Hello.
Long time no login. Had quite an adventure trying to recover my password. Lucas might carve another
Indiana Jones movie out of it if he heard of this. But nevermind that. My favorite subforum is gone,
I see. Nobody I knew in there is around anymore But life goes on. I guess.

I kept simming.
Addictions are tough to shake away. Lately my favorite sim has become Falcon 4.0: Allied Force. It
started when I couldn't run TAW anymore. Funny thing, I don't remember why I had to stop TAW-ing.

I turned to the modded F4 (supepak and blah). It lasted a damn good while. Then I looked at RV.
Crashy. Then OF. Probably the most crashy software I ever tried. Then I looked at FF. Bringing
CTDs to a whole new level...
Finally I looked at AF. What's this thing? Can it crash? No seriously, does it? I think it wasn't
programmed to. Why, my most beloved feature is gone, how unfair is that?!
I'll have flown like 12 Campaigns out of the stock 18 possible. Many hundreds of missions, thousands
of flight hours under the belt. Holy Sierra, not a single crash ever. Is this realistic?? No, I'm
asking: is it realistic?? Better they resume the programming and bring the feature back, 'cause it
doesn't feel right.
And look at the joke? -> In the AF install folder they provide a ctdupl.exe program to upload the
crashdump to LP. That's a good one, I'll give 'em that.


Yes I know -> d00de BMS is out, try it it's kewl.
Save your breath.
I'm not the type to fall in love with something only because it has pretty lights and a shiny brand
new 3D model to keep in front of my eyes most of the time. I need more. Solidly more. AF has kept
me flying in the face of outdated graphics and a poor excuse for a 3D cockpit. BMS has no hold on me.
You keep going with BMS if you like. I'll keep going with AF which I like. And everyone is happy

Now speaking of AF, I have by chance stumbled on Beach & 20mm's article. Out of the stuff in there,
one picture in particular seized my attention:



How in the Foxtrot do you get 1) the contrails on the wingtip and 2) the fog?
Seriously, I never managed to see them in my AF. Is that photoshop? Or is it my gfx card / driver
combo that's stealing stuff from me? (I know nVidia has a habit of dropping this or that previously
supported feature from time to time). Just in case, I have a GeForce 9800 GTX and the drivers should
be... *checking in*... 181.22 ? (wow, pretty old).
And yes if I want FSAA 16Qx to work without corrupting TACREF and LOADOUT screens I have to do the
BFops softwareGUI switch like the rest of you.

I also seem to have an issue with the framerate. Can't find documentation on it, so maybe someone out
here can explain me. If I hit Ctrl-Z + R I display an FPS counter that smells fake most of the
time. It easily locks on 200.0 FPS, for minutes. Sometimes it drops to a net 100.0 FPS. Occasionally
it'll drop to 83.3 FPS, raising now and then to 90.0 FPS. But if I use the -fpslog command line,
the generated logs report an *average* FPS at a constant 76.2stuff (not far from my V-Synced screen
refresh rate of 75 Hz, in fact).

I don't get it: is that Ctrl-Z + R thing a real FPS counter, or is it counting something else?

But I'm more interested to know about the missing wingtip contrails and the fog, like those in the
article's pic. Please, anyone?

Sorry but can't help you on your questions about the picture.

Regarding framerates, why not try FRAPS?

I am also curious as to your sentiments about BMS. The 3D pit clinched it for me, no need to switch back-and-forth with the 2D pit now.

Comet,
There's no arguing with you that you love AF. If it's for you, it's for you. But BMS is a far superior product.

I don't know how much time you've actually spent with BMS, but if you're looking for the authentic F-16 experience, BMS is it.

I enjoyed AF. If my computer didn't run BMS well, I'd play AF (well, I'd play Freefalcon, but FF is stable for me...not for everyone). Anyway, BMS runs like butter on my rig, and I can't think of one good reason to fly AF over BMS right now, for me.

I do agree that AF is far more accessible than BMS for newcomers to our hobby.

Yeah, BMS is so much more than a pretty 3d cockpit and updated graphics. But that's not important, AF is your thing, and that's all good.

Anyhow, to answer your question about the contrails and fog, no that's not photo-shopped, I definitely get those in-sim (can't bring myself to say "in-game") in AF. I'm on vacation though, so I cannot look up my settings to post for you to trouble shoot. If you don't get it sorted in the next two weeks, I'll do just that.

