SSAO, HDR and improving performance?

[ShamrockOneFive]

I know a lot of people have said in the leadup to the announcement that we'll now be able to customize these graphics features that turning these off (in the early testing period) really helped improve performance for them. But I was flying IL-2 BoS tonight and I was thinking about that and the excitement about these toggleable options and I was wondering - how many of you/us are constrained in performance because of their video card and how many is it because of the AI and all of the objects moving about that is really draining FPS?

 

It's rare for a game to need more CPU than GPU but I get the sense that this, like many flight sims, needs quite a bit more CPU power. Turning off these graphical features might make my 5 year old PC run a little better but I suspect my FPS won't be much changed. What do you guys think?

[TG-55Panthercules]

I think the performance issues may be an issue/concern for some folks.  Personally, I don't need or care about the performance implications with my rig - I'm just interested in being able to customize the graphics settings so I can try to get the game to look as good as it ought to be able to look.  As it stands now, I cannot get the game to look good enough to make it worth bothering to fly it.  I'm really hopeful that playing around with the settings will let me solve the problems (primarily the bubble of blur issue) that have thus far kept me out of the BoS skies.

[Guest deleted@50488]

I always used MEDIUM settings, so, I don't think I ever really used either.

 

My CPU is an "old" i5 2500 @ 3,3 and GPU a 650 Ti with 1 GB, and I never found any problems running il2 bos with these...

 

I guess I might try higher settings, and then play with those two specific questions......

[-TBC-AeroAce]

Performance for me is defo more CPU capped. I upgraded a 770 to a 970 and didn't really see a big change in FPS in BOS while in other more typical games I got a massive boost. I'm sure these effects may help performance a but I think that it will only be benifitial to those with very low specs

[Dakpilot]

I think the performance issues may be an issue/concern for some folks.  Personally, I don't need or care about the performance implications with my rig - I'm just interested in being able to customize the graphics settings so I can try to get the game to look as good as it ought to be able to look.  As it stands now, I cannot get the game to look good enough to make it worth bothering to fly it.  I'm really hopeful that playing around with the settings will let me solve the problems (primarily the bubble of blur issue) that have thus far kept me out of the BoS skies.

 

If it is the forest change from 3D to 2D 'bubble' that is distracting you make sure Gamma is NOT set at a low level, this makes it very noticeable, although using low Gamma to increase contrast can give some pleasing results ( and probably help some way in MP) using ini. edits to get lower than in game Gamma options is showing that there are more deep seated basic monitor calibration settings that should be checked before having to resort to ingame low Gamma settings

 

Cheers Dakpilot

[6./ZG26_Emil]

I always used MEDIUM settings, so, I don't think I ever really used either.

 

My CPU is an "old" i5 2500 @ 3,3 and GPU a 650 Ti with 1 GB, and I never found any problems running il2 bos with these...

 

I guess I might try higher settings, and then play with those two specific questions......

 

You're running an i5 at stock settings? Most of them overclock very well and it's pretty easy.

[ShamrockOneFive]

Yeah I'm thinking its my Core i7 870 (older and I believe slower than the i5 2500 that many of you have) that is holding me back on campaign missions in particular. I have a GTX 570 1GB that seems to be able to manage. I am looking forward to tweaking the settings to the find the best level of performance for fancy effects. I don't want to take away from the fact that we're getting those tweaks back... It's a good move and well warranted. But I also wonder if some of us will really see any true performance benefit. I'm not sure if there are ways to make the AI take up fewer CPU cycles while still being as good as they are or maybe that's already as optimized as it can be but I suspect that its CPU cycles that are the real cause of my performance issues.

 

I'm thinking I'll wait for the new Skylake processors to come out in the fall and then start pricing out a new gaming PC.

[Guest deleted@50488]

You're running an i5 at stock settings? Most of them overclock very well and it's pretty easy.

 

Yes, I know, but I was always afraid of doing OC... 

 

Being DX9.0c, il2 bos is certainly more CPU-intensive than GPU, just as FSX.

Edited June 29, 2015 by jcomm

[6./ZG26_Emil]

Yes, I know, but I was always afraid of doing OC... 

