Pacific Fighters VTF follow up

[nRollo]

If anyone has any hints about benching it, they would be welcome.

When I play with 16X32 0X16X High Quality, all settings on highest, water=3, the FRAPs counter pretty much stays on 85 when I'm flying around alone.

Man is that game dull.

 

[Wreckage]

Post a screen shot of the pretty VTF enchanced water.

 

[Paratus]

Originally posted by: Rollo
If anyone has any hints about benching it, they would be welcome.

When I play with 16X32 0X16X High Quality, all settings on highest, water=3, the FRAPs counter pretty much stays on 85 when I'm flying around alone.

Man is that game dull.

Hope you didn't pay too much.


(BTW Happy New Year!)

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Paratus

Originally posted by: Rollo
If anyone has any hints about benching it, they would be welcome.

When I play with 16X32 0X16X High Quality, all settings on highest, water=3, the FRAPs counter pretty much stays on 85 when I'm flying around alone.

Man is that game dull.

Hope you didn't pay too much.


(BTW Happy New Year!)

Happy New Year to you as well Paratus!

I won it on Fleabay for $1.00, but paid $6.00 for shipping.

I actually think the waves in FarCry look WAY better than this, although this may be more "realistic".

All I know is creeping around in the old plane bites!

 

[professor1942]

Yeah IL2 tends to sync to your monitor's refresh rate, or if it can't do that, it goes to half your refresh rate. Not sure if you can disable that.

 

[SickBeast]

I really don't see many games using this feature down the line, and if it's a marquee title you can be pretty sure that they will code in a workaround.

That said, it's pretty dumb of ATI to skip over ANY hardware-related features of SM3. They shouldn't have called it "SM3 done right" if they skipped features!

 

[Killrose]

Common Rollo, jump some Zeros and post us some screenies!!

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
I really don't see many games using this feature down the line, and if it's a marquee title you can be pretty sure that they will code in a workaround.

That said, it's pretty dumb of ATI to skip over ANY hardware-related features of SM3. They shouldn't have called it "SM3 done right" if they skipped features!

but they claim it isn't skipped . . . they say that they can workaround it without major penalty . . . . as i understand it, we don't know that ATI cards perform poorly in PF compared to nVidia cards because of "lack" of VTF . . . how would one actually find out?

Since this isn't a major title [is it?], perhaps ATi is too lazy or preoccupied to address it in a driver update

PF isn't on my "to play list" . . . but i'd still like to see 'why'

thanks for the follow-up, Rollo . . . perhaps we can learn something useful before it gets shot down in flames
[pun intended]

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: SickBeast
I really don't see many games using this feature down the line, and if it's a marquee title you can be pretty sure that they will code in a workaround.

That said, it's pretty dumb of ATI to skip over ANY hardware-related features of SM3. They shouldn't have called it "SM3 done right" if they skipped features!

but they claim it isn't skipped . . . they say that they can workaround it without major penalty . . . . as i understand it, we don't know that ATI cards perform poorly in PF compared to nVidia cards because of "lack" of VTF . . . how would one actually find out?

Since this isn't a major title [is it?], perhaps ATi is too lazy or preoccupied to address it in a driver update

PF isn't on my "to play list" . . . but i'd still like to see 'why'

thanks for the follow-up, Rollo . . . perhaps we can learn something useful before it gets shot down in flames
[pun intended]

If ATI didn't skip the feature then why is Rollo making threads about it?

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: SickBeast
I really don't see many games using this feature down the line, and if it's a marquee title you can be pretty sure that they will code in a workaround.

That said, it's pretty dumb of ATI to skip over ANY hardware-related features of SM3. They shouldn't have called it "SM3 done right" if they skipped features!

but they claim it isn't skipped . . . they say that they can workaround it without major penalty . . . . as i understand it, we don't know that ATI cards perform poorly in PF compared to nVidia cards because of "lack" of VTF . . . how would one actually find out?

Since this isn't a major title [is it?], perhaps ATi is too lazy or preoccupied to address it in a driver update

PF isn't on my "to play list" . . . but i'd still like to see 'why'

thanks for the follow-up, Rollo . . . perhaps we can learn something useful before it gets shot down in flames
[pun intended]

If ATI didn't skip the feature then why is Rollo making threads about it?

because - according to the original thread - as i understand it - he assumed that ATi's slower preformance in PF was because it "lacked" VTF [a nVidia "feature" that PF makes use of].

we just don't know that is the reason . . . . i am hoping this thread spurs discussion and perhaps a way to test it.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: SickBeast
I really don't see many games using this feature down the line, and if it's a marquee title you can be pretty sure that they will code in a workaround.

That said, it's pretty dumb of ATI to skip over ANY hardware-related features of SM3. They shouldn't have called it "SM3 done right" if they skipped features!

but they claim it isn't skipped . . . they say that they can workaround it without major penalty . . . . as i understand it, we don't know that ATI cards perform poorly in PF compared to nVidia cards because of "lack" of VTF . . . how would one actually find out?

Since this isn't a major title [is it?], perhaps ATi is too lazy or preoccupied to address it in a driver update

PF isn't on my "to play list" . . . but i'd still like to see 'why'

thanks for the follow-up, Rollo . . . perhaps we can learn something useful before it gets shot down in flames
[pun intended]

If ATI didn't skip the feature then why is Rollo making threads about it?

