WOFF PE is awesome. It has it's quirks (yes, it has those Quirks, too!) and it can be tricky, for newcomers especially, to know whether they are getting the best out of the sim and whether their hardware is up to the challenge or if they need to upgrade parts or all of their systems. Then there's all those settings to contend with. What should be set where? And sadly but inevitably, they eventually stumble into a discussion about stutters somewhere, usually because they are experiencing some degree of it for themselves.

So let me say up front, this is NOT another 'stutter test'. It's a methodology for judging the effectiveness of a PC system running WOFF PE at full detail settings, using subjective appraisal of video capture as opposed to benchmarks. It is my contention that 'stutters' are inevitable with the vintage game engine that WOFF PE is built upon, but that with certain 'tweaks' to how the game runs, along with sufficient PC hardware horsepower, those 'stutters' can be mitigated and tamed to a level where it can be played and enjoyed, with smooth, consistent graphics rendering at maximum detail settings.

I think most veteran players and newcomers alike would welcome any information that potentially helps them achieve this, assuming they haven't managed to achieve it for themselves already. I do know that many of them would welcome any advice as to where they might best invest more money into hardware, to improve their current in-game experience. To this end, I'm hoping that this "Tweaker's Challenge" will solicit more entries than just mine, so that we can compare results and machine specs.

As an adjunct to this challenge, I have developed a "Tweaker's Guide" to optimizing WOFF PE. It will be available freely to anyone upon request (once I finish up the screen caps and editing). I don't claim it to be the ultimate or last word in optimizing WOFF, but I hope it will at least help some people to improve their current performance levels. Everything it contains has been applied in my reference video below.

Lastly, I'm omitting TrackIR for now, since not everyone uses it and it adds a whole other layer of tweaking considerations. However, these are explored in more detail in the guide. If people find this exercise useful, then I might follow up with a second one that includes TrackIR.

So, don't be shy, since there won't be any losers, but I do expect there to be some winners. Let's try to help each other through our participation.


Challenge Settings & Instructions - No TrackIR (disable the TIR client before running the test) *Any / All mods allowed

Create a German pilot with an enlistment date of 26 April 1917

Set up a QC mission exactly as shown in the screenshot below



Adjust your WOFF Workshops settings to match the screenshot below (your max resolution is preferred)



Use the following Nvidia Instant Replay Record settings to capture your video



When everything is ready, hit 'Go To Field'. Once the game has loaded, immediately enable player AI by hitting CTRL / SHIFT / A and let it run. Capture 2-3 minutes of video. Take as many attempts at it as you like, to get your best result.

Finally, trim as needed (include everything from the QC setup screen onward) and upload to Youtube. Share your link here along with specs for your PC and the graphics resolution you used.



System specs: i5 8600K @ 3.6GHz,16GB DDR4 @2666MHz. RTX2080, MSI Z370 mobo, Dell 27" G-SYNC @ 144Hz. 2560x1440

HarryH, I have a few suggestions for you to consider

1. Remove all mods. To eliminate variables beyond your control. MODS can be added later when the perfect settings are dialed in so that you can judge if MODs worsen the stutters or not.

2. Start with max settings, but without DX9 shaders because I suspect that is one of the causes.


Then add the MODs, test again, then add the shaders and test one last time.

Appreciate the suggestions, orby, thanks.

After much testing I know for a fact that on my system at least, PR's Scenery Enhancement is an essential performance enhancer. I have theories as to why that is the case, but regardless, I'd rather leave mods as optional for now, just in case someone has found a better combo of mods, or specific reasons for NOT using a particular mod (or mods). I intend the end goal here to be for a newcomer or an existing WOFF player to be able to look at a selection of videos and say "yes, I want mine to look and run like that one. What's the machine spec and how should I set about tweaking it?"

DX9 shaders: EDIT: Can you even turn them off in PE? I can't find an off button Why do you suspect them and what specifically do you suspect them of?

Quick note for those running PR's no blue triangles, scenery/fps enhancement mod. - it's not compatible with my GPU Tuner Patch for WOFF since the Tuner Patch is, among other things, a further development of the PR tweaks. I recommend trying both and using what works better on your particular rig. setups - for more info on the Tuner Patch, click on the relevant link in my sig. file below (my patch is slightly less GPU-intensive than the PR one, and, on ave., should give slightly higher fps, and no blue triangles at all - but, again, compare, test, choose the one that fits better for your rigs. - my patch was tested on AMD, not nVidia, by the way).

Happy flying all,
Von S

.... I'm glad that I added the bit about mods: yours had totally slipped by me, for some reason, until now Von S. Thank you for mentioning it here and for providing the link. I will definitely give it a spin over the weekend and let you know how it performs for me. Not sure how adaptable my Tweaker Challenge is to AMD but I would really love to see a video, if you're up for trying it. My son says AMD's latest tech is supposedly kicking butt

My WOFF PE BT Elimination Mod is based on nVidia, not AMD like VonS's mod, so that may be the difference in effects.

Thanks for clarifying that, PR. As I mentioned above, your mod has been significant in getting me to the point I'm at right now. So an open question to you both: what does the GPU tuner mod do differently or in addition? Is it purely a matter of tuning for specific GPUs?

It's disabled in the ini file located at \OBDSoftware\WOFF\WOFFScenery\Shaders

I set all shadow values to zero and disabled the DX9 extended Mode.

I gave it a quick test and I admit that I was wrong. Without the DX9 extended mode, the game was not smooth....

