Simviation Forum - cfs3 stutter problems

Reply #15 - Jan 13^th, 2004 at 9:19pm

4_Series_Scania Offline
Colonel
He who laughs last, thinks
slowest.
Stoke on Trent England U.K.

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Posts: 3638

Quote:

Hi 4_Series_Scania,

Sorry, I missed the specs under your post. I was looking in the first paragraph and only saw part of your specs listed there. I was looking but I didn't see!

Since both your computers benchmarked in the same ballpark with the same video card it would seem that your video card is the bottleneck now. You're benchmarking higher than they did at Sharkey Extreme using a P4_3.0 but they used the 1280X1024X32 resolution and perhaps other differing settings.

http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/videocards/article.php/3211_308519 1__4

Have you compared your scores at Futuremark to similar setups yet?

Since you have a DirectX_9 video card you may want to start using 3DMark2003 (340). It's a hefty 176MB download so hopefully you have broadband.

We have practically the same specs (you have double the FSB speed) other than our video cards and I'm in the low 14,000s. I don't know why your real world performance is much better than before and your 3DMark2001SE score is worse than before other than perhaps you have your video card setup a little differently in the nVidia Control Panel. Or the games and the sims that you're playing are more CPU reliant than the 3DMark2001 SE benchmarking test is. Flight and racing simulators are said to be more reliant on the CPU. And games such as Unreal Tournament and Splinter Cell etc rely more heavily on the GPU or video card.

Interesting! - I understand what your saying about the card & bottleneck, I was just surprised the new CPU etc has'nt made some improvement, however little, as I say, its gone down! thats what really annoys me, yet actual "real useage" is incredibly better.... ???

3D Mark 03 on its way.

Thanks for the help bobc1.

2019 in 3D Mark 03 - Perhaps more after more fiddling!

I'll keep you posted!

Posting drivel here since Jan 31st, 2002. - That long!

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Reply #16 - Jan 13^th, 2004 at 11:08pm

Noddy Offline
Lieutenant Colonel
I love flying my Hurricane

Posts: 8

I for one think that this CFS3 is well below par as far as CFS in general.
I have owned and enjoyed 1 and 2 for many years, but this one is really beyond a joke!
Yes my machine may be old..but IL2 and ILFB both run great without a 26 million, out of this world latest hot rod machine.
Of course I can here you all now shouting "get a new machine' but what for as my old gives me everything I want..and lets face it your machine is outdated as soon as you get it home. So it's a never ending battle...If other makers can sell 'sims' that work on an old machine, (3 years old!!) why can't Microsoft?
I have the latest drivers, DX, and all the ram you would ever need...but the dam thing just stutters when your in dog fights, or any attacking moments just when you think you have him for the kill...I for one will stick with IL2 and ILFB as they are really both fab sims..this one sucks big time..Mr Gates hang your head in shame.. 8)

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Reply #17 - Jan 14^th, 2004 at 1:14am

Katahu Offline
Colonel

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Posts: 6920

I was directing my small, minor anger at Woodlouse when he said this to me:
Quote:

Maybe Kahatu if you ditched that crummy MX440 card and got a Ti then things would work better for you.

My system, is just like Noddy's case. It runs great with all other sims and games, but it completely sucks when you run CFS3 on it.

Quote:

The main problem with the GF4 MX line of video cards is that they don't support pixel and vertex shading. I don't know how important this feature is with CFS3 but it's a game killer (BSOD and CTD) with LO:MAC. As an experiment you could try turning off the Vertex buffer in CFS3 msconfig/overrides and see what happens. Maybe the Index buffers too. Who knows, you may get a FPS increase.

I don't know what Pixel and vertex shading does and I don't care for as long as my games are running superb.

I don't have CFS3 installed and I never will. I'll just sell it instead for about $10. I don't even think it's worth that much any more.

If no one buys it, I'll use the CDs as target practice for my pellet rifle. Grin

IL-2: FB, FS9, and Gmax are the only programs I am interested in.

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Reply #18 - Jan 14^th, 2004 at 2:28am

Smoke2much Offline
Colonel
The Unrepentant Heretic
Sittingbourne, Kent,

Posts: 3879

CFS3 is very odd. I have P4 1.7Ghz with 512MB and a GeForce FX 5600 with 256MB, I get 2111 points on 3D 03 and about 9FPS on CFS3 with flashing scenery and all the settings on 1 or 2.

I managed better with a GeForce 2 MX400 that scored less on 3D 03.

Interestingly FS9 runs like a dream.

