CFS3 Anti-Aircraft Artillery Woes

[GooseGoose]

[maverick8806]

Hi,  I know exactly what u mean with the AAA. It's a real pitty but, hey, at least u get "some" damage. It's the same most time's with dogfights, BUT, not in multiplayer dogfights. I play on that mode often, and most times when I'm shot, it's nice to see how my aircraft got damaged . The tail is burning like hell, even the engine goes up in flames, wings that are getting shot off..., so this is the prove I think that Microsoft is not all to blame. The AI just sucks I guess. Anyway, just try multiplayer and I think u'll get some more fun.

[GooseGoose]

     Maverick.

     That's reasonable advice.  Thanks.  I have severe doubts though that I'll even be able to join a game... I've nearly hacked my installed version of CFS3 to death!  I cannot believe it still works.  I think I may have to do a new, "stock" installation in a completely seperate directory just to use for multiplayer purposes only!  ::)
 
     Happy flying.

[chomp_rock]

I have AAA woes as well for instance the AAA fires at me while I am on the ground. I also have the rainbow ground and flat white ground prob I belive it is a driver conflict.

[mcsquared]

Try the website www.combatplanes.ca.  They sell payware but also have some free downlaods that  restricts the angle of fire for the AA guns or so they say.  I have not had as much of a problem with the AA after installing their fix.  They also "beef up" the control cables, etc. on several aircraft to resist complete loss of control.

What's the speed of your new Alienware computer?

[Mathias]

As for engine damage, MS screwed quite a bit on some key systems.
There is only one coolant and oil reservoir each per plane, even on two engine aircraft.
You

[GooseGoose]

    Hallo Mathias!

    I thought you might reply!  Again, I love GC's Bf110s.  If only Willy Messerschmitt had had any idea you would be recreating his aircraft so well 70 years later!  What would he have thought?
    I certainly agree that the damage boxes for all of the stock planes are far too few, and far too small!  I swear that a bullet through the rudder of one of the fighters causes the engine to catch on fire!
    It appears to me as though damage boxes are tied directly to the m3d model?  That is, you can't really add more damage boxes within the XDP file?  Or can you?
    Anyway, I've been studying 1%'s damage profiles and I think I am beginning to sense a pattern, so hopefully I will be able to make some positive adjustments to my own stock aircraft.

     Bis sp

[bobc1]

Hi Goose,

Welcome to the world of Simviation and of course Alienware. I have an older Alienware that I've upgraded just about as far as it will go and CFS3 is still a real challenge for it. It's about time that I buy a new computer, one with the newer 800MHz FSB motherboard and a P4_3.x but I still don't think that even with the newest and faster computer out there that it will fly CFS3 without slowing it down and stuttering. In 3DMark 2001 SE I benchmark in the 14,000s and the latest and greatest computers like yours are in the 17,000s... without any OC'ing that is. I'm a diehard flight simmer and don't game very much on my computer but I know that it's plenty fast (even overly fast) for games like MOHAA and Max Payne but the flight simulators just really put a hurting on all the computers that are out there.

If you remember back to the old PCI-based 3DFX Voodoo cards you could SLI (Single Line Interweave) 2 of them together for almost a doubling of performance. I wish it were possible to buy a motherboard with 2 AGP slots on it so we could use 2 AGP video cards which were able to be SLI-ed together. Maybe then we could flight sim CFS3 without too much slow down especially when the scenes gets REAL busy with lots of AI and explosions.

Looking at the screenshot of Essex that you posted, it appears as though you don't have the latest Catalyst 3.6 drivers installed for your 9800 Pro and your textures are screwing up. Those weird texture problems in CFS3 with the ATI cards were addressed in the release the Catalyst 3.5 drivers and I assume in the latest 3.6s. I've downloaded the 3.6s but haven't installed them or the new control panel yet.