The main difference is that my tuner mod. slightly thins out tree congestion, also tinkers in different ways with the various ringdim and budget levels in the compositescenery and compositetexturebudgets files. I for example don't follow the unwritten rule of making sure that the various ringdim/level entries use only odd numbers, or only even numbers for lod sizes, density numbers, etc. - I've used both even and odd entries, without any trouble surfacing on my AMD/Intel Xeon rig.

I've received good feedback regarding the patch under the casual campaigns thread, but, again, it's possible that fans of my patch are running perhaps AMD instead of nVidia setups (didn't bother to check with posters to see what vid. cards they have). I also use a modified preload file tweaked from your preload file for no cloud popping. I've also tinkered with unorthodox patch pixel dim sizes and floating point sizes in the files, implementing a solution, that, at least on AMD, works nicely - float texture size of 650 in the terrains file under shaders30, patch pixel dim of 700 in compositetexturebudgets under terrains, terrain patch pixel dim size in the two d3d8 ini files of 100, instead of the stock value of 256).

If I manage to set up vid. recording properly on my Win10Pro side of the Mac Pro, I'll possibly look into taking a short video maybe in QC mode for 5 mins. or so - at any rate it might be good for me to look into vid. recording so I can make the casual campaigns threads more dynamic.

Happy flying,
Von S

As you can tell from VonS's comments above, he "tweeked" A LOT more items in his BT mod than me.

Since I am using a i9 9900K and RTX 2080 Ti, I did not have to worry about wringing out every last FPS than VonS is doing because I and running over 120 FPS normally all the time with my BT mod now.

Another difference is that I give you multiple options to pick your "Scenery Density" depending on your PC strength so a less powerful PC can use one of my lower selections to achieve the higher FPS (and less stutters) than a more powerful PC.

As they say, "everything comes with a price", so you just have to pick what you are willing to live with.

Try both his version and mine to see which one works best for you on your PC/Game in your opinion.

.

A very interesting thread and idea. I do wonder though Harry, with you and the rest of the Nvidia system tweakers here, why ShadowPlay? Unless you've shut off the mountains of accompanying GForce Experience bloatware permanently you are using up a whole lot of precious resources for the sake of ShadowPlay and its instant replay service. OBS Studio is a much nicer, free, low-impact video shadow program. All the niceties of NVidia's SP with none of the added baggage and system drain.

.

OBS? Is that OBD’s sister company Old Brown Skunk?

.

. no Fullofit, it's Open Broadcaster Software.

.

A very well taken point. I never use the bloated piece of cr@p that is GeForce Experience - and you can tell exactly what it's intended to do when they start making you use their shovelware utility just to get a feature they full well know many (uneducated) users will jump all over. If this is for the user's benefit, why not just provide the feature, without all the other cr@p?

In fact, I think I'll invent a new term here, just for this kind of thing (if it's not been used already) : Baitware

(Next stop, forced updates...oh wait, that's Microsoft...well, for now...)

Thanks orby, no worries.

I chose it for this exercise because my efforts at tweaking WOFF performance are built around nVida and its G-SYNC technology, and as a way to ensure a level playing field for submitted videos. One of the problems associated with showing visual evidence of in-game performance is the degradation from the capture and encoding processes, so a level playing is the best compromise IMO.

Actually I've found that Instant Replay with the record settings I laid out above has no noticeable impact on performance on my system. Does it not use the nVidia hardware to accelerate the capture / encode process? I did try both OBD and FRAPS. Neither showed much improvement without blowing up the file sizes enormously via higher resolution captures. Not practical for this exercise.

PR and Von S, thank you both for the explanations. All understood. I use the Mission Editor in campaign play and I do appreciate the integration with PR's mod. I always select the highest setting and then cull flights to keep missions at our around 100 planes, which most times yields smooth, consistent flying throughout the mission.

.

We''ll have to agree to disagree on this one, Harry. I saw such a noticeable impact to WOFF performance, (and I do mean noticeable), on my older system with GForce Experience installed that I deleted it and all it's related bits and pieces completely, which means of course that I have no ShadowPlay. OBS Studio is the only video capture program I currently have and it works flawlessly with no hit to WOFF performance. So, based on your ground rules, I will not be able to participate in this challenge.

As for the G-SYNC technology, I still have that, even without GForce Experience.

.

Well we're not comparing apples to apples then, so not exactly a disagreement I guess the older version either didn't use the GPU or it didn't use it very effectively. Certainly I was wary because I'd heard not so stellar things about Shadow Play, but what they have now can't be the same thing because it works and works well IMO. What is your GPU btw?

As for the video, I'd still love to see it. Happy for you to use OBS. I think it would be helpful for others to see what you've managed to coax out of WOFF, too.

.

Harry, here are the current system specs on my WOFF computer:

CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core, OC’d to 3.8GHz
CPU Fan: Arctic Super Cooler
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 16gb (4 x 4gb) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
Mobo: ASUS Sabertooth P67
Hard Drives: 2 Western Digital 640 GB Caviar Black SATA
Opti Drive: LG 22X DVD+/RW Dual Layer SATA Rewrite
Video Cards: Two EVGA GeForce GTX 970 04G-P4-3975-KR 4gb cards with HB SLI bridge
PS: Corsair HX 850 Watt
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
LG 34UC89G-B 34-Inch 21:9 curved IPS monitor with G-SYNC, 2560x1080 native resolution
Four large case fans, plus the PS, CPU, mobo, and card fans
Saitek AV8R joystick
Saitek Pro Flight rudder pedals
Track IR4 camera with latest IR5 software

.