 

Being DX9.0c, il2 bos is certainly more CPU-intensive than GPU, just as FSX.

 

Yeh I would definitely agree with that

[SCG_Space_Ghost]

Yes, I know, but I was always afraid of doing OC... 

 

Being DX9.0c, il2 bos is certainly more CPU-intensive than GPU, just as FSX.

 

I wouldn't be.

 

I'm able to reach 4.5GHz and remain very stable at stock voltages.

[Ala13_Kike]

I think the performance issues may be an issue/concern for some folks.  Personally, I don't need or care about the performance implications with my rig - I'm just interested in being able to customize the graphics settings so I can try to get the game to look as good as it ought to be able to look.  As it stands now, I cannot get the game to look good enough to make it worth bothering to fly it.  I'm really hopeful that playing around with the settings will let me solve the problems (primarily the bubble of blur issue) that have thus far kept me out of the BoS skies.

 

I agree.

In my case, I don't have any problem with performance, playing in ULTRA, 1600p and AA4x. But I do not like SSAO and HDR, I don't like the result in this simulator. Not a problem of preformance.

 

For me it's one of the best news that we have in this future update (and I16 too)

[II/JG17_HerrMurf]

I'm not tinkering with the SSAO for performance per se. I just want to get the grease off my goggles.

[KoN_]

Yes, I know, but I was always afraid of doing OC... 

 

Being DX9.0c, il2 bos is certainly more CPU-intensive than GPU, just as FSX.

Overclock to 4.0 Ghz............ try  google is your friend . its very easy nower days if you have decent motherboard , most overclock feaatures have auto settings for voltage and Ram. i am running at 4.2 Ghz .stable .

I would love to see the ROF settings that were here at the begining . This is another factor that pushed people away from BOS.

If you want the crowds back you need to make changes .

[Dakpilot]

I would love to see the ROF settings that were here at the begining . This is another factor that pushed people away from BOS.

If you want the crowds back you need to make changes .

 

 

Nah the 'Rof settings are just set to max and we have Ultra, as has been said 90% of BoS performance issues are CPU related...the RoF settings did not "turn up to eleven"    if Balanced does not work/run you have to upgrade hardware, no settings will help, it is as simple as that

 

The outrage and moaning about limited settings was 90% butthurt about being told what to do rather than the real world effects of them. The "settings crisis" was just a rallying call by a certain faction

 

I am always glad for options and glad that some will be happy to turn off SSAO, but now if you fly MP so will YOU, if you want to not have a disadvantage...maybe I am wrong we shall see with the update  really hope that SSAO and HDR off do not give pure crystal clear vision through Cockpit, in RoF this did not matter, but I hope that there are not some pleasing effects that SSAO/HDR gave that I will now have to sacrifice to be on a level field in MP, at least there is not yet the option to turn off trees

 

Cheers Dakpilot

[SharpeXB]

 

I'm not tinkering with the SSAO for performance per se. I just want to get the grease off my goggles.

Same for me ;-)

I don't actually want to lose the real indirect shading effect SSAO should be providing though. Aircraft cockpits wouldn't look very good without it.

 

Yes, I think there are certain cases where playing with graphic settings won't help performance because situations with lots of objects are bottlenecked by the CPU

Personally I like the option of increasing the draw distance.

[[DBS]TH0R]

I always used MEDIUM settings, so, I don't think I ever really used either.

 

My CPU is an "old" i5 2500 @ 3,3 and GPU a 650 Ti with 1 GB, and I never found any problems running il2 bos with these...

 

I guess I might try higher settings, and then play with those two specific questions......

 

Is it a k version? If so, you can try to OC it. There hasn't been major improvement in CPU power, as far as gaming goes since Sandy Bridge CPUs. I too have i5 2500k running @ 4.5 and the only limit in my system is a 580 card.

[SharpeXB]

I recently had to disable the overclocking on my i7-3770K and despite having literally the most powerful GPUs on earth my game can now be reduced to a slow motion stutter fest in some big custom missions. Overclocking is very worthwhile. You'll miss it when it's gone.