I'm able to fly Quick Combat missions in CFS3 (1 wingman) with pretty good framerates averaging around 40 or so and as high as 70. But when a lot of stuff is blowing up and I fly through the smoke and flames they can reduce down to around 10FPS. And when I fly missions with a lot of wingmen and AI and there's stuff going on in the scene it can really get annoyingly slow.

I have my resolution set to 1280X1024X32 and the detail sliders set to 4 except the clouds which I set to 3.

My Direct3D AA and AF are set to 4X sampling and the sliders set to 3/4 Quality.
And in CFSconfig Window-Overrides I:
Disable the Intro Movie
Disable Dual Pass Render
Enable High Resolution Z  Buffer

These are the only tweaks that I use.

And I updated to version CFS3.1 and added the No_CD crack as well with DirectX 9.0(b).

My favorite aircraft of choice now is one I paid $28.00 for from Lago. OUCH!! It's the F-16 and it's really fun to fly. I'm waiting on Ubi Soft/Eagle Dynamics LO:MAC combat flight simulator to be released in the next couple of months so I'm practicing up on the F-16 during the 1940's era in CFS3! You can get Jerry Beckwith's free Grumman F9F-2 Panther (for CFS3) in an original gMax design at

http://www.mudpond.us/aircraft3_index.html

which is also a very fun post-WWII jet to fly.

You said that you've almost hacked your current installation of CFS3 to death so if it keeps screwing up maybe a fresh install is needed. Just a thought.

Maybe I'll see ya at Alienware's General Discussion forum.

Watch your six, Bob.

Alienware Intel D850GB mobo w/P4_1.3GHz 400MHz FSB CPU upgraded to a P4_2.0(A) with the PowerLeap PL-P4/N adapter and then finally to the P4_2.6GHz. I'm tired of smearing thermal grease!
Sony 21" Multiscan E540/B
WinXP Pro_SP-1
512MBs PC-800 RDRAM
Radeon 9700 Pro w/Catalyst 3.5 Driver Suite
DirectX_9.0
40GB 7200RPM IBM Deskstar
Creative Soundblaster Live! Value (yeah, I know!)
Klipsch ProMedia 4.1 speakers
U.S. Robotics 56K Fax PCI (ain't offered broadband here yet)
HOTAS Cougar joystick/throttle
Latest 3DMark2001 SE = 14,230

[mcsquared]

Wow! Goose! That's the system I'm thinking about buying!  I'm surprised you still get stutters.  I have a Athlon 1.6GHz  and a GeForce Ti 4600 video card.  I set my aircraft and effects to "5," clouds to "3," and rest to "4" and do not get stutters at all.  I have my anisotropic filtering set to "2," antialiasing "off" and vertical sync "on by default."  One of the first improvements I ever saw was setting the filtering to "2" eliminated all those weird colors that are in the screen shot you posted.  I also am using Detonators 44.90 video card drivers (beta) that I got from Guru.

[GooseGoose]

    Thanks Bob and Mcsquared,

    I should have specified that the photo I provided was only temporary, and I did figure out what was causing the glitch... I have very few texture anomalies now.
    Within my Radeon 9800 Pro settings, I have AA, AF, and Vertical Sync settings within both an OpenGL or Direct3D environment.  I found that if I any of those settings are on within the OpenGL settings, I had severe graphics issues.  I have since only been able to use the three (AA, AF, and VS) within the Direct3D format, with AA set to 8x  (it can go to 16x) and Anisotropic Filtering set to 2x.  I don't claim to know the difference between OpenGL and Direct3D.  My ATI Radeon interface calls OpenGL "SmoothVision

[Woodlouse2002]

[quote]As for engine damage, MS screwed quite a bit on some key systems.
There is only one coolant and oil reservoir each per plane, even on two engine aircraft.
You

[bobc1]

Hi Goose,

I'm no expert in video cards but I think most games or sims just use OpenGL or just Direct3D but not both of them. I believe CFS3 uses Direct3D only.

