New player with low end Rig, seeking optimum settings

[Algy-Lacey]

Hello all, if this topic is better off in the VR controllers sub forum, I will move it.

 

I'm a newcomer to the IL-2 Great Battles series and would like to know what settings I can run with my hardware. I have a low end system, especially as I own an Oculus Rift and want to fly in VR. Perhaps this thread will be helpful to other people who have a rig that is *borderline* capable of running a HMD like Oculus Rift.

 

First, here are my system specifications:

 

6th Gen core i5 6400 2.7 Ghz, turbo boost to 3.2 Ghz (I don't know how to enable turbo boost, so for now it runs at stock 2.7 Ghz) on socket 1151

16 Gb DDR4 ram memory (1600 Mhz?)

M2 120 Gb SSD

Asus GeForce GTX 1060  6 Gb DDR5

 

If there are any other system spec's that are needed, please ask and I'll try and find them.

 

 

Peripherals :

 

Thrustmaster T.16000m Joystick, twist rudder

Saitek Pro Flight Throttle Quadrant

Oculus Rift CV1

 

I also plan on using :

3DMigoto mod for VR

By lefuneste

 

I only have the Battle Of Kuban with the Spitfire being my favourite plane.

 

Because I am certain that with my low end GPU, slow processor and its poor single thread performance I won't be able to use my Oculus Rift without ASW (Asynchronous Space Warp?), ASW should give me a steady 45 fps, is that correct? And the 3DMigoto mod which disables the propeller allows running ASW without artefacts, so I've read.

 

 

So, I'd really like to know if anyone else has a low end system (for VR) and which settings they find to be optimal.

Also, if there are any Tech Guru's who can suggest settings to try, please help.

 

I would really like to have Horizon Draw Distance at 100 Km - 150 Km

Some Shadows

Not fussed about Grass

Nice Clouds

No shimmering of textures / forests (I read about this in another thread)

 

And before I sign off, for now I'm only really interested in flying offline and I'm not even wanting air combat, just to fly these beautiful beasts on the Kuban map

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Chocks Away! (soon, anyway!)

 

Algernon Montgomery Lacey

(Biggles' wingman)

 

 

Edited August 1, 2018 by Algy-Lacey
Making important stuff more visible

[F/JG300_Gruber]

I don't have any VR stuff but playing in 4k so I fiddled with the settings quite a bit.

I won't provide you a fully custom profile but here are some hints :

 

HDR and SSAO are fps hungry features with very little impact on overall graphics. Leave them off is my advice

Some like HDR because it makes reading instruments a bit easier but clouds often appear bleached white in bright sunlight. I personally don't like it.

Horizon to 100km is plenty enough. 150km is a bit better for eye candyness on Kuban, but absolutely not worth the performance cost.

Grass, leave it to normal, it's still looking good. I believe the main difference is distance rendering.

 

Shadow quality, Cloud quality, landscape filter, mirror (if using them) that's up to you, fiddle a bit with them and see how high you can get. 

Shadow quality is quite important since cockpit frame shadows are rendered right in front of your nose, so this is the first thing you will notice if quality isn't high enough.

Landscape filter and mirrors are the least important of the set to me.

 

One thing you may not want to get low is distant landscape detail. If x4 doesn't work for you, down to X3 but not less, otherwise there is a lot of ground objects that will be rendered too close to your plane (trees in particular).

 

No real idea about graphic preset, but your rig should be able to handle high I believe.

 

 

I'll leave you to the mercy of the VR gurus, one will surely show up soon.

 

Cheers

 

Edited August 1, 2018 by F/JG300_Gruber

[Algy-Lacey]

4 minutes ago, F/JG300_Gruber said:

I won't provide you a fully custom profile but here are some hints :

 

Hey Gruber,

Thank you for your reply!

 

It's good to see your experience with which aspects of game settings affect performance the most. I will try some of those settings and play around with shadow quality, clouds and mirrors. I won't use HDR or SSAO either.

 

Many thanks.

 

Does anyone else have some settings suggestions for a GTX 1060 (6Gb) user?