Edited June 29, 2015 by SharpeXB

[coconut]

If it is the forest change from 3D to 2D 'bubble' that is distracting you make sure Gamma is NOT set at a low level, this makes it very noticeable, although using low Gamma to increase contrast can give some pleasing results ( and probably help some way in MP) using ini. edits to get lower than in game Gamma options is showing that there are more deep seated basic monitor calibration settings that should be checked before having to resort to ingame low Gamma settings

 

Cheers Dakpilot

 

After reading this I checked the calibration of my monitors. The settings I had were atrocious. I used this page to adjust my gamma values. I doubt the gamma values in the game are really gamma values, they seem to be a brightness setting instead.

 

Basically: Adjust your brightness and contrast so that your blacks are black and whites are white, then adjust the gamma values using the page I linked to. Then go into the game and adjust brightness there (the "gamma" setting). I still had to edit startup.cfg. Currently I'm at 0.6, I might increased it a bit. The thing that tells me there is something wrong with the default brightness settings in this game is that night-time is way too bright. Without a moon, it's as bright as it there was a full moon. Set a mission to start during winter, before sunrise and without a moon. Without any light source nearby, you shouldn't be able to pick details on the ground, only the outline of the ground against the sky.

[SharpeXB]

Yes. I'd say for brightness and contrast adjust your monitor first. And some digital displays do not adjust brightness and contrast correctly. Mostly I figure monitors don't tend to but HDTVs should always. Get a home theater DVD or something to explain if you're curious. A good one is Digital Video Essentials. There should be test patterns with very dark stripes which you should barely see and white step ramps where you should be able to discern shades of white. I'd do this before messing with the game settings.

[ShamrockOneFive]

Not a performance thing but definitely making sure that your monitor is properly calibrated for brightness and for colour is a nice thing to have. Even better if your monitor is as close to sRGB as possible. Might change your opinion on the HDR. Still not sure how SSAO is contributing to my visuals (I've read extensively about it) but it'll be interesting to play with and see what the best solution is.

 

I'm willing to bet that I'll probably leave both on. But we'll see. I doubt it will improve performance in the area that I need it to be improved ... its just the number of objects with AI flying around at one time that really seems to do it.

[II/JG17_HerrMurf]

If turning it off gives a poor effect I'll have to learn how to get SweetFX/flightFX FIRED UP. I had Hooves coach me through it in EA but I'm on a new machine now and never reinstalled.

[=LD=Penshoon]

Ambient occlusion settings like SSAO always came with a hit to my cpu performance, about 5-10fps in most cases. I'm guessing it will help a little with cpu bottlenecks at low altitude when more objects are rendered like structures, trees and parked planes.

 

HDR defenitly stays on for me as I love whe high contrast lightning you get but it will affect how I fly online. When you turn it off the sun won't be blinding you like it does now so I think people will turn it off to get an spotting edge.

[ShamrockOneFive]

Ambient occlusion settings like SSAO always came with a hit to my cpu performance, about 5-10fps in most cases. I'm guessing it will help a little with cpu bottlenecks at low altitude when more objects are rendered like structures, trees and parked planes.

 

HDR defenitly stays on for me as I love whe high contrast lightning you get but it will affect how I fly online. When you turn it off the sun won't be blinding you like it does now so I think people will turn it off to get an spotting edge.

 

Maybe I'm missing something but shouldn't something like SSAO be done on the GPU.... the CPU should have almost nothing to do with it. At least in theory?

[=LD=Penshoon]

Maybe I'm missing something but shouldn't something like SSAO be done on the GPU.... the CPU should have almost nothing to do with it. At least in theory?

You might be right that SSAO can be run entirely on the gpu, wasn't it even developed by nvidia? On the other hand I'm pretty sure when I ran Skyrim I had a gfx mod that enabled SSAO and it defenitly had a big impact on the cpu there though. When standing in that central town where you became a thane it would drop my frames by ~15fps and I was alway cpu bottlwnecked there due to the huge ammount of actors and their ai. Edited June 30, 2015 by =LD=Penshoon

[YoYo]

Im in!

 

I think than turning off SSAO I will have better antyaliasing too in the sim.

What Do You think about this?

[Urra]

Im in!

 

I think than turning off SSAO I will have better antyaliasing too in the sim.

What Do You think about this?

Somewhere on the forum someone mentioned this, very exciting possibility.

