Guys, guys. There's no point in turning this into a flame war, or whatever.

For all the pro-optimizers, this is about LOMAC - it's pointless to bring other sims, programmed completely differently, into the equation because of just that - they are programmed completely differently. ED won't be able to re-write the engine in any significant way at this point anyway even if they tried, so that point's moot. It's simply not constructive to cry over spilled milk - what's done is done.

Secondly, for the people who disagree with the first poster, try to look at it from a more objective point of view. Sure, if you have all the right computer stuff, LOMAC runs fine, but that doesn't deny the fact that people can't run LOMAC how they want it to with the recommended computer specs (like 512 mb RAM should really be 1 Gig) let alone one of minimum specifications. For example, for all contemporary games, if I ran them with roughly the same settings as LOMAC, I'd expect much less FPS from Lock On, and a much lower min FPS during stutters. Fine. However, that does not mean it's not playable, but maybe some people expect better performance. It might be hard to see your PC running IL-2 with all settings maxed and perfect water and then boot up LOMAC and be forced to run it on Medium settings. Most people don't have the money to buy a X800 or 6800, so you might want to look at it that way.

For the record, I had to buy an X800XL to get the desired results in LOMAC. Can't say I'm too happy with that, and it's hard not to note that all the people who are 'pro-LOMAC' (so to speak) on this issue have a computer with at least an X800-class card. However, LOMAC does have its selling points, and its unfortunate that some people look at the issue as 'half-empty' rather than half-full.

we all want the heatblur and highwater with lights and shadows and all the good stuff, but it comes at a price. I only have a lowly 5900xt and I can customize the settings enough to get good framerates although it doesn't look as good.

Compare that to GTA:SA where the graphics come from 2002 with horrible animation and crappy looking textures. The upside of that is the excellent gameplay that will make you forget the graphics. I prefer games were cranking up the graphics was an option to one without.

Anyway....heres the review on the 7800. Looks like it runs pretty good and it cost around $49 more than the 6800 ultra.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/nvidia_geforce_7800_gtx/page16.asp

In terms of optimizations I'd like to see the F-15's cockpit looked at again. Getting into that cockpit seems to give me something like an instant drop of 10FPS or more as opposed to F2 view. This problem seems to be minimized for other aircraft.

I have the same problem. I actually went out and bought a Radeon 9800 Pro just for this game. Very disappointing results. I get hiccups and stutters from time to time, but the showstopper for me isn't things like the smoke, water, etc. It's the fact that I have no A2G radar and can't strike targets that prevents me from really getting full enjoyment from it. I knew it going in, though. I bought the game because I really wanted to fly the -27, the -29, and especially the -33.

But, hey. I only paid $30 for it, and I may eBay it or hang on to it, I don't know. I have to agree on the notion that this has been a problem for the Flanker series since 2.0.

LOMAC did some interesting things, such as eye candy, and some of the best effects I've ever witnessed, but when I do my next XP install, it's probably going on the shelf. I certainly hope the next time ED gives us a sim, I can bomb a building or a runway using a really good radar suite and a FLIR display.

pfunk

I've not tweaked anything, just zoomed out using the normal game control. If I zoom in a bit it looks OK. I can see through the wings as well, its as if the model wasn't quite completed far enough for the available view system. Its not really a problem just a bit irritating, it just spoils the look of cockpit view a bit.

Where are you getting your prices?
6800 Ultra - $418
7800GTX - $599.

That is far from a $49 differemce.

If you knew it going in, why is this a showstopper? I'm sure you are aware none of the Lock On aircraft have air-to-ground radar. Why would you be dissapointed that there is no such radar in-game?

And the Su-25T has an advanced TV and FLIR system.

Joe, sorry I wasn't clear where i found the 7800 gfx price. I actually saw it on the alienware site when i was customizing an Aurora 7500. At first I selected the 6800 Ultra, but just above it said the 7800 GTX [+$43]. Sorry, I guessed I assumed the price matched the ones you find at newegg.

I figured the A2A combat experience in the Flanker and Fulcrum would make up for what was lost in Flanker 2.0 or 2.5. It really didn't. Thought it would be fun to play Steve Canyon with the scarf and wristwatch. It just didn't get the job done for me. Like I said, I knew it going in and I don't consider it money wasted. It just isn't my brand of hummus, that's all.

pfunk

Lock-on
the joy of stutter even wth SF machines
the joy of remembering keys combinations like chinese arithmetic
the joy of wandering purposelessly in Crimea (is there a war gong on please?=)
,,last but not least
the joy of flying "the frog" a plane on which in the mighty freefalcon, I don' even wase sidewinders on

but.. alas,,and here i am serious, Lock on would be worth if only as scenario for sexy sacha, and her sexy author; my respect cat..

I really can't understand Lomac
The funplay of SFP1
The amazement of F4...

It seems other people who test the new Nvidia card see great improvments in LOMAC. I grabbed this from the FiringSquad

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/nvidia_geforce_7800_gtx/page16.asp

As for optomizations, yes they will alway be ways to tighten up code and make things better. LOMAC is no different, but there are many settings that you can tweak both in game in in the graphics.cfg file to make the game suite your taste. I've got it nicely tweaked so that my AMD64 2.6ghz oc job w/ a GF6800GT runs very smooth at 1200x1600. There are drops in FPS with a lot going on, but they are momentary and don't effect flying and fighting the plane.