I've read in various places about the importance of Landscape FIlter and Sharpen Textures, I'm under the impression that getting these right is important for VR.

Also I have read Fenris_Wolf's thread on VR and spotting aircraft, he suggests:

Quote

If you put the Landscape Filter to Blurry, it will mitigate all the issues with the flickering ground. To me, that was the number one issue, when without SuperSampling. It gives mostly static ground, and if there is something flickering, it's a contact. The lower SS also gives more headroom for the GPU, which allows me to use medium mirrors and high shadows. It removes the flickering ground issue we had before without SS. It also means that no more SS will mess with the scaling of objects - no more need to hunt single subpixels to spot other players.

 

Should this thread be moved to the VR Controllers sub forum?

[Wraithzlt]

Hey there Algy-Lacey.

I recommend looking at Peregrine's thread pinned at the top of this sub forum. It will give you some ideas of what to use.

Your CPU is a very low point of your rig and I highly suggest finding Turbo in your bios to give you a chance of running the game ok. Single core speed is essential for IL2 vr. 

 

You have a  very low spec'd rig for running vr.  I recommend you try:

Low 

Low or no shadows

Normal landscape

Blurred landscape filter

70km horizon

Med clouds

No AA

No ssao or hdr

4k textures on (seems to work best)

Sharpen on

Steam SS - Check Peregrine's thread about this, page 7 has some discussion on it for Rift users.

 

Remember to turn the game hud off to smooth out the performance once you have you engine settings sorted.

 

It was nice of jg300_Gruber to help out but those settings will be too high for your vr. 

 

Good luck with your VR! It's fantastic when you get it going!

 

 

Edited August 8, 2018 by Wraithzlt

[Algy-Lacey]

On 8/8/2018 at 8:08 AM, Wraithzlt said:

Steam SS - Check Peregrine's thread about this, page 7 has some discussion on it for Rift users.

 

Remember to turn the game hud off to smooth out the performance once you have you engine settings sorted.

 

It was nice of jg300_Gruber to help out but those settings will be too high for your vr. 

 

Good luck with your VR! It's fantastic when you get it going!

 

 

 

Hey WraithzIt,

 

Thanks for the detailed settings. I will try them and report back to this thread so that other people with *borderline* systems for VR can see what to try.

 

Regards,

Algy Lacey

Edited August 10, 2018 by Algy-Lacey
25 years since reading 'Biggles', I got the name of the character wrong!

[chiliwili69]

Your CPU run  2.7Ghz with no turbo, and 3.3GHz with Turbo. You should enable the TurboBoost Option in BIOS. And check with the CPU-Z that your CPU is running at 3.3GHZ afterwards.

 

You could also try to upgrade your CPU for a second hand i7-6700K which should not cost too much.

 

In the GPU side, You should not use supersampling at all. So leave it at 100%.

 

The Kuban map requires more CPU/GPU power than Stalingrad or Moscow.

[=TBAS=Sshadow14]

Ok here is something that might give you a FPS boost on all systems with low power VR or NOT.

In Startup.Cfg Change the following 2 lines.
detail_rt_res = 1024 >Change to> detail_rt_res = 512
(this controls the overall Texture quality of tree/grass/bushes and so on)

grass_distance = 100.00000 >Change to> grass_distance = 1.00000
(Default lowest grass setting is 100M, Setting of 0.00000 does not work so i use 1M, few blades might be still visible at times)

Hope this helps

P.S: Startup.cfg is located in the main game folder
:\Games\IL-2 Sturmovik Battle of Moscow\data
Or
:\\Steam\steamapps\common\IL-2 Sturmovik Battle of Moscow\data

 

[Algy-Lacey]

Hello All and a warm welcome to those with low end PC's and those who want to fly in VR with an HMD

 

First, I have understood from the topic in VR Controllers - Measuring Rig Performance - Common Baseline...

...that one can tweak the settings in IL-2 Graphics and view the results on your monitor... I used Full HD resolution (1920x1080) ....then if, say, you get a stable 120 Fps, when you connect up your HMD (Rift, Vive, etc) you will get HALF the Fps.