[aka2k]

I always used MEDIUM settings, so, I don't think I ever really used either.

 

My CPU is an "old" i5 2500 @ 3,3 and GPU a 650 Ti with 1 GB, and I never found any problems running il2 bos with these...

 

I guess I might try higher settings, and then play with those two specific questions......

Sorry for bumping this old topic, but I have an i5 2500k @ 3.3ghz with a gtx 970 and the game just run like crap for me no matter what settings I use. I wonder whats wrong for me? When doing ground support with the IL-2 the game crawls to around 15-20 fps on low settings. It's atrociously hard to play with those fps.

[ShamrockOneFive]

Sorry for bumping this old topic, but I have an i5 2500k @ 3.3ghz with a gtx 970 and the game just run like crap for me no matter what settings I use. I wonder whats wrong for me? When doing ground support with the IL-2 the game crawls to around 15-20 fps on low settings. It's atrociously hard to play with those fps.

 

I have similar experiences and I suspect its the CPU that is the constraining factor. Your 2500k is a generation ahead of my 870 and both are further back on single thread performance compared to the latest CPUs. Your i5 scores higher than my i7 because of the boost in performance. I've got 12gb of DDR3 ram and my GTX 570 is nowhere near what your GTX 970 is... so it doesn't seem like RAM or GPU are the constraints. I'm running this on a OCZ Vertex SSD so drive transfer isn't likely an issue either.

 

In your case, you can probably run the same FPS no matter if you have it set to low or high. The issue is very likely the CPU because all of that AI and all of those objects running at once bogs things down.

 

I'm gearing up in the next couple of months to go to a Skylake based Core i5 6600, DDR4 ram, efficiencies to be found in the new Intel chipset, and probably a GTX 960 which should all hopefully run BoS and BoM very smoothly indeed.

Edited August 26, 2015 by ShamrockOneFive

[aka2k]

This game feels like a hit and miss. Some people have no trouble while others do with the same hardware or somewhere at the same level of performance. Probably it's like you've said, I'm constrained by the CPU somehow. FPS do change a small bit going from low settings to ultra, but it's almost negligible.

[ShamrockOneFive]

This game feels like a hit and miss. Some people have no trouble while others do with the same hardware or somewhere at the same level of performance. Probably it's like you've said, I'm constrained by the CPU somehow. FPS do change a small bit going from low settings to ultra, but it's almost negligible.

 

I'm actually of the opinion that the game is behaving very predictably but peoples experience is varying. If you spend a lot of time in the single player campaign, particularly on ground attack missions, then you'll be confronted with situations that feature high AI situations. It gets particularly intense when the mission spawns a couple dozen extra aircraft battling nearby. The loads on the CPU become fairly intense. I'm not sure how good at multi-core IL-2: BoS is but I suspect that single threaded performance is still key and that means the fastest and best CPU in single threaded applications will probably grant the smoothest gameplay.

 

If you spend most of your time online then the CPU requirements go down and its more balanced between CPU and GPU loads at that point.

 

The 2500K is a solid CPU but its four years old and while improvements in CPU performance have been incremental, I still think it makes a big difference going up to the very latest. Broadwell was very very good and Skylake seems promising.

[Dakpilot]

If you can overclock that 2500K, min FPS should improve enough (over 30 ) to be in the very playable region.. anywhere over 4.0 ghz will give a decent boost, try setting in game AA at 2X for some reason it gives better performance than no AA

 

Cheers Dakpilot

[aka2k]

Thanks for the tips, guys. Can't really overclock my CPU since I was silly enough to not pay attention to the mobo I bought back in 2012, a H61. Something interesting I've noticed now, the game is not maxing my CPU usage. It stays around 45-50% all the time no matter what settings I'm using. The GPU is running around 35-45%. Is that normal for this game?