Good luck.

You should have contrails, Comet. I use an Asus 8400GS for now. Not a fav of the simmers. But it gets the job done enough 'till I can save up for another upgrade.
But my sentiments are close to yours. Allied Force for me is like my first girlfriend in grade school. Only now she's my wife, greeting me at the door, pouring me a cold Wild Turkey and coke, rubbing my feet as I recline in the lazyboy.
And her valentine smells like gingerbread and cool whip.

Antialiasing-Gamma Off
Antialiasing Mode Off
Antialiasing Transparent MultiSample
CUDA-GPUs All
Extension Limit Off
Max PreRendered Frmes 4
Mixed GPU accel Single Display performance
Text Filtering Anisotrop Off
Text Filering Neg LOD Allow
Text Filter Quality Quality
Trilinear Optimize On
Threaded Optimize On
Triple Buffer On
Vertical Synce Force On

These setting allow me to enjoy high enough framerates and seem to slow down the CTD counts to date.
That's not carved in stone for FFalcon5.55 though....
Falcon 5.55 apparently doesn't play well with NVidia, as I understand it.
F555 needs trial & error with your NVidia switches to calm it down.

BMS is very stable and demanding. It runs on my system, but I haven't started campaign with it yet.
I can get 32-48 fps in Instant Action w/BMS...
But Allied Force showing you 200 fps is cheating the numbers. I've read about how frame counters are tricking their results on screen. Can't remember where I read about it but it was just a few days ago.
Allied Force gives me an honest 35-71 fps with graphics set on high...From the most furious bombing raids to the calmest paths back to base flying way up there. Instant Action dogfighting through the clouds gives me an average of 60 fps.
So sometimes I'm really not well motivated to replace this video card just yet.
LOMAC gives me very high fps as well as IL-2 1946...with full graphic settings on both apps.
One note though, You won't see contrails from your wingtips during certain times of the day/afternoon or if your speeds fall below 380 knots or thereabouts. I noticed the absence too when I decided to punch the throttle and jinx around. I was afraid that my video drivers had a memory issue. But when I took the speeds up, the contrails came back. So, Allied is modeling speeds and times of the day.

About the contrails:
I have seen them now. Odd. They seem to appear only if pulling high G and only while at corner
speed and regardless of altitude (but I haven't tried it below 6 angels), and even so they are
quite faded out. I can bet I never noticed them before, when they display I'm in dogfight with
the camera in the pit - usually sweating like a horse on crack. Hehehe.

About the fog:
I definitely have fog. Just not as much as it was shown in the shots from the article. I guess I
never flown under their same conditions :/, or anyway similar enough to spot all that fogging.

About the framerate:
200.0 or even 100.0 FPS are definitely a fake. I agree. I tend to trust more the output I read
from the -fpslog, which confirms that the Vsync is working (in fact I have no tearing even if
speeding close to the ground), and that I'm having ~75 fps as it should be.

Currently I play AF with these nVidia control panel settings:

• Anisotropic filtering: 16x
• Antialiasing - Mode: Override any app. settings
• - Settings: 8xQ
• - Transparency: Supersampling
• Force Mipmaps: Trilinear
• Maximum pre-rendered frames: 1
• Texture filtering - Anisotropic sample opt.: Off
• - Negative LOD bias: Clamp
• - Quality: High Quality
• - Trilinear Optimization: Off
• Triple Buffering: On
• Vertical Sync: Force On

Other options left at factory/default.

The 'Antialiasing - Settings' could be set to 16xQ, but if I do I see dark grey squares spotting
the metal-grey areas of the seat when I check six (2D pit mode). Not the end of the world, but
it's annoying to even *know* that they are there. So I drop to 8xQ and fly distraction-free.

As for the 'Maximum pre-rendered frames' I was told that it's best lowered when you get steady
framerates. No idea how much effect it is having on my AF anyway.

This GeForce 8400 defaults the Pre-Rendered at 3...it's really good to see someone post w/graphic setting that I can at least remotely understand. Back in the old day, antialiasing was all one needed to know on a Voodoo 5500.

Luv the sig....just headed to the kitchen to make another pot.
Heads Up, Hoss-
Ed in 'Bama