 

Understanding this, I adjusted my settings until I got a stable 90 - 100 Fps, so that when I start using my Rift HMD with ASW always on and the 3D MIGOTO MOD to prevent visual artefacts, my system should achieve a stable 45 Fps, it will hopefully run smooth without dipping below 45 Fps.

 

Another thing to mention is that I achieved this stable 90 - 100 Fps with no AI... Just me, flying a Spitfire on the Kuban Map with Cloudy weather. And that is what I'm interested in, not combat, just flight.

 

So those who want to fly with lots of AI Aircraft may find they have to lower their settings somewhat. I guess that this is a CPU bottleneck.

 

I was quite surprised at how high I could crank the settings considering advice given from other Forum members.

 

Settings - High

Screen Res. - 1920x1080

Shadows - High

Mirrors - Medium

Distant Landscape Detail - x4

Horizon Draw Distance - 100 Km

Landscape Filter - Blurred

Grass Quality - Distant

Clouds Quality - High

Target FPS - Off

Antialiasing - 2

Gamma - 0.9

Full Screen

Enable VR HMD

Sharpen

Use 4k Textures

 

In game Head Up Display (HUD) - OFF

 

Steam VR SuperSampling - I will leave this at the (presumed default) 100% like Chiliwili69 suggested above.

 

Those settings give me a stable 90 - 100 Fps on the Kuban Map with no AI aircraft. We shall see if that translates to a steady 45 Fps in my Oculus Rift. Watch this space!

 

And Finally, here are my System Specifications again :

 

Intel Core i5 6400  2.7 Ghz to 3.3 Ghz with Turbo Boost

16 Gb of DDR4 2100 Mhz Ram

120 Gb SSD on M.2. socket

6 Gb DDR5 GeForce GTX 1060 (not overclocked)

Oculus Rift (CV1)

 

Salute!

Algy Lacey

 

(Algy was Biggles' wingman in the famous series of novels... However I discovered yesterday that there was a real life Spitfire pilot called James 'Ginger' Lacey, so I may change my user name out of respect)

 

 

Edited August 10, 2018 by Algy-Lacey
Forgot about Steam VR SuperSampling

[chiliwili69]

7 hours ago, Algy-Lacey said:

Enable VR HMD

Sharpen

Use 4k Textures

 

In game Head Up Display (HUD) - OFF

 

Steam VR SuperSampling - I will leave this at the (presumed default) 100% like Chiliwili69 suggested above.

 

I like your methodology, but I am unsure about the results.

 

As I understand, you first test everything with just monitor (no Rift), so the "Enable VR HMD" should be off and the SteamVR is irrelevant for the monitor test.

 

In any case, If GPU is not the constraint, normally the fps are halved from monitor to VR with the two test we used (old Balapan and Samuel). Those test were using a lot of AI.

 

So, I don´t know what would be the outcome of your test when trying the Rift. But I would be curious. 

 

Also, it is not the same flying alone at 2000m than flying alone at 200m, specially with mountain and villages. You don´t specify at what altitude you achieve 90-100fps.

[Algy-Lacey]

I will tell you, once the experiment is done with my Rift...

...If only I could get the Oculus Home to install properly. Download was no problem... all 4.83 Gb of it, but install after a while pops up with a status message "There was an error while installing"

Also waiting for a message back from Oculus Tech Support.

 

We'll see.

 

My altitude was from a start of 3000m ASL, a turn toward the snow capped mountains and then a gradual dive to just skim over ridges with forest  at perhaps 1000m ASL: 100m Above Ground, looks absolutely beautiful on a HD monitor. Fps at start was over 100 Fps and down below ridges and close to trees depending on view direction sometimes dropped down to above 90 Fps.

 

salute!

