3000 steps condensed into one simple performance guide (plus spotting)

[Velxra]

7 minutes ago, H_Stiglitz said:

personally i tuned it back as i don't want to have halos around planes and value the game optics high enough to sacrifice some spotting for it. hope the new rendering will change things for the better in the future.

 

Me as well, I definitely want the game to look good and be able to see planes! lol

[Hawk-2a]

Just now, -=-THERION said:

Are you sure about that? Because in the game's graphic settings there is the option "Landscape filter". If

you set it to blurred, this will very much help you to discern airplanes above the ground.

test it, it sharpens the outline of the textures still, "blurred" shit is just gonna have weird sharpening patterns through it.

 

it does not change the blurred filter to be equalt to the "sharp" filter. it only sharpens the pixels of the different colors in weird way, making it look oversharpened. take the last screenshot of Roland from above and look at the landscape. the ground textures have some weird black and white dots everywhere, looking like TV in the 80s ? and that is not helpful for spotting stuff on the deck at all

 

[Velxra]

4 minutes ago, H_Stiglitz said:

it does not change the blurred filter to be equal to the "sharp" filter. it only sharpens the pixels of the different colors in weird way, making it look oversharpened. take the last screenshot of Roland from above and look at the landscape. the ground textures have some weird black and white dots everywhere, looking like TV in the 80s ? and that is not helpful for spotting stuff on the deck at all

 

That is because the sharpening outline of planes is also the same field as those dots/lines of the landscape in the game. If planes had their own unique sharpness field then perhaps the issue of spotting could be greatly reduced and/or fixed.

Edited May 6, 2020 by Geronimo553

[Hawk-2a]

Just now, Geronimo553 said:

That is because the sharpening outline of planes is also the same field as those dots/lines in the game. If planes has their own unique sharpeness field then perhaps the issue of spotting could be greatly reduced.

that is exactly what i mean. same with how light affects planes. some reflect like a mirror, some dont. some vanish way too much with the background, as if their altitude does not really matter. it's weird how they deflect light  or absorb it totally. almost independent to what time of day it is, exception to that is dusk/dawn

[Velxra]

11 minutes ago, H_Stiglitz said:

that is exactly what i mean. same with how light affects planes. some reflect like a mirror, some dont. some vanish way too much with the background, as if their altitude does not really matter. it's weird how they deflect light  or absorb it totally. almost independent to what time of day it is, exception to that is dusk/dawn

 

Indeed that is true! I am really excited for the game engine overhaul/improvement. I hope it really puts our problems behind and we can enjoy flying without such frustrations. 

[THERION]

24 minutes ago, H_Stiglitz said:

test it, it sharpens the outline of the textures still, "blurred" shit is just gonna have weird sharpening patterns through it.

 

it does not change the blurred filter to be equalt to the "sharp" filter. it only sharpens the pixels of the different colors in weird way, making it look oversharpened. take the last screenshot of Roland from above and look at the landscape. the ground textures have some weird black and white dots everywhere, looking like TV in the 80s ? and that is not helpful for spotting stuff on the deck at all

 

 

Bisch Du eigentlech würklech ächt ä Bärner Giu?

[Hawk-2a]

1 minute ago, -=-THERION said:

Bisch Du eigentlech würklech ächt ä Bärner Giu?

Waschächt

[THERION]

5 minutes ago, H_Stiglitz said:

Waschächt

Äuä?!? Wo de z'Bärn? Ig bi im Wittigkofen Quartier. He, cheibe guet.

[Retnek]

1 hour ago, Geronimo553 said:

That is because the sharpening outline of planes ...

For that fine-tuning I really love the little box "show sharpening pattern" with reshades "LumaSharpen". Using this one can very easy check the effect of different options, it's much more understandable now. Luma-sharpen with a bit of practice becomes a quickly done try and error for different maps, seasons and daytime. More and more the single values come together to an average all-round set-up. Just for fun I asked a friend to check my favorites with his 1440p-display - it might be ok for a beginning, but for the keen eye a simple "copy and paste" won't work..

For me (v4.005d and a 1440p screen) detecting contacts works fine up to 3 - 4 km. If the light fits and I'm scanning in a calm mood, I may see contacts up to 7 km against the sky. Above that or with in-favourite light it's pure luck.

