Anyone with problems with ATI drivers read this.

[=PF=Coastie]

If you have an ATI 4xxx series card or newer, you want the 9.10 file, NOT 9.1. They are two totally different drivers.

[dduff442]

Originally Posted by =PF=Coastie

If you have an ATI 4xxx series card or newer, you want the 9.10 file, NOT 9.1. They are two totally different drivers.

The file attached to the post on pg 1 is the 9.10 driver though.

[dduff442]

@Brainless

I've done a lot of benchmarking but I've been fiddling around with the settings so much its hard to compare the results. My setup seems to have made peace with water=2 and gives acceptable frame rates now, the only problem is I can't pin down the exact reason.

The main problems now are freezes when the point of view is changed at the start of missions as the terrain and objects etc are loaded into memory. If anybody's having this problem, the simple solution is to pause at the start of the mission and have a good look around with external views enabled. Do the same for other a/c as well if needed and those annoying stutters at the start should be dealt with.

I'll post benchmarking results and settings tomorrow.

[dduff442]

I think I've found an answer to the shimmering water/wriggling shoreline problems and a way to use Water=2 with both good FPS rates and good image quality.

Because I was varying so many parameters before, I was mis-interpreting the meaning and effects of each setting. I was running with Catalyst AI disabled because I'd somehow gotten the idea this causes problems but with my other graphics settings too high this gave me the incorrect impression I needed to set Water=0.

Enabling Catalys AI together with maximising all the Catalyst settings gives playable FPS on my system but the problems of shimmering water etc. remain. This is because as the graphics settings are too high, Catalyst starts scaling back the anti-aliasing etc settings in GPU-intensive scenes. The shimmering/wriggling starts when the AI throttles back the AA and you basically get no AA when the GPU load gets too high.

I've found it best to start with AI disabled and every other Catalyst setting minimised except for AA Mode which I set to 'Super Sample AA'. Super sample AA has the biggest impact on both FPS and image quality. It's the only setting that will fix the shimmering/wriggling problems completely so if image quality is important to you this is probably the best place to start.

After checking that FPS is still acceptable, you can then start upping the other Catalyst settings bearing in mind that AA is both most intensive for resources and is most important to image quality (it being the reason for enabling the GPU-hungry 'super sampling' in the first place).

At 1920x1200, my HD5870 gives (Track) AvgFPS/MinFPS (TheBlackDeath) 49/15, (Kamikaze2) 48/15 and (P39vsBf-109) 79/49 with Catalyst set as follows:

AI disabled
4xAA using 'Edge Detect' for a total of 12x samples
Super-Sample AA
'Use Application Settings' for AF
'Quality' mipmap.

...the FPS drops in BlackDeath and Kamikaze are fleeting and barely noticeable. P39vsBf-109 is problably more typical of normal operation. Max FPS is anywhere from 120 to 160.

For anyone who joined the discussion late, I'll go through all the steps again: (1) edit conf.ini, using Flanker35M's settings. (2) Drop version 9.10 of atioglxx.dll (attached on pg 1) in your Il-2 directory (3) Switch off Catalyst AI, minimise all Catalyst settings and set the AA mode to 'Super Sampling AA'. Check your FPS in 'BlackDeath' -- if it's okay, start increasing AA and AF settings in Catalyst checking FPS after each increase. If FPS is too low with 'Super Sampling' enabled, you'll need to choose between lowering the resolution, lowering the Sampling method to e.g. Multi-Sample or setting Water=0 in conf.ini.

Multi-sample AA will cause wriggling/shimmering effects on water, but if you can live with that then fine. Otherwise you can enable Catalyst AI which will ensure a decent FPS but the wriggling etc. will still pop up every now and again.

Your final nuclear option to hang on to 'perfect mode' graphics is to set Water=0 and Effects=0 in conf.ini. That way you'll still get the maximum draw distances but lose a little eye-candy. Alternatively, you can lower the draw distance and hang on to the nice graphics settings -- they're very nice indeed with all the niggles ironed out.

[=PF=Coastie]

Very good point Duff. It is always a good idea to start at a low base and work your way up.

For instance, with my 5770, I only run SSAA in "box"AA at 2x because my card has a lot less horsepower than yours. But it still gets rid of the shimmering and it looks great at 1920x1080.

Now, If I drop down to say HDTV 1280x720 (you must have an HDMI cable to see this setting) I can bump that up to 4x and still get about the same fps!

Also, I prefer to run water=0 because quite honestly, I think water=2 just looks stupid in rivers. It looks great in open ocean. But in rivers it just looks silly. I think water=0 just "fits" better to rivers.

On a side note: I hope they "scale" this feature in BOB. So that you still get the same effects with different water settings (reflections,shadows) but it scales to the body of water it is in. In a river, even in windy weather, the waves should not look the same as they do in the ocean or a big lake.

[Flanker35M]

S!

Yes, good to test various settings. This is how I did it as well. The "jaggy" rivers is no real show stopper for me, as again I am not there to look at the rivers or water But it is true SuperSample AA setting helps with it.

The thing with Effects-setting. If using 10.1's without the Effects=1 you are almost certain to get graphical anomalies when explosions or gun fire near the planes. When at 1, then nothing. So is this setting tied to lighting as well on surfaces etc?

Catalyst AI. I keep it always off, it reduces FPS in IL-2, easily measured in The Black Death for example. Having it off gives a few extra FPS. Funnily enough Catalyst AI is required with some DLL's (IL2 ones, not ATI) to get rid of the terrain showing up as flickering and distorted squares. The latest 13.3.2008 DLL's work without Catalyst AI with decent perfromance. On par with the 9.2.2008 ones, very slight difference.

I also run 1920x1200 as having 16:10 scale 24" screen. My FPS in black death with current settings with VSync on is min 23 max 72 avg 53 FPS. Without VSync the minimum is the same, maximum 200+ and average around 82 FPS. I run now an AMD rig instead of Intel, just for the fun of it

[=PF=Coastie]

Yeah, the shimmering is one of those things that just drives some people nuts. It is a real eye catcher on certain maps with lots of rivers, that is why I try to get rid of, or at least reduce it a little.

People so often try to max out all this different eye candy without ever consider the real world affect WHILE FLYING IN COMBAT! If you are flying in combat, you will not notice 75% of this stuff.

Take the "effects" settings for instance. The only real differences are effects like shadows under explosions and small puffs of smoke......REALLY? Can someone honestly say they see the difference in this stuff while fighting a dogfight or attack ground targets?.......REALLY?

That said, it is still good to know what your machine can do. Maybe you like to take high res screen shots and stuff like that. Well then you really need to know what is your max settings that can still be playable so you can record tracks while playing then go back and get the best possible effects. But for 95% people much less settings will do because they will never see the difference in game in combat.