Edited August 10, 2018 by Algy-Lacey

[Wraithzlt]

19 hours ago, Algy-Lacey said:

 

Settings - High

Screen Res. - 1920x1080

Shadows - High

Mirrors - Medium

Distant Landscape Detail - x4

Horizon Draw Distance - 100 Km

Landscape Filter - Blurred

Grass Quality - Distant

Clouds Quality - High

Target FPS - Off

Antialiasing - 2

 

 

Alot of these settings will kill your fps in actual VR. Shadows and Grass Quality especially.

 

I hate to burst your bubble, but i will guarantee that these settings will be a stuttery mess in your Rift when you actually have it plugged in and operating.

 

I cant even run anything close to this for smooth gameplay and i'm running a i7 8700k @5ghz, 16gb ddr4 3200mhz, gtx 1080.

 

I really hope it works for you, please post here to let us know how it goes for you. 

 

 

[JonRedcorn]

On 8/10/2018 at 6:51 AM, Algy-Lacey said:

Hello All and a warm welcome to those with low end PC's and those who want to fly in VR with an HMD

 

First, I have understood from the topic in VR Controllers - Measuring Rig Performance - Common Baseline...

...that one can tweak the settings in IL-2 Graphics and view the results on your monitor... I used Full HD resolution (1920x1080) ....then if, say, you get a stable 120 Fps, when you connect up your HMD (Rift, Vive, etc) you will get HALF the Fps.

 

Understanding this, I adjusted my settings until I got a stable 90 - 100 Fps, so that when I start using my Rift HMD with ASW always on and the 3D MIGOTO MOD to prevent visual artefacts, my system should achieve a stable 45 Fps, it will hopefully run smooth without dipping below 45 Fps.

 

Another thing to mention is that I achieved this stable 90 - 100 Fps with no AI... Just me, flying a Spitfire on the Kuban Map with Cloudy weather. And that is what I'm interested in, not combat, just flight.

 

So those who want to fly with lots of AI Aircraft may find they have to lower their settings somewhat. I guess that this is a CPU bottleneck.

 

I was quite surprised at how high I could crank the settings considering advice given from other Forum members.

 

Settings - High

Screen Res. - 1920x1080

Shadows - High

Mirrors - Medium

Distant Landscape Detail - x4

Horizon Draw Distance - 100 Km

Landscape Filter - Blurred

Grass Quality - Distant

Clouds Quality - High

Target FPS - Off

Antialiasing - 2

Gamma - 0.9

Full Screen

Enable VR HMD

Sharpen

Use 4k Textures

 

In game Head Up Display (HUD) - OFF

 

Steam VR SuperSampling - I will leave this at the (presumed default) 100% like Chiliwili69 suggested above.

 

Those settings give me a stable 90 - 100 Fps on the Kuban Map with no AI aircraft. We shall see if that translates to a steady 45 Fps in my Oculus Rift. Watch this space!

 

And Finally, here are my System Specifications again :

 

Intel Core i5 6400  2.7 Ghz to 3.3 Ghz with Turbo Boost

16 Gb of DDR4 2100 Mhz Ram

120 Gb SSD on M.2. socket

6 Gb DDR5 GeForce GTX 1060 (not overclocked)

Oculus Rift (CV1)

 

Salute!

Algy Lacey

 

(Algy was Biggles' wingman in the famous series of novels... However I discovered yesterday that there was a real life Spitfire pilot called James 'Ginger' Lacey, so I may change my user name out of respect)

 

 

You lose way more than half your framerate. I get 120 maxed out and if I left it maxed out at the same settings in my rift I'd get less than a third of that. It'd barely maintain 30-40. Your experiment isn't going to work you are wasting your time tweaking without the headset. 

Edited August 11, 2018 by 15th_JonRedcorn

[Poochnboo]

You're British, and you just heard of "Ginger" Lacey yesterday?

2 hours ago, 15th_JonRedcorn said:

I discovered yesterday that there was a real life Spitfire pilot called James 'Ginger' Lacey

 

He was one of he highest scoring RAF pilots of the war, and the second highest scoring ace of he Battle of Britain.

[JonRedcorn]

2 hours ago, Poochnboo said:

You're British, and you just heard of "Ginger" Lacey yesterday?

