Yeah, and the testers should be using the target mod at a major city like London or Berlin because those sites use the maximum number of TMOD's which is 255. Actually the major cities have about three or four times than number because they're broken up into three or four sections, each with 255 TMODs.

And those tests were with basically a default setup, not with your Tmod update, which might generate smoke, from even the biggest CPU!

I've only got a 4Gig 32bit processor, 4Gig RAM, and an 16 x 1Tb ATI card, which was basically a 2005 machine, and I can't afford a new one, just to run Tony's new exe!

Sho and I just flew an online interdiction to Hornchurch using Ray's ETO.
Avoided the target to shoot up TMods in the city.
Highest reported FPS with Win 10 in d3d is 30, but I suspect it is really double that. Close to the ground with lots of city TMods the lowest FPS I saw was 22. No stuttering at all.

Seems pretty good.

Out of curiosity, at what FPS does the average person notice stuttering?

Less than 10 I think.
Multiplayer is a real test of FPS

BTW there is a new 140exe we have been using at the d/l page

"85Neaw.exe"

Put it in the "EAW Versions" folder and load it with the DSPicker

The final change I made in the "85Neaw.exe" was this:



There are three distance values in Planes.dat
I have reset the three referred to in that routine so that they all equal the "LowDist" value which is invariably the longest.
It seems have worked well online so far tonight

I will ask nicely, on behalf of all the absent, like Ralf, and others. Please leave in the S.3dz!

What system specs are you testing on, Tony?

John there is a choice of exes. That is the whole point of having the DirSetExeManager. The "S.3dz" is in all the earlier ones, so what is the problem?

Screenies from tonight's tests- note the reported framerate in the top right corner:

Down among the houses in London


B17s just visible


Selectable at this range


Many planes, the city below and still a good rate


Smoke and fire


Flak, tracer, contrails and the city


A good game

I'll have to test the FPS on D3D with the new exe. But in the recent past the game for me in
"Windows 10 with an automatically applied Compatibility Layer slows the game to near a crawl in D3D(res of 1680x1050) with 8FPS for dense Fighter formations to 15FPS when out in the clear. Then eventually to a crawl of 6-8 FPS in dense Bomber Formations. With a Res reduced to 1024x768, I get 12FPS for dense plane formations to 19FPS in the clear."

I still have to do more testing in D3D. I have a 3.0GHZ Quad core with only 4 gigs of memory and a 560sc vid card, so I maybe at a disadvantage here with the memory.

Windows 10 D3D (March 2016)
EAW v1.40v84*
1024x768
21fps in dense fighter formation -slightly sluggish
25fps in the clear - smoother
19fps in dense bomber formation -just playable
*v85 yielded 1-2frames less than v84, but not consistently.

Windows 10 GLIDE (March 2016)
EAW v1.40v84
1024x768
44fps in dense formation*
48-50fps in the clear
*A odd drop down resulted to 36-41fps when I approach a dense bomber formation only when the tail gunners are firing.

Mark,
Great feed back.

Jelly,
This is my opinion and my personal observation of how EAW D3D compares to EAW Glide, if the code will continue to use DX6 then abandon D3D and spend your limited time supporting the new Glide 3 builds.

Gibbon,
"I will ask nicely, on behalf of all the absent, like Ralf, and others."
Do not ask on my account. My best rig is much lower spec then yours and I am able to keep EAW active when I choose to try. It is thanks to the code work since I left the group and the recent Glide work that you helped with, but please do not lump the "others" into your opinion.

"S" is usually the aircraft's shadow file...

No Mike, it is not.
'S' is the shadow file for a TMod, but 's' is the small file for an aircraft, for which 'h' is the shadow file:

I think that Shogun would agree with my observations.
In order to run properly the nGlide program needs the "eaw.ini" to be set at 1024x768. With Windows 10 it runs in full screen, not in a window.
So we see a 1024x768 picture stretched to fit the screen, and there is some loss of quality.
The framerates (20-30) I quoted previously were with d3d with the "eaw.ini" set to 1920x1080, and there was no stuttering.

I have just done a comparison with the "eaw.ini" set to 1024x768

Settings - all high:

In d3d- 52 FPS:


Re-set to Glide- 60 FPS:


The pictures here are all 1024x768 because of the "eaw.ini" setting, but in reality they were the full 1920x1080 screen.
The frame rates are higher, but the graphics are nowhere near as good as in d3d with the "eaw.ini" set to 1920x1080.


Allen- I am not sure what you mean by your comment. The new exes give the user the choice of d3d or Glide 3, and I am not in the business of developing the code for either system as it is not in my area of expertise at all

I have finished this exercise with a compromise.
There is a "140V86" 7-zip at the 140Module download page.
Run it in the "140Module" folder and it will put the old and new map versions of V86 exe in the "EAW Versions" folder.
The compromise is that it still loads the "s.3dz", but not the "m.3dz".

Unless bugs are found I do not intend to do any more work on the 140 exe, and hope that V86 can be the standard version

I've been working on a bunch of bi-planes for the Med package so I'm not up to date on the latest execs. I will, in time, but if I may ask, do you see an improvement in performance or load times.

I know you've posted frame rates with this mod but as far as I can tell, not in reference to earlier execs.

Simply put, does removing the M.3dz and _L.3dz do anything other than make it a bit easier for model makers?

Not that I'm complaining, just curious.

@Rotton50 - I personally didn't see a performance increase with the v85 exe, jsut a wavering drop of 1 or 2 frames that where not consistent.
I believe earlier in this thread MrJelly did a test flying low to the ground...

I'm not expert but saving space on a download, Hard drive and in game memory is a plus.

If you recall this was a "can we" thread which resulted in experiments.
I cannot tell if there is an improvement in performance, but I think that not having to make the "m" dz and TPC is a bonus for modders. In the game I cannot see any difference between having the "m.3dz" for a short while, and jumping straight to the high res 3dzs.