With 80-100 fps using a Nvida 1060 6GB my most relevant settings, compromise for performance and just a trace of over-sharpened look:
landscape filter = off

sao, hdr and sharpen = off

4 k textures and distant buildings = on

gamma 1

in-game AA = 2 (via NVidia control panel: enhance apl. settings & multisample)

Reshade is down to two:

vibrance (0.2 & 1/1/1)
LumaSharpen (1.8 & 0.095 & Fast & 2.7)

 

There's a little bit of acceptable shimmering along horizontal lines and cities. To reduce that shimmering I need to go for AAx4 and NVidia CP "enhance" with "4x supersample". Looks fine, but will reduce the FPS down to 65 - 80 and the contact detection suffers a bit, too.

Edited May 6, 2020 by Retnek

[Ysko]

7 hours ago, H_Stiglitz said:

well i guess we found the most "ideal" setting that is currently possible

 

Hello Guys!

 

So which download is that most ideal setting ? Mr Stiglitz or Mr Geronimo ? ?

[Roland_HUNter]

30 minutes ago, Ysko said:

Hello Guys!

 

So which download is that most ideal setting ? Mr Stiglitz or Mr Geronimo ? ?

Both are very good, but Mr Geronimo made an awesome job.

[Velxra]

4 hours ago, Ysko said:

Hello Guys!

 

So which download is that most ideal setting ? Mr Stiglitz or Mr Geronimo ? ?

 

4 hours ago, -[HRAF]Roland_HUNter said:

Both are very good, but Mr Geronimo made an awesome job.

 

Thank you, Ms Geronimo will have the new beta filter upload to the reshade 2020 section soon enough. Did my final testing of it with multiplayer tonight. Just a few finer adjustments left to iron out. This one will be less focused on performance and more visual/spotting focused. 

[RIPSkyKingTasmanaut]

I've been using less of the reshade settings over time, I find the over sharpened look a bit off putting now, when you see how nice and soft it looks as standard it's kind of refreshing. However it does effect spotting... Looking forward to your new presets, i'll give them a try, sounds like you are also attempting a more minimalist approach?

[Roland_HUNter]

12 hours ago, Geronimo553 said:

 

 

Thank you, Ms Geronimo will have the new beta filter upload to the reshade 2020 section soon enough. Did my final testing of it with multiplayer tonight. Just a few finer adjustments left to iron out. This one will be less focused on performance and more visual/spotting focused. 

Can't download it.
In the Reshade2020 secton there is 3 link, all of them last modifyed at 2020.04.27.
I saw a new file under the hole section, but that is not available.

[Hawk-2a]

1 hour ago, -[HRAF]Roland_HUNter said:

Can't download it.
In the Reshade2020 secton there is 3 link, all of them last modifyed at 2020.04.27.
I saw a new file under the hole section, but that is not available.

Please see below, the profile has been removed due to the reasons mentioned

 

21 hours ago, Geronimo553 said:

 

Thank you, I'm glad you both are pleased with the results. I spent a couple days solely trying to tune it to clearly see contacts without turning the world into a cartoon. As you can see planes are in fact shown out to far distances. There are two distinctly difficult planes to see at distance, the PE-2 and P51. My tests were conducted starting at 8km away at 1500 alt over kuban. The PE-2 almost always appears invisible regardless. The P51 acquires a thick blackout line. Regardless of how low or how high settings were applied, this was always the case. So I settled on seeing the P51 at distance above attempting to see the PE-2.

I am actually displeased with the results. Mainly because the results give planes a black halo or outline. So if you fly above a forest for example the planes will have a thick black outline very clearly against the forest at close range and you will not really see the plane itself. Which is something I simply could not get around due to the games sharpening! The adaptivesharpen settings provided only enhance what the default sharpening of the game provides. So the black outline of planes is what the developers choose to include in the game via their sharpening option. This outlining also effects scratches by outlining scratches into very thick and busy streaks in the cockpit. These streaks thereby make the glass busy and distracting to the sky outside. Since the latest dev update video showcasing reflections seems to have removed glass scratches, I predict this will not be an issue for long. 