 

He was one of he highest scoring RAF pilots of the war, and the second highest scoring ace of he Battle of Britain.

I believe you have quoted the wrong person, not sure how that happened, but I said no such thing.

[Poochnboo]

On 8/10/2018 at 6:51 AM, Algy-Lacey said:

However I discovered yesterday that there was a real life Spitfire pilot called James 'Ginger' Lacey,

Ah Ha! I see what happened. You quoted him, and then I quoted him using YOUR quote! I gotta watch that. 

And besides,with a handle like Jon Redcorn, I doubt that you're British. Are you a real native American?

[Algy-Lacey]

On 8/11/2018 at 7:29 AM, Wraithzlt said:

 

Alot of these settings will kill your fps in actual VR. Shadows and Grass Quality especially.

 

I hate to burst your bubble, but i will guarantee that these settings will be a stuttery mess in your Rift when you actually have it plugged in and operating.

 

I cant even run anything close to this for smooth gameplay and i'm running a i7 8700k @5ghz, 16gb ddr4 3200mhz, gtx 1080.

 

I really hope it works for you, please post here to let us know how it goes for you. 

 

 

 

I was making the assumption about FPS being halved with a Rift because of the results of people following the experiment in the thread : 

Measuring rig performance: Common Baseline

 

Appologies that I haven't reported on my experience of VR with the above settings, I had to do a full clean install of Windows 10, then download Oculus software, then Re-download IL-2, then map all of my controls AGAIN!  I should have the results today at some point.

 

And just to be clear, I'm not aiming for 90 FPS in my rift. If it will hold a steady 45 FPS with ASW always on... we'll see.

 

22 hours ago, Poochnboo said:

You're British, and you just heard of "Ginger" Lacey yesterday?

 

He was one of he highest scoring RAF pilots of the war, and the second highest scoring ace of he Battle of Britain.

 

I didn't know that! Well although I'm taking my username from a character in the Biggles novels, it's good to know that 'my namesake' was such a veteran fighter pilot. I'll do some searching to find out more about 'Ginger' Lacey.

 

Regards

Algy

 

 

Edited August 12, 2018 by Algy-Lacey
vulgarity

[JonRedcorn]

14 hours ago, Poochnboo said:

Ah Ha! I see what happened. You quoted him, and then I quoted him using YOUR quote! I gotta watch that. 

And besides,with a handle like Jon Redcorn, I doubt that you're British. Are you a real native American?

He's a character in the show "King of the Hill" haha. Been using this name for years. 

[Poochnboo]

17 minutes ago, 15th_JonRedcorn said:

He's a character in the show "King of the Hill" haha. Been using this name for years. 

Oh yeah!! He's the guy who was doing the nieghbors wife! Lol!!!!!!!!! Now I remember.

[Algy-Lacey]

On 8/11/2018 at 6:47 PM, 15th_JonRedcorn said:

You lose way more than half your framerate. I get 120 maxed out and if I left it maxed out at the same settings in my rift I'd get less than a third of that. It'd barely maintain 30-40. Your experiment isn't going to work you are wasting your time tweaking without the headset. 

 

Ok, here are my findings - Newcomers to IL-2 Great Battles with low end Rigs for VR... Read On!

 

So, I used Steam VR and set up the Application Settings specifically for IL-2, in the section Application Resolution Adjustment, I set it to 100%. It defaults to 66% I believe, which means it is actually rendering about 1080 x 1200 per eye, which is the Oculus Rift's native resolution. 100% on the slider gave me 1330 x 1584 rendered.

 

Then I have the very useful 3DMigoto mod which allows for ASW @ 45fps to be used without visual anomalies.