ATI skipped the feature and said they would have it in earlier PR presentations is why I posted on it originally.

I posted on it again because XBit noted that PF uses VTF, and ATI cards perform much worse at PF. (which I turned out to be wrong on in my interpretation of - the performance of PF on ATI is likely due to bad bad OpenGL on ATI, and the difference in the two at this very dull game the quality of the waves rendered you incessantly fly over, mostly too high to even see)

 

[KeepItRed]

Rollo, Post some screenshots!

 

[Munky]

When you get around to benching it, test it out with VTF on and off on cards like a single 7800gtx, a single 6800gt, maybe dual also, and tell us what kind of performance hit it causes.

Also, what kind of resolution is 16x32?

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: Rollo

Man is that game dull.

well it wouldn't be much a simulator if it skipped straight to the moments of sheer terror without the hours of sheer boredom

 

[Pete]

Rollo, can you test with water = 1, 2, 3, and 4 and tell us if things look or run differently? Does your framerate change whether you're skimming the water or up in the clouds?

One of the first games I bought was Aces of the Pacific, back when Sierra was big and instruction manuals were glossy tomes.

Edit: We don't really need benchmarks, you could just tell us which setting produces water like in NV's "VTF in PF" page.

 

[Sc4freak]

Screenies and benchmarks!

 

[Pete]

Rollo, did you get a chance to check out the other water settings' perf and IQ?

 

[nRollo]

To be honest, I haven't had much desire to play that game again. It saddens me.

I'll tell you what- as some seem inexplicably interested in this game, I'm leaving myself a note to post some screens, look at the other water settings.

Not tonight though, time for bed.

P.S. Heh. I had to find it, I had already packed it away!

 

[Wreckage]

Maybe I will look for the game on eBay and see how it runs on my 6800

 

[Caveman]

GREAT! Someone knows about Pacific Fighters and the IL-2 series!!!

Please do some extensive benchmarking with your rig!

Best thing to do is choose one of the provided "Track Files" (a recording of a flight). Best trackfile to choose is called "The Black Death" or "Kamakazee02" which are commonly used for benchmarking since they're the most system taxing. There is an internal FPS counter accessed by ctl+shift+tab, and then type: fps START SHOW

There are new replacement beta dlls offered by the developer on their site that are supposed to further squeak out additional performance from the new water... There is a technical paper (.pdf) written by Nvidia about PFs water since it was one of the first to use the new shader options of later gen vid cards... There were some good screenshots here, but I can't find it...

PF is perhaps the single greatest piece of software ever written; many revolutionary things have been done. My computer exists for the sole purpose of flight simulation which has been my hobby for 20+ years and I can tell you that PF is truly a gem with a few minor quirks. No other sim in the last 20 years raised the bar in terms of flight/physics modeling as IL-2/PF. What's truly amazing is that the code for it is about 6 years old, and what's exciting is to think it's really more or less just a Beta for what Oleg Maddox is planning for his next sim... Don't forget to don your Track IR prior to flight : )

If you've ever had an interest to fly a WWII Fighter and have the patience to "learn" it, then the rewards are endless. Been flying this sim for 4 years now and still find something amazing each time I fly...

If one approachs PF like a "game" they will be sorely disappointed as it's meant to be a simulation... Yes, the interface is not flashy... But the "core" of the sim shows some true programming genius... Realize that a game is very... well... a game -- the code is relatively "basic" and non taxing. When you really start to internalize what PF is doing to create an experience in realtime, it really is amazing... I wish more people saw the genius in this sim... It's infinitely better than anything MS has published which seems to get so many inexplicable accolades...

 

[Pete]

Good info, Caveman. Hopefully it'll help Rollo settle this VTF issue for us. I linked those new dlls and screenshots in the previous VTF thread. Sorry, don't know how to link to specific posts, but the relevant one is the 17th to last post.

Rollo, c'mon, let's settle this now three-thread issue. When you say some ppl are "inexplicably interested" in it, it makes me wonder about your short-term memory. I mean, you bought the game specifically to test the VTF performance! You don't even need to futz with timedemos, just toggle the various water settings and see if FRAPS shows a difference over a lot of water. Just soar and dive a few times. If you can, maybe try at a higher res than 16x12, b/c you're packing an SLI setup that probably has your CPU limiting you. Heck, a single 7800 GT looks CPU-limited up to 16x12 1x1 and 12x10 4x16--and maybe up to 16x12 4x16, if it had more RAM.

Oh, and no need for pics, b/c there are plenty in that "new dlls" link (especially the first post on p.3).

 

[Pete]

Hail Mary weekend bump. Help us Rollo, you're our only hope--or at least the only guy in all of Video with a GF6/7 and PF.

Last plea, honest.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Pete
Hail Mary weekend bump. Help us Rollo, you're our only hope--or at least the only guy in all of Video with a GF6/7 and PF.

Last plea, honest.

Could I just give the game to someone that cares about this? PayPal me $5 for shipping via UPS and it's yours?

 

[NoStateofMind]

I probly couldn't play it (see ancient GPU). Maybe try FS/FT forum?

 

[John Reynolds]

Fire up Fraps and just play one of the tracks for a consistency to what's displayed for each test. Take you maybe 15 minutes and you don't have to play the game. Just edit the .ini between test runs and you're set.