 

Though because I found the results so undesirable and that they do provide a clear cut advantage for anyone that uses them. (the same advantage as anyone else who oversharpens their game) I have went ahead and redacted the information from my post above. Too the eleven people that downloaded it. I ask you to purely use it for testing purposes. The next beta guide profile will be uploaded with a lesser degree of unfair advancement and more focus on realistic enhancement as was always the goal for me. The new version should be released soon enough. Spotting will still be the focus of the next upload as I am very satisfied with the coloring. Currently testing it. 

Regardless, there truly is little we can do to defeat this spotting issue. In truth, with our current options, we are forced into an all or nothing predicament in regards to spotting. We cannot set sharpening low enough to prevent the black outlining of planes and equally "at present" the black outline is the only way to see planes at all over distance. So I want to conclude by thanking you both for your efforts and tests. I really wanted to see your opinions and how it appeared on your hardware. I very much appreciate your feedback.

 

[Retnek]

16 hours ago, Geronimo553 said:

.. Did my final testing of it with multiplayer tonight. Just a few finer adjustments left to iron out. This one will be less focused on performance and more visual/spotting focused. 

Compared the latest reshade-config beta with my preferences - can't find an advantage, but 10 to 15 % lower FPS. The colours are too prominent imho. But where I'm lost is that DPX-filter. Could you please tell me what's your intention to use it?

Sometimes might help to enhance the contrast of near-by contacts against the ground. Looking against the sky, light clouds and especially against the horizon (a few degrees above and below) it is reducing contrast. It enhances that typical brownish NOx-dust the developers like to link with the summer-illumination. As much as I like the canvas colours of IL2-GB in general, I'm still alien to that summer air. Too much into the direction of a filthy metropolian smog.

[Velxra]

Here are some pictures from the current version that is being refined. What do you guys think? These were taken from multiplayer today.

 

Spoiler

 

Edited May 7, 2020 by Geronimo553

[Roland_HUNter]

1 hour ago, Geronimo553 said:

Here are some pictures from the current version that is being refined. What do you guys think? These were taken from multiplayer today.

 

  Hide contents

 

Looks nice, but the spotting is "good" enough aswell? ?

Edited May 8, 2020 by -[HRAF]Roland_HUNter

[THERION]

Hi Gero,

 

very nice pictures and bright colours - I would not only like to know what reshade filters you used, but also your actual graphic settings

of the game, because there are some open questions as for using the ingame sharpening, landscape filters etc.

 

You really do a great job, Madame. Thank you very much.

 

Cheerio

[Velxra]

21 hours ago, -[HRAF]Roland_HUNter said:

Looks nice, but the spotting is "good" enough aswell? ?

 

In the current version spotting is completely fine out to long distances, if the target is in the sky. If the target is low over forested areas then they are blending in again with this version. Which is what I am tuning specifically as I try to find the right balance between visuals/spotting. 

 

13 hours ago, -=-THERION said:

Hi Gero,

 

very nice pictures and bright colours - I would not only like to know what reshade filters you used, but also your actual graphic settings

of the game, because there are some open questions as for using the ingame sharpening, landscape filters etc.

 

You really do a great job, Madame. Thank you very much.

 

Cheerio

Thank you Therion, very nice of you to say. Most of what I use for game setting are the same settings shown in the thread. For reshade, filters from the images included: adaptivesharpen, lumasharpen, colorfulness, vibrance, and curves. I also have my gamma set to 0.9 with landscape set to blurry. Honestly I would prefer not to use curves at all because it really makes certain areas overly dark. All of it together really does make the game look good and a little more realistic.

In conclusion, everything in the filters is a balance of realism/cartoon/3d limitation/gameplay for me. I stare at aerial photography mainly or I simply look outside. Then I try to match that as close as possible within the game. It is possible to make the game look very realistic with the sacrifice of not being able to see clearly compared to everyone else from a very washed out coloring. Though clearly no one wants a worse or more challenging experience compared to default. So finding the correct balance with all the filters, how they change the visuals, and if it all makes sense together is quite time consuming. Making spotting the biggest wrench in the process as it requires extra sharpening until the devs fix the issue. I probably spend more time making small finite adjustments than I should. lol
 

Edited May 8, 2020 by Geronimo553

[Hawk-2a]

7 hours ago, Geronimo553 said:

Making spotting the biggest wrench in the process as it requires extra sharpening until the devs fix the issue. I probably spend more time making small finite adjustments than I should. lol

And then it all goes down the drain in about 3 weeks with the new rendering ? rinse and repeat, i can see it coming (or i can‘t see it, who knows)

i highly appreciate your effort tho, it has helped me a lot since you‘ve done this guide!