Edited August 27, 2015 by aka2k

[Dakpilot]

That does not sound right,

 

Here is my usage with GTX970 and 3570K (only one gen younger) this is  QMB 2000M Stalingrad map, 8 vs 8 Lagg, La-5 vs He-111, JU-52 cloudy all ground units

 

 

Bear in mind this is running at 4K (3840 X2160), but I have o/c to 4.46ghz,

 

 But you will see usage of 4 cores  max 95, 88, 76, 77,  also you see GPU usage averaging in high 80's maxing at 99

 

I also don't have any serious issues at ground attack, and certainly none when at 1920 X1080

 

Cheers Dakpilot

[JG_Meyer]

Thanks for the tips, guys. Can't really overclock my CPU since I was silly enough to not pay attention to the mobo I bought back in 2012, a H61. Something interesting I've noticed now, the game is not maxing my CPU usage. It stays around 45-50% all the time no matter what settings I'm using. The GPU is running around 35-45%. Is that normal for this game?

 

For sure, not normal.

 

What are your nvidia settings?

[aka2k]

For sure, not normal.

 

What are your nvidia settings?

Default settings on control panel.

 

Been fiddling with thermal options for the CPU, fps looked a bit more stable after disabling C1 Stepping and EIST - could be a placebo tho, anyway - but the CPU usage still is quite low, spiking at 80% when the game start and stabilizing around 45-50% in general cpu usage. Arma 3 is exhibiting the same behavior and fps is quite low compared to other people with same hardware: clocking around 40-50 fps mostly with a mix of high and medium settings. Other games I've tried are working the processor fully. GTA5 is running almost all the time at 100% processor and gpu, for example. Same with PCars.

 

It's weird because Arma 3 and IL-2 were supposed to give the cpu a workout. Yet, they are struggling to reach 50% during normal usage. They only spike up the usage quickly during loading.

[Dakpilot]

How are your temps? maybe these high CPU games are causing throttling due to the higher demand, Arma, Pcars and BoS are possibly the most CPU intensive games

 

Cheers Dakpilot

[JG_Meyer]

I don't know what you mean by "default" settings

 

Anyway, every game/software is very unique. You could try different settings for BoS (Control Panel, not only ingame)

 

There are some known fixes (kind of) for low GPU usage:

 

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/800096/-fix-gtx-900-series-low-fps-gpu-usage-stutter-coil-whine/?offset=7

 

 

But for sure, if you can run PCars, you should do the same with BoS. Your CPU is not bottlenecking BoS.

[aka2k]

I don't know what you mean by "default" settings

 

Anyway, every game/software is very unique. You could try different settings for BoS (Control Panel, not only ingame)

 

There are some known fixes (kind of) for low GPU usage:

 

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/800096/-fix-gtx-900-series-low-fps-gpu-usage-stutter-coil-whine/?offset=7

 

 

But for sure, if you can run PCars, you should do the same with BoS. Your CPU is not bottlenecking BoS.

 

Default is the factory settings. Haven't changed anything within the nvidia control panel. Something that did alleviate a bit the frame rate is disabling threaded optimization on nvidia control panel. Frame rate doesn't juggle around like crazy and feels somewhat improved with less stutters.

 

It's strange that I can run Pcars smooth with ultra details but IL-2 Bos is very uneven. Looks like IL-2 and Arma 3 don't scale very well on my system. Only managed to maxed the cores when I've disabled two of them. Frame rate was obviously worse.

Edited August 27, 2015 by aka2k

[aka2k]

How are your temps? maybe these high CPU games are causing throttling due to the higher demand, Arma, Pcars and BoS are possibly the most CPU intensive games

 

Cheers Dakpilot

Temps are fine, they barely go over 40º with IL-2. They jump a bit to 50º with GTA V tho.

[wellenbrecher]

I always - ALWAYS - turn off SSAO first chance I have in every game of every genre as I've yet to see any game whatsoever where it looks good to my taste.

HDR more often than not looks disgusting as well, or maybe I'm just scarred from that insufferable episode where every dev thought that bloom (or as they called it: HDR), motion blur and brown textures equalled in good, realistic graphics.

 

Anyway, with this game I turned them off the second I got the chance again with whatever recent patch it was that allowed us to do so. SSAO looks ugly as usual here, haven't bothered looking at the differences in HDR but turned it off anyway out of habit.

Got a 970, a very good CPU and plenty, plenty RAM, so performance most certainly was not the issue. The game is, after all, rather tame when it comes to system requirements.

Edited August 28, 2015 by wellenbrecher