. how many times CPU has to send commands to GPU), but CFS3 still has to generate every tree on the CPU. As you say overlapping may cause even worser performance.

I have reverse engineered a lot of scenery related code and hope to replace it with something more efficient (not sure if will succeed though).

gecko,
Good point. I completely forgot that I have bump-mapping hard-coded to 256 pixel textures.

Terrains.fx line 49
const static float fTextureSize = 256;

Changing this to match PatchPixelDim should return the correct look, though I haven't really tested it.

gecko

March 2nd, 2018, 22:59

That fixed it, thanks!

greycap.raf

March 6th, 2018, 10:21

OK weekend's over, results.

Normally I'm getting around 65 fps, occasionally dropping to 55 or so. With the ring tweak the base figure shot to around 80 and I was jumping with glee - until I too encountered the long pauses. Not good. Something is improved but something goes wrong and in this case the problems outweigh the advantages.

On a more positive note, that bump mapping issue has been an annoyance and I can confirm that changing the figure to match PatchPixelDim fixes it for good. :encouragement:

MajorMagee

May 16th, 2018, 08:06

The discussion over here

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4421045/re-mod-to-remove-blue-triangles#Post4421045

about the PatchPixelDim values and blue triangles helped me finally get control over some long standing repeating pauses I've never been able to eliminate. For a while I've been thinking that the hitching was related to some sort of memory reallocation that was happening. So, I lowered the value from the default of 256 to 128. With the 1032 texture patches I've been using (see post#82, and #99) this reduces the memory requirement from 270.5M to 67.6M. Flying fast, at low altitude I would see a micro-stutter about every 18 seconds before. By lowering the PatchPixelDim value that period has been extended to over 72 seconds, if I see it happen at all.

mongoose

June 9th, 2018, 14:17

:bump: as still relevant plus the Sim HQ thread.

MajorMagee

January 1st, 2019, 15:25

By request. :bump:

mongoose

January 2nd, 2019, 08:24

Thanks Andy for the previous in my other post. I have been playing around with the compositescenerybudgets.xml as suggested in your SimHQ post(s). I thought I had a pretty good machine (see below) but the High Density version caused serious problems! Mind you it was at 2000' over London. I am still playing around with it a bit but obviously my rig is a bit old for the higher density settings!

OS: Win10 Professional 64 bit
Intel(R) Core(TM) 17-2600 CPU 2 3.40GHz 3.70GHz
RAM 16Gb DDD3 (2 X 8Gb)
MB: Asus M4N68T-MV2
Vid Card: NVidia Gforce GTX 970
C Drive:Samsung SSD 850 EVO 1Tb
D Drive:Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500Gb
E Drive ITB Samsung HD103SJ 32M 7K OEM
F Drive: 2 x Seagate BarracudaGreen 2TB HDs in RAID
Power: PSU Seasonic X750 Gold 750W
Monitor: 46” Samsung 630 LED LCD + 2 27"Acer Monitors
Track IR5.

MajorMagee

January 4th, 2020, 16:01

So I've been rediscovering the optimal CFS3 parameters to go with my new system (Ryzen R7 3700X and RTX 2070 Super at 3440 x 1440). The PatchPixelDim trick discussed above seems to be no longer valid with having twice the GPU memory available. Rather than lowering the value in AnKor's Terrain.fx from 256 to 128, I've now increased it to 512 and things "seem" smoother. (1024 quickly ends up with a game crash back to desktop)

In most situations this system can sustain slightly more than my Gsync monitor's 100 FPS refresh rate, so I looked at the various GPU settings to see if Fast Sync, Vsync or No Sync with and without FPS limiter would do best. For now I've settled on Vsync set with Nvidia Profile Inspector and no In Game or Nvidia FPS limiter. I did discover that setting AnKors d3d8.ini to VSyncMode=-1 helped as the Default, or On values seemed to produce more frequent micro-stuttering when Nvidia is also trying to apply its Vsync process.

With Vsync limiting the max FPS the CPU and/or GPU are rarely ever maxed out, and their temps stay in the low 70C range, so there's very little fan noise from either one compared to what I used to have.