[Velxra]

1 hour ago, H_Stiglitz said:

And then it all goes down the drain in about 3 weeks with the new rendering ? rinse and repeat, i can see it coming (or i can‘t see it, who knows)

i highly appreciate your effort tho, it has helped me a lot since you‘ve done this guide!

 

Yeah so true, I cannot wait to see what will change with the game. I'm really hoping it will solve most of what is done with reshade and with better performance compared to now. Also I have the new version complete. Then I will be waiting until the new render is released before doing anything else. 

[Nadelbaum]

35 minutes ago, Geronimo553 said:

 

Yeah so true, I cannot wait to see what will change with the game. I'm really hoping it will solve most of what is done with reshade and with better performance compared to now. Also I have the new version complete. Then I will be waiting until the new render is released before doing anything else. 

Pretty please for releasing the latest you have now ?

[Velxra]

7 hours ago, Nadelbaum said:

Pretty please for releasing the latest you have now ?

 

New beta version has been released. I also updated the start config. All areas updated are indicated with the * symbol. Read over the whole Reshade 2020 section to have the latest changes.  Enjoy

Until the new render is released I will be holding on any further updates. Do reply with your feedback please.

Edited May 9, 2020 by Geronimo553

[Velxra]

**updated files added to the correct section. opps lol

[Nadelbaum]

Amazing settings, many thanks for this work Geronimo! The only modification I made was to lower the strength of adaptive sharpening from 1.6 to 1.3. This suits my 4K monitor better. I prefer graphics over spotting

 

[JG7_X-Man]

On 5/28/2019 at 7:39 AM, SharpeXB said:

Realize when you are running a mission with many other aircraft it’s likely that the bottleneck is your CPU

 

You mean entire system!  There's GPU, RAM, storage read/write speed, network speed, peripherals etc... all which could lead to disparity in individual performance/experience.

Edited May 13, 2020 by JG7_X-Man

[SharpeXB]

17 minutes ago, JG7_X-Man said:

 

You mean entire system!  There's GPU, RAM, storage read/write speed, network speed, peripherals etc... all which could lead to disparity in individual performance/experience.

I’m no expert but you can test this for yourself. Run a mission with lots of aircraft parked on the ground like just a mass takeoff in Quick Mission. Big aircraft like the He-111s. Drop your graphics really low and see at what point it stops making a difference. Or you may discover you can crank the graphic settings as high as possible and see no lowering of your FPS. 
Then run a free flight mission with no other aircraft and compare, that’s testing your GPU 
In this sim as I understand it the CPU handles AI and flight modeling which really is the bulk of the load. All the AI aircraft use the same advanced FM as your plane so it gets expensive. 
PS your CPU will have no trouble with this game. 

Edited May 13, 2020 by SharpeXB

[JG7_X-Man]

30 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

I’m no expert but you can test this for yourself. Run a mission with lots of aircraft parked on the ground like just a mass takeoff in Quick Mission. Big aircraft like the He-111s. Drop your graphics really low and see at what point it stops making a difference. Or you may discover you can crank the graphic settings as high as possible and see no lowering of your FPS. 
Then run a free flight mission with no other aircraft and compare, that’s testing your GPU 
In this sim as I understand it the CPU handles AI and flight modeling which really is the bulk of the load. All the AI aircraft use the same advanced FM as your plane so it gets expensive. 
PS your CPU will have no trouble with this game. 

 

PC components work together. There is a reason PCs are also called "systems". What you are describing is a combination of CPU and RAM. However, all of your installed components will affect your FPS.

Edited May 13, 2020 by JG7_X-Man

[Velxra]

Be advised if you are experiencing weird or strange graphical behavior after installing the latest update. Then remove reshade from iL-2 for the time being. 

Edited May 20, 2020 by Geronimo553

[E69_javirulo007]

Hi

Can anybody tell me how to delete/eliminate reshade in BoS?

Regards

[Velxra]

1 hour ago, E69_javirulo007 said:

Hi

Can anybody tell me how to delete/eliminate reshade in BoS?