 

I also used the clouds MOD available here to get high quality clouds in all graphics presets, Balanced / High / Ultra / whatever. They look Great but you need to enable mods in game (tickbox) : 

 

And finally, in the games' Graphics settings I used :

 

Settings - Balanced

Screen Res. - 1920x1080

Shadows - Medium

Mirrors - Medium

Distant Landscape Detail - x4

Horizon Draw Distance - 100 Km

Landscape Filter - Blurred

Grass Quality - Normal

Clouds Quality - High

Target FPS - Off

Antialiasing - 2

Gamma - 0.8

Full Screen

Enable VR HMD

Sharpen

Use 4k Textures

 

In game Head Up Display (HUD) - OFF

 

Now I will post my Rig specs:

 

Intel i5 6400 2.7Ghz

RAM 16Gb DDR 2100Mhz

M.2. SSD 120Gb

GeForce GTX 1060 6Gb

Oculus Rift CV1

Thrustmaster T.16000m

Saitek Throttle Quadrant

 

Now, with these settings and my Rig... I got a steady 40-45 fps in game (in the Oculus Rift with fps counter - *Backspace* and Shift + k for disabling propellor disc in the 3DMigoto mod)

 

The Map was Kuban - Summer, 18:30pm, Cloudy weather (the setting below Overcast), Clouds at 2100m and starting altitude of 3000m in Spitfire Mk Vb. even down low over trees and ridges my fps didn't drop below 40 fps and was quite smooth at all times, not juddery.

 

*Disclaimer* I flew over towns / villages just now. Stable 40 - 45 fps, but not with AI Aircraft in the air. Your mileage may vary!  For now I am only interested in leisure flights, not dogfights.

 

So, if, like me, you have a low end Rig, considered barely able to run VR in IL-2 B.O.K, try this setup, programs, Mods and settings and you too can have the WOW! factor of VR Flight

 

Happy Landings!

 

Algy Lacey

On 8/8/2018 at 8:08 AM, Wraithzlt said:

Your CPU is a very low point of your rig and I highly suggest finding Turbo in your bios to give you a chance of running the game ok. Single core speed is essential for IL2 vr. 

 

You have a  very low spec'd rig for running vr.  I recommend you try:

Low 

Low or no shadows

Normal landscape

Blurred landscape filter

70km horizon

Med clouds

No AA

No ssao or hdr

4k textures on (seems to work best)

Sharpen on

Steam SS - Check Peregrine's thread about this, page 7 has some discussion on it for Rift users.

 

Remember to turn the game hud off to smooth out the performance once you have you engine settings sorted.

 

Good luck with your VR! It's fantastic when you get it going!

 

 

 

Hey WraithzIt,

 

I couldn't find the setting for my processor's Turbo Boost in the BIOS or anywhere else for that matter. BUT even at stock 2.7Ghz it ran as I described above.

I think flying with 8 or more AI Aircraft might have a big impact and make my settings in this post unplayable. In which case I'll take it down a few notches to something like what you suggested. But for leisure flights above the beautiful Kuban map, it's flippin Awesome!

 

Salute!

Algy

Edited August 12, 2018 by Algy-Lacey
Disclaimer

[Algy-Lacey]

I flew my first ever combat quick mission in IL-2 Great Battles last night, with the fps counter on and the settings I specified in the post above...

 

The bombers eluded us, but I shot down both enemy fighters with limited ammo on, first victories for me!

 

I flew in formation with a wingman plus another pair, all Spitfires... vs 4 Ju87's and 2 Me109F2's as escort. Kuban Summer map, starting altitude of 2000 and somethin metres, 7am with cloudy preset. My frame rate didn't drop below 40-45 fps which was the same framerate as I got during leisure flights on the Kuban map. So that's 9 AI aircraft and no reduction in fps. Spotting was fairly easy with my settings, kudos to 15th_JonRedcorn and SCG_Fenris_Wolf for their advice, especially in the thread https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/34266-copypaste-settings-for-best-spotting-rift-and-now-odyssey/

 

I am very pleased with the outcomes of my testing and would say it bodes well for those who want to fly VR with a low specced Rig.

 

I want to say a big thankyou to all those who helped and guided me to find the best settings for my Rig, and thanks to those who doubted the performance potential and said it wouldn't work - if they hadn't spoken up I would've been less motivated to find a solution.

 

Happy Flying

 

Algy

Edited August 16, 2018 by Algy-Lacey
first victories