Will

Who switched the lights off? I can't see a thing....... Hold on, my eyes were closed. Oops, my bad...............&&

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Reply #19 - Jan 14^th, 2004 at 10:20am

HawkerTempest5 Offline
Colonel
Hawker Tempest MK V
United Kingdom

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Posts: 3149

Quote:

Hi HawkerTempest5,

You wrote:

"Hey pal, I run a GF4 MX440 8X with 128 meg with CFS3 settings at 4 and 5 and just check out my screen shots to see how well I have it running."

I don't think it runs very well when you have a few wingmen and a bunch of AI flying around with busy scenes and lots of flames and smoke etcetera. Especially in the rain or in a thunderstorm. It's not possible unless you don't mind simming a slide show.

I only have 512MBs of RAM too and CFS3 seems to run fine with it. I'd rather have 768MBs or a gig but I have all 4 of my RAM slots filled with RD-RAM (needs to be installed in pairs) and it's just too expensive to throw out 2 or 4 of them in order to upgrade.

If your motherboard supports it you can install more RAM using WinME. You may need to update your BIOS. Just don't put in more than 1.5GBs. Use the MS workaround found at:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q304943

Thanks for the memory info, I had been told I could not add more than 512meg. That will go a long way to solving any problems I may have with lack of memory. Grin

As for frame rates, my last lot of screen shots I took using 5 wingmen, 8 escort fighters, 8 enemy fighters (aircraft detail at 5), 5/8ths cloud (cloud slider at 5) and all other settings at 4 without any problems and 20-30 fps. That may not sound very good but it's a quantum leap from my last card and I'm quite happy with it. It was a cheap upgrade that really did the trick and will last me another year. I run CFS2 and 2K2 maxed out now also where before I could just about scrape through with the default settings.

Flying Legends

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Reply #20 - Jan 14^th, 2004 at 11:44am

4_Series_Scania Offline
Colonel
He who laughs last, thinks
slowest.
Stoke on Trent England U.K.

Gender:
Posts: 3638

6 Hours of swaping cards and benchmarking between my old p4 1.8 and my new one, 3D Mark 2001 is more or less the same, regardless of CPU, RAM etc!!!

It seems both CPU's drive my FX5600 to its max. - Max but not enough for CFS3..... Cry

What little faith I had in such benchmark programs is well and truly out of the window! (or Windows! Grin

)

Sure, the benchmarks test your 3D cards capabilities, however, its now more than apparent, the relative "game playing" experience, isn't measured accurately at all!

Anybody know of a more accurate benchmark program? Not by Futuremark, if at all possible. Roll Eyes

Paul.

Posting drivel here since Jan 31st, 2002. - That long!

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Reply #21 - Jan 19^th, 2004 at 11:53am

_421RCAF_Dudley Offline
2nd Lieutenant
I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Posts: 1

S!

The best cure I have found for CFS3 stutters can be found at Sim-Outhouse in the Downloads for CFS3 in the "Other" category.

[url]http://www.sim-outhouse.com/index.php?loc=downloads&page=downloads&FileType=cfs3-utilities[/url]

It's labelled Sound_Stutter_eliminator and was done by Artmag.

It is an edited version of the Preload.xml file that's in the main CFS3 directory. It specifies what WAV and DDS files CFS3 loads into memory at startup. The edited file adds some more of the stock files. The stutters seem to occur when CFS3 has to go back to the drive when it needs a resource.

Give this one a try! It's minor fix with big results and great improvement to my game.

ASUS P4P800, P4 2.6G, 512 PC-400 DDR, ATI 9200

Regards,

Dudley

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Reply #22 - Jan 19^th, 2004 at 11:02pm

Sick_Puppy Offline
Lieutenant Colonel
772nd Sq 463rd BG 15th
AAF

Posts: 6

Mine used to stutter if I didn't turn the virus checker off. Upgraded RAM from 512 to 1024 and now it doesn't stutter even with the virus checker running. Set at max realism also. 2.53 GHZ P4, 64 M video. Sick

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Reply #23 - Jan 23^rd, 2004 at 2:56pm

Dakota93 Offline
Colonel
Cruising MiG alley

Posts: 377

I hate to say this but... I have a HP 531w that I bought a Wal-Mart 18 months ago. 1.3 GHz 512 MB SDram with a cheap Verto GeForce4 MX/Ti 64MB vid card. I run CFS3 with ALL settings at 4 except aircraft which is set at 5. Shocked

I should state thatI installed Max Clouds today which allowed me to bump p my clouds from 1 to 4. I am getting frame rates in the low 20's on this system with these settings.

Unfortuantly the screenshots don't do proper justice.

Korean Skies, Official Home of the Dogpatch Crew: http://www.sim-outhouse.com/~dakota93/ &&

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