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#4593558 - 03/07/22 04:39 PM Narrow your horizons!  
Joined: May 2016
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BuckeyeBob Offline
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BuckeyeBob  Offline
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Ohio, USA
If you haven't looked recently at the Over Flanders Fields WWI forum, there is a discussion I recently posted on how to extend your horizons, even when you aren't using Jara's excellent Mission Editor.

Becker01 has pointed out that the horizon in WOTR is already wider than the default horizon in BHaH2, so there is no need to employ this trick in WOTR.

HOWEVER, if you play WOTR and have a relatively modest computer or graphics card, you may want to consider narrowing your horizons in order to improve your frame rates a bit. There are two ways you can approach this problem, essentially by doing the opposite of what I described in my "Expand Your Horizons" thread on the WOFF forum. Either method basically involves changing the precipType variable from "NoRain" to either "LightRain" or "HeavyRain." Let me know if you have any questions about how to use either of these approaches and also let me know whether and how much this improves your frame rates in WOTR.

One cautionary note about limiting your horizons in WOTR: you may get "bounced" more easily by enemy aircraft because you may not be able to see them until they emerge from the thicker haze produced by the more limited horizon.


“With Major Lawrence, mercy is a passion. With me it is merely good manners. You may judge which motive is the more reliable.”
#4594347 - 03/17/22 05:08 PM Re: Narrow your horizons! [Re: BuckeyeBob]  
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Becker01 Offline
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Hallo @BB,

I have tested it only with Quick-Combat so far (with "heavyRain" at the "OFF...skybox"-files: good, light, medium, medium1 and variable). With one / two weather conditions I did registrate clear horizon-differences; FPS-differences were not significant.
Maybe in Campaign-mode it is better. I will wait till the next patch with it.

Greetings

#4594358 - 03/17/22 08:08 PM Re: Narrow your horizons! [Re: BuckeyeBob]  
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BuckeyeBob Offline
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BuckeyeBob  Offline
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Hi, Becker01 !

You are not likely to see any major frame rate differences in QC unless you fly over urban areas or have a whole bunch of airplanes in the sky. Frame rates in the campaign are likely to be lower overall because there is a lot more going on in the sky and on the ground. That, at least, has been my experience with WOFF BHaH2. Therefore, minimizing the horizon may improve frame rates in the campaign, even if it doesn't seem to have much of an effect in QC. The weather also operates slightly differently in QC versus the campaign, but with the exception of the precipType variable, that probably doesn't have a major impact on frame rates.

I'll be interested to hear your results from campaign testing!


“With Major Lawrence, mercy is a passion. With me it is merely good manners. You may judge which motive is the more reliable.”
#4594389 - 03/18/22 10:06 AM Re: Narrow your horizons! [Re: BuckeyeBob]  
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gecko Offline
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Just to chime in here, just decreasing the distance to the horizon won’t have any effect on performance, since it only hides things behind the fog, but is still rendering them the whole time. So you are paying (performance-wise) for a bunch of stuff you can’t even see. However, you could improve performance by adjusting the compositetexturebudgets.xml and compositescenerybudgets.xml to reduce the quality of the outer rings. Some of those rings may be completely hidden from view (haven’t tested it myself) by applying the HeavyRain or HeavySnow adjustments mentioned, so their quality can be reduced without any visual penalty.

#4594452 - 03/18/22 07:14 PM Re: Narrow your horizons! [Re: BuckeyeBob]  
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BuckeyeBob Offline
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BuckeyeBob  Offline
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Ohio, USA
Very good point, Gecko!

In my discussion above, I was assuming that texture and scenery behind the fog was not being rendered, without actually checking on it. Assuming that textures and scenery are still being rendered behind the fog, you will not see much, if any, improvement in frame rates unless you also adjust the compositetexturebudgets and compositescenerybudgets files as well (or, as noted below, your Workshop scenery and texture settings). So, unless you are having significant stuttering or frame rate problems in WOTR, it is probably better to leave the horizon settings and budget files alone.

By contrast, in BHaH2, if you are having any performance issues and want to stick to the default "in-close" horizon settings, you should probably consider relaxing the settings in the two budget files as well. Now that I think about it, an even simpler and better approach would be to reduce the scenery and texture settings in Workshop, at least if you are using the default WOFF horizon settings.


“With Major Lawrence, mercy is a passion. With me it is merely good manners. You may judge which motive is the more reliable.”
#4594476 - 03/18/22 10:51 PM Re: Narrow your horizons! [Re: Becker01]  
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VonS Offline
WWI Flight Sims on a Mac
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Originally Posted by Becker01
... FPS-differences were not significant. ...


Hello Becker,

If you are running any of my GPU Tuner or Enchancement Packages for WoFF and WoTR, said packages already manipulate various rings in the texturebudgets and scenerybudgets files - so tweaking of horizon distances probably wont impact further on FPS, particularly because, as gecko indicates, things invisible are still rendered via the modified CFS3 engine. PR's FPS packages tweak similar files to those I've described but are intended more for team green aficionados (running nVidia). My packages were tested on team red apparati instead (AMD vid. cards) but may give good results for team green too.

Cheers all and smooth FPS to you (also wishing you smooth skies with no blue triangles or micro-stutters),
Von S smile2


~ For my various FM/AI/FPS/DM Mods. for First Eagles 2, WoFF, RoF & WoTR, and tips for FlightGear, recommended is to check over my CombatAce profile (https://combatace.com/profile/86760-vons/) and to click on the "About Me" tab while there. ~

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