I just built a new pc recently and I did some overclocking on the cpu and tried the ultra setting. On my old cpu it would destroy my fps so I was happy to see I was getting 60-70 fps, but there was heavy stutter that made it feel like 15? not sure exactly what's going on, it isn't trakir.

perhaps with "Mission Editor" as it removes most if not all aircraft that you would never see or meet if you stay on assigned patrol route.
With the Woff "ultra" settings there will be hundreds of aircraft all up at the same time that are absolutely miles away from you that you would never see.

ps, this sim is based on a single core PC from the stone age.

Each step up in the Regional Air Activity enlarges the circle of planes flying in the game, until it covers almost the whole front at the Ultra setting.

Once you go beyond Light, in the Regional Air Activity setting, there are planes flying in the game that are well beyond what you will ever see or fight, but the CPU must keep up with the calculations of all these unseen planes so it drags your FPS way down.

RAF_Louvert has recently built himself a genuine monster of a machine, with measurable top-end performance...I've mentioned this thread to him and I'm hoping he'd be good enough to share his own input on the subject here.

A few thoughts of my own:

I generally discourage looking at it like high frame rate automatically means smooth performance. It simply does not, and it's been a pet peeve of mine that some people continue to promote such misleading ideas. (Note I'm not saying that's what you're doing at all. This is not directed at anyone in particular, so no offense is intended to anyone; I am speaking generally.)

You can factually have 100FPS and still see choppy performance. What makes things smooth is the even distribution of those frames with respect to time, and the (incorrect) assumption is that having high frame rates means you'll automatically have even frame distrubution. There is no such assured direct relationship between the two, and there never has been.

This is the very reason you can be getting "good" FPS (on a screen display of some sort) and still have it 'feel' like a much lower rate - because you see a lack of smoothness from frame to frame. Lots of people say they can see the difference in frame rates over 60, but there is considerable evidence that shows they don't. (I can easily set up a test where no one would be able to see the difference between 100 FPS and as little as 1 FPS). The perception is about movement, and in terms of frames being refreshed, that motion only looks smooth if it's consistent. If it pauses, for even a very short time, you'll notice it - even if you're getting 100FPS on average. (Incidentally, this is why informed reviews have included frame time data for some time now, and not just FPS).

The reason it's important to understand the difference is so that you understand that higher and higher frame rates (usually by way of more and more expensive hardware) does not necessarily mean game play will be smooth and fluid.

Also, I couldn't help but notice, you indicate a recent upgrade but don't really give any details. If you don't mind sharing those details, it would be easier to see a better picture of your situation. While new upgrade parts *can* (and usually do) mean much better performance, it depends entirely on the exact upgrade and the context

Wasn't the idea that if you clicked on medium but checked the option to steer them into you it would mimic he heavy air option without the CUP load? Or am I way off on that?

.

As my name has been mentioned here, and since I am still in the process of testing my newly updated rig, I went ahead and ran a series of air activity comparisons that I hope may help in this discussion. With my test pilot in 56 Squadron starting on November 1, 1918 I ran the first three minutes of sorties alternating between Ultra Heavy, Very Heavy, Heavy, and Medium air activity settings, three sorties for each. Here in summary is what I experienced.


On Ultra Heavy the average load time from hitting “Start Mission” to sitting in the plane on the field was a whopping 2 minutes and 45 seconds. Going out of cockpit and panning around to preload everything did not result in smooth gameplay, no matter how long I panned. Back in the cockpit gameplay was choppy, and artifacts like white triangles and cloud popping were blatantly present.

On Very Heavy the average load time from hitting “Start Mission” to sitting in the plane on the field was 55 seconds. Going out of cockpit and panning around to preload everything required three to four full revolutions in order to achieve smooth gameplay. Back in the cockpit gameplay was smooth most of the time but there were still a few intermittent choppy intervals of a second or two, as well as a white triangle or two on rare occasion.

On Heavy the average load time from hitting “Start Mission” to sitting in the plane on the field was 35 seconds. Going out of cockpit and panning around to preload everything required one full revolution in order to achieve smooth gameplay. Back in the cockpit gameplay was smooth and fluid, no artifacts of any kind.

On Medium the average load time from hitting “Start Mission” to sitting in the plane on the field was 20 seconds. Going out of cockpit and panning around to preload everything was not required at all in order to achieve smooth gameplay. Back in the cockpit gameplay was smooth and fluid, no artifacts of any kind.


As a point of reference, here are my newly updated system's full specs:

CPU: Intel Core i5-10600K Comet Lake, OC’d through the AI Suite to 5.0GHz
CPU Fan: Arctic Super Cooler
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 32gb (2 x 16gb) LPX DDR4 3200
Mobo: ASUS Prime Z490-A
Hard Drives: 2 Western Digital BLACK 500GB SN750 M.2 SSDs ; 1 Western Digital 640 GB Caviar Black SATA for onboard file storage
Opti Drive: LG 22X DVD+/RW Dual Layer SATA Rewrite
Video Cards: 2 EVGA RTX 2070 Super FTW3 Ultras with NVLink SLI Bridge
PS: Corsair HX 850 Watt
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
LG 34-Inch 21:9 curved IPS monitor with G-SYNC, 2560x1080 native resolution
Five large case fans, plus the PS, CPU, mobo, and card fans, (for a grand total of fourteen fans)
Saitek AV8R joystick
Saitek Pro Flight rudder pedals
Track IR4 camera with latest IR5 software

I have the OS and other assorted programs on the C drive, and WOFF PE only on the D drive. Everything else in on either the old SATA drive or the 1TB external drive I have plugged in.

.