Too many people fly the fps counter and not the sim. I turn it off. The way I test is to ask myself, does this look/feel smooth, or is it jerky? and I work from there. If that means my average fps is 20-30fps, who cares? It runs for me and I don't get hung up on some number.

As for rendering techniques I'm sure ED would second guess many things and do it differently, but you can't do that. This is the first sim to use DX8 shader effects as the base of the graphics engine. there will be problems as they do something new that no one else has done. They are also a small Russian developer, not Valve or Id, so they don't have a close partnership with Nvida or Ati to build their engine.

Also my understanding is much like JF/A-18 LOMAC has a complete radar model running underneith and that chews through computer resources. We can't have our cake and eat it too. We want complex radar evironments and modelling, good AI and fligh dynamics, top notch simulation of weapon system and avionics, and stellar graphics. There's a hell of a lot going on under the hood. I can't think of a good modern sim that has been released in the last while that wasn't a dog on a system. Hell with the latest patches F4 still slows right down at the FLOT with a lot of units ther for me.

We can argue back and forth about rendering techniques and what they should do, but in the end you have to ask yourself, do I have fun flying and fighting in LOMAC? Because that's what the game is about, not pegging some FPS counter at 45+.

you are right, water is the base surface the whole map is built on. It as a low poly object instead of building many at the coast line. The land already has the polys at the coast line, it would double if the water ended there as well.

The texture mapping, bump mapping, shader effects and specacular hi-lights that give the water it's look are not done unless you can see the water. The water covered by terrain doesn't have any of these process applied to it. So it's just a low poly model sitting under the terrain and the net effect is less fps loss than if the game had to calculate the coast line x2.

But when you 'break' through the ground through tearing (whole different graphic issues involving the z buffer) the game engine knows that you can see water and the effects are applied. If you can't see the water then the graphics card doesn't do the shader routines to render it. It is mearly a poly object below the land.

Also tied into the water setting is the setting of evironment mapping. The shader water needs a real time evironment map to reflect and shine properly. So water set from medium to very high causes the graphics engine to create a real time evironment map. This is also used on any object that reflects the world and lighting such as seaker heads and canopies. Water set to low doesn't use the shader effects and no longer needs a real time evironment map, so the game calculates one for every 30 minutes or so I believe. Thus the reason why you see a speedup or slow down depending on your settings even when you don't see water

I still remember Flanker 2.5, where the "video" in the main menu was a set of uncompressed bitmaps showed by some 6 pictures a second.
Compared to this LOMAC IS an improvement (it has no animated menu), but it still lacks the quality and amount of innovation provided by IL2 (eg. the forrests)!

I would call the background tree group as a forest in the real sense. NO FLIGHT SIM HAS EVER DONE THAT. freakin Il2 just has a single sheet on top, that looks like trees but its just a sheet of good looking trees bmp from the air.

these are real looking trees placed induvidually or randomly by the devs during development.

put your scenes to high and visibility to high. then you will realize the full beauty of lomac or lo:FC.

and there is no point about argueing between il2 or lomac. il2 has no MFD screens or no a2a radar, no missile physics, no best ever flight models in a game. its pointless to compare them both.

I would like to point out that yeah! lomac might need code optimization...but we cannot, SHOULD not expect much. I mean yeah! the smoke effect flying fps loss might be addressed..but don't ask for the fps loss issues when you look at a city. If you want the detail of the hundreds of buildings in a city with trees, random traffic running on the ground..you have to pay in cpu and gpu cycles.

totally agree with you buddy!

in my opinion again, this discussion is all pointless...we should be asking ed for a dynamic campaign like the brilliant one in F4. thats the only thing lomac is missing.

Ding, ding, we have a winner. But then, we've been promised a dynamic campaign at least twice before in this series, so.........I'll believe it when I see it.

Ironic that the company/sim series that started out not worrying about graphics (and rightly so), has come to rely on them instead.

And while they're at it, they need to fix the padlock, and get it back to the classic 1.5 standards. Best padlock system ever, and still imo.
Why it wasn't kept in F2 and Lomac is beyond me.

I never understand why it's not possible to have a discussion about this game (on any of the forums, actually) without it turning into name-calling and mine's-bigger-than-yours.

The initial poster was making a serious point, and made it in a serious way. There do seem to be mysterious performance bottlenecks. And a lot of people have thrown a lot of money at these, with only moderate effect.

The initial response that he should either (I'm not sure which was meant):

1. Re-code the game himself, or

2. Make a brand-new game in his spare time which would be better

wasn't a response at all. Just bluster and posturing.

No-one nowadays can 'make' a sim themselves. In fact, just about no-one any more is able to make one under any conditions. (As the current crop of warmed-over re-releases shows.)

And since this sim is virtually un-moddable, there's no possibility of it being improved by anybody (other than the developers), no matter how bleeding clever they are.

Which is sad. Because it's good, but could have been better.

I'm fairly sure I've seen a ton of modifications to LOMAC. An entire sound replacement pack, graphical fixes, graphical upgrades and tweaks, configuration changes, and model replacements for certain aircraft. You can't get into the engine to add objects or change the flight model, which is understandable from a code protection and cheat-free perspective. A lot of simulations are like that, except ones that are say....5+ years old.

When I had a GF4 I was able to improve the graphics with mods to a great degree.

My suggestion to the user is to turn down settings if your computer can't handle it. The very fact that you try to compare a flight sim to counter-strike when a smoke grenade goes off...wow, that's not even in the ballpark of similar.