Regards

 

Either run the installation program again for reshade or delete the reshade folder. It is stored here. If you continue to have issues copy/paste your start.cfg file as a backup somewhere and delete the original. That way your game will begin with a new start config file.

 

 

 

UPDATE
 

If your game is not having any graphical issues. For now here are the new settings for the updated game.

GAME SETTINGS: Turn on sharpen, Turn on FXAA at 4x, and set mirrors to medium.

RESHADE: Turn off colourfulness, leave on curves vibrance adaptivesharpen dpx. Reduce adaptivesharpen to 0.60 strength.

NVIDIA control panel: Turn on image sharpening. Set sharpening to 0.80 and film grain to 0.


I will need to tweak colourfulness as it now has a negative effect for spotting. The light blue background (built into the game) is overpowering the now much more defined black planes. The new game update is very nice and has considerably improved spotting. For now this is all I have and I hope it helps you all. 

 

 

 

Edited May 20, 2020 by Geronimo553

[THERION]

18 minutes ago, Geronimo553 said:

NVIDIA control panel: Turn on image sharpening. Set sharpening to 0.80 and film grain to 0.

 

Excuse me, Madame, do you have a screenshot of the game with these settings? Would be nice to see, because I can't at the moment.

Thank you.

 

Cheerio

[Velxra]

10 minutes ago, -=-THERION said:

 

Excuse me, Madame, do you have a screenshot of the game with these settings? Would be nice to see, because I can't at the moment.

Thank you.

 

Cheerio

Here is just a couple rough screenshots. Which movement is not captured in a still image. All other settings of the guide still applied. Those were the only new adjustments.

 

 

 

Those are mustangs by the way. Which were just dots at this distance before the game update.

Edited May 20, 2020 by Geronimo553

[THERION]

8 minutes ago, Geronimo553 said:

Here is just a couple rough screenshots. Which movement is not captured in a still image. All other settings of the guide still applied. Those were the only new adjustments.

 

 

 

Those are mustangs by the way. Which were just dots at this distance before the game update.

 

Thank you very much - I was a bit afraid that the whole image would be too grainy (you know what I mean) and over-sharp, but it looks quite smooth to me.

[Hawk-2a]

i'm currently only using 4xMSAA, 0.75 adaptive sharpen and vibrance, can't complain about spotting so far. it depends a lot on the light conditions now tho

 

[Velxra]

This is for VR users

Thanks for these @Talon_ . 

All of this is from his post 

Note on the final pic (the first test I did) that there is no difference in FXAA image quality when moving the slider from 2 to 4. Best place to look on that one is the railings near the tail.

2000m Stalingrad Winter, Me262 left Bf109G-14 right


7000m Rhineland Summer, Fw190D-9 left, Bf109K-4 right

 

---------------------------

As you can see, MSAA multisampling only blurs edges and that has been the game's anti-aliasing for years. Interesting how FXAA seems to do nothing.

 

Edited May 20, 2020 by Geronimo553

[Roland_HUNter]

7 hours ago, Geronimo553 said:

 

Either run the installation program again for reshade or delete the reshade folder. It is stored here. If you continue to have issues copy/paste your start.cfg file as a backup somewhere and delete the original. That way your game will begin with a new start config file.

 

 

 

UPDATE
 

If your game is not having any graphical issues. For now here are the new settings for the updated game.

GAME SETTINGS: Turn on sharpen, Turn on FXAA at 4x, and set mirrors to medium.

RESHADE: Turn off colourfulness, leave on curves vibrance adaptivesharpen dpx. Reduce adaptivesharpen to 0.60 strength.

NVIDIA control panel: Turn on image sharpening. Set sharpening to 0.80 and film grain to 0.


I will need to tweak colourfulness as it now has a negative effect for spotting. The light blue background (built into the game) is overpowering the now much more defined black planes. The new game update is very nice and has considerably improved spotting. For now this is all I have and I hope it helps you all. 

 

 

 

Ingame sharpening? On off?

[Velxra]

4 minutes ago, -[HRAF]Roland_HUNter said:

Ingame sharpening? On off?

 

On

[Roland_HUNter]

Hmmm and MSAA is not better for spoting than FXAA? Everybody telling me this,