I would conclude that if you are planning on building a machine that will actually get you to smooth, fluid results for Ultra Heavy air activity in late-1918, it will need to be something like this:



.

Thanks Lou for your detailed testing and info. This helps to simplify my usage of activity settings (will stick with very light/ light/ medium/ heavy for simplicity's sake).

@ Rick, you are essentially correct - lighter activity settings, coupled with some "steerage" of enemy 'crates in your direction, should mimic a situation similar to flying through a wider circle of air activity. (I'm running my casual campaigns for 1915 at light activity settings, with light/medium coaxing of aircraft in my direction, for example, and the results are/were historical looking - occasional skirmishes but often also flights with no contact with the enemy. Might try out some later campaigns in '17 and '18 but will keep air activity at light or medium settings again, with minor coaxing of aircraft my way - should provide for healthy FPS this way I would think.)

Happy flying all (and thank you for this thread, as well as for Lou's other thread with his comp. upgrade information - great info.),
Von S

Ok thanks. On a side note I don't get the point of even having this option in game, it's not like cpu single core speed is improving in the forseeable future.

I think it's entirely possible that newer/faster CPUs will come along at some point (they always do, somehow lol). But, to your point, the huge jumps in single-core speeds that were common years ago just don't happen anymore. The industry has long since moved to a model where having multiple cores and allowing the OS to spread tasks across them is 'standard'. This is primarily because of heat and the size of the actual CPU/heat spreader. You can only dissipate so much heat - and for that matter, only handle so much current - through a piece of silicon before it breaks down. So, if you can't make it faster (and deal with the resulting heat)...then just make more of them and do things in parallel.

Anyhow, I think the point in the game has been described as always staying ahead of what current systems can handle, so that as faster stuff comes out, you have access to a more detailed experience.

That said, it does seem a little much that even a very capable machine (as above) can only get that far up the scale before it starts suffering.

By the way, I'd still like to know what your recent build consists of, just for comparative reference.

KK

IMHO...

This desire for improved non-stuttering WOFF performance is fast approaching a dead end in my opinion simply because the WOFF engine is single core old technology. That said, OBD and supporting developers have pushed amazing improvements forward despite this.

Best Regards

Hi Robert. I'm sure you're right, I concluded long ago that no hardware, settings, etc were going to eliminate stutter.

That said, just curious...did you by any chance misread "suffering" as "stuttering"? Just wondering

(I ask, because I didn't actually say stutter in this thread, unless I missed something).

I run with the 'medium' setting and looking at the red circles on my briefing map shows it encompasses a very big area, certainly well beyond where i will be flying my mission. Based on that, I have operated under the assumption that air activity settings above 'medium' give little benefit to the game experience and just bog things down unnecessarily.

.

Scout, I agree with you, I've made the same assumption myself and normally run at 'Medium' too, unless it's early war and then I set it lighter.

kk, I was the culprit who mentioned stuttering in my analysis post. Blame me.

And Robert, I too have been saying for some time that the OFF/WOFF occasional hiccups/micro-stutters are an inherent part of the old CFS3 engine and will likely never be fully eliminated. C'est la guerre.

.

In all the testing and playing WOFF over the years (and I do mean since way back to OFF3), especially now that we have the red circles, I found that there was no more aircraft encounters during your mission flight with Medium Air Activity then there was with Light Air Activity, but the FPS went up at least 20% or more at Light versus Medium.

As a result, why add un-needed CPU cycles to the game when you can play the same game/mission with higher FPS than lower FPS (and yes kk, I prefer higher FPS than lower FPS in the game).

My build is roughly like Louvert's, except a single 980 card and the cpu is at 4.8.

.

PR, that is interesting. I'm fairly certain I've had more encounters on 'Medium' than on 'Light' over the years. But then everyone's experiences with this sim do seem to vary a fair amount. To the FPS, I think most of us prefer to see those numbers higher if possible. If I read kk's comment right he was only saying that higher FPS doesn't always equate to smoother gameplay, which I agree with.

.

Thanks Lou, that's it exactly

Oh, and thanks for taking the rap on the stutter utter I get in way too much trouble for that :D:D:D

Having played this game for years, I know all about the stutter and you can even begin to predict when it is going to happen and what it means when it does it. But I found the higher the FPS, the less it is noticeable or as "jarring" as when the the game has low FPS and stuttering at the same time.

The biggest difference I found on enemy flight encounters is when I activate the "Forced Encounters" on High versus selecting the Medium or Light Air Activities.

.

PR, I must confess I've not used the "Forced Encounters" much at all, having usually relied on the air activity settings to adjust the frequency of encounters. And, having also been playing this sim since the OFF days, I agree about being able to judge on occasion when the stutters will arise. Having a higher FPS may well help to make them less jarring, I will take your expertise on that. I never really gave it too much thought, but then until this most recent build I've never had a rig that would get more than 50 to 60 FPS on average when playing OFF/WOFF.

.

From a different perspective...

I've also been playing this game a long time, in fact back to the very first (free) OFF, and although I've donated quite a sum to OBD, and paid for all but the latest release, I've opted not to buy PE (not that it matters, as this has zero bearing on the stutter issue).

In my observation, having higher FPS means not only is the stutter more likely (because the machine is taxed all the more), but it is also much more noticeable when the stutter does happen, simply because the change/drop is greater in comparison to a higher frame rate.

In other words, if I'm getting 30 fps and it drops to 20, not as noticeable as dropping from 100 down to 20 (which it does drop at least that low, in the case of the stutter we're discussing, the frame rate actually drops to near zero, very briefly).

It just makes sense that 33% drop is less noticeable than an 80% drop.