So for a test you could use the "Application Preference" settings with the sliders set all the way to "Performance" in OpenGL to kind of turn that off and just try my settings in Direct3D of 4X for both the AA and the AF and set to sliders to 3/4 or all the way to "Quality". I've heard that some people get better results with the AF set to 8X and I tried that but I didn't notice any improvement.

I don't know why you're not getting better results with your maxxed out Alienware rig. Have you tried turning off the paging file? (swap file) I just looked in my XP Control Panel/System to see what I had mine set to. I usually have it set to 1024 or 768 both min and max and I have it situated on my D partition. But when I just looked I had the "No Paging File" button highlighted so I guess I've been flying around with CFS3 since the last time I got really drunk and forgot that I chose that option! It's been flying fine without any paging file at all.

If you turn off your paging file maybe it will force your system RAM take up the slack and start to work correctly. Or maybe your RAM isn't working properly. You could try moving the modules around to different slots and see if that helps. Or remove them all except for one and see how that works and then test out the remaining ones in the #1 slot and add them back one at a time while observing your system's performance. I only have 512MBs of RDRAM (4-128MB RIMMS) in mine and with no paging file to fall back on leads to me to believe that 512MBs is plenty.

You could download a free memory tester called GoldMemory v5.07 here.

http://www.simtel.net/product.php?id=56576

Maybe I'll see ya at the Alienware Customer Support forums and listen to you complain to the AW techs about your memory!

I hope everything works out for ya. I better get offline now... I'm in Florida and there's a huge lightning storm over my house and I'm afraid I might get hit.

Good luck.

[GooseGoose]

    Holy cow Bob!  Mind the lightning!

    Thanks for the tips!  However, I had the same idea about my memory, and one of the first things I did when I noticed trouble was to turn my Swap File down to 2Mb (the minimum windows allows), to see if it would force the game to use my video memory and RAM... but it resulted in terrible performance.  Really peculiar.  Microsoft suggests setting your Swap File to 150% of your RAM... so in your case, that would be 768MB (It took me about 45 seconds to add that up in my head).  Every computer is different though, I suppose.  And I did check the RAM modules themselves too... it's four 512 cards, and they appeared to be all right.
    I shouldn't really complain at all... I've got it set to consistently good performance levels, with most of the graphics setting maxed out (all 5, clouds 3).  I just sort of expected perfection with such a top-notch system.  It's completely playable and enjoyable now... but it took a good amount of work to get it to this point.  I really think that the only reason we gripe so much, and obsess so much about CFS3 is because we like it so much.
     I'm sure if I played Doom III, Half-Life II, or Trinity, I would notice some pretty unbelievable performance!  I'll tell you what though, my version of Microsoft Chess for Windows 3.1 has never been faster!
    I don't think anything is going to be quite the performance hog that a good Flight-Sim is, as CFS3 has more than adequately proved.

      cheerio.

[bobc1]

Hi Goose,

Yeah, that lightning got really close. My electricity didn't go out but it hit so close that a "magnetic" blast or whatever made the screen on my monitor "wiggle" or distort. I've never had that happen before.

It appears to me now that we've chatted a bit that your computer is working fine. We just happen to like flight simulators and as you say, they are hardware hogs. And as The Stones most aptly put it, "You can't get always get what ya want". But if you try real hard you just might find, ya get enough to flight sim on and have a good time with. I always over-expect the performance that a new computer will afford me, or a new video card or a CPU upgrade. Microsoft really did produce a sim that can't be maxxed out on any existing home computer today. Something to work towards I reckon.

I'll bet LO:MAC will be the same.

At the Alienware website they have a couple benchmarking programs at their software download page if you'd like to test out your new computer and compare it with like systems. Or go to Futuremark (Madonion) at http://www.futuremark.com/download/ and download the 3DMark2001 SE (330) benchmarking program. Or the newer and "beefier" 177MB file (my first hard drive was all of 250MBs!) 3DMark