DirectX 8 to 9 converter (August 30th) - USE AT YOUR OWN RISK

This DirectX 9 mod is now included as a part of WOFF 2.0 Expansion [edit Polovski: and now updated versions included in WOFF3 and further in WOFFUE]

Only use it wiith WOFF1.

If you have WOFF2, WOFF3 or WOFF UE you should NOT replace its files with any existing versions of my converter. They aren't compatible for now.
If you accidentally do it you will most likely need to reinstall the expansion to repair the DX 9 shaders.[/b]


Updated on August 30th.
A new version. Hopefully stable this time
If you are not into testing, crashing your game and losing your pilots then just want to try previous version from March which is available below. And for those who like the risk here is download options:
Installer: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2918136/cfs/WOFF_DirectX9.20140830.Setup.exe
JSGME: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2918136/cfs/WOFF_DirectX9.20140830.JSGME.7z
Plain zip: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2918136/cfs/WOFF_DirectX9.20140830.zip



Please report any issues in this thread, even if I don't answer immediately I'm still reading everything.

Previous stable version (March 25th) is still available at:
Installer: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2918136/cfs/WOFF_DirectX9_Mod_Setup.20140325.zip
JSGME: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2918136/cfs/D3D8%20Self%20Shadowing%20Mod%2020140325.7z
Plain zip: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2918136/cfs/WOFF_D3D9_Extended.20140325.Beta.zip

Installer will automatically detect the folder where WOFF (or OFF, or CFS3) is installed or you can specify another folder, but it has to be the one where CFS3.exe is located.
Then it will ask whether you need SweetFX compatibility - this option is turned off by default but you can always edit d3d8.ini manually to change it after installation.
Finally, it will suggest to open DirectX 9 download page. If you are installing my mod for the first time - it is recommended to download and run DirectX installer from that page. If you already have this mod working - you may uncheck the option to skip this step.
You can always uninstall the mod via Control Panel -> Remove Programs. It is called "DirectX 9 Mod for Wings: Over Flanders Fields (version NNNNNNNN)" there.

Very Important!
If the game fails to start a mission while using this converter, make sure you have the latest DirectX 9 installed.
Download automatic DirectX installer here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35
It will check whether you have the latest version. You see, there are probably 20 versions of DirectX 9, and even though it stopped being updated few years ago you may still happen not to have the latest one.

With this version you can use numpad "0" to switch extended graphics on and off while in game. This is debugging feature useful for comparing the image quality and checking FPS difference.

Additionally a simple version of the D3D9 converter (January 1st) is still available here:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2918136/cfs/WOFF_D3D9_Converter.20140101.zip
This version does not enhance graphics on its own, but provides a good FPS boost over the original WOFF rendering.

Important Note:
To be able to use SweetFX with any of these versions you should edit d3d8.ini with a notepad (Windows often shows this file without the .ini part just as "d3d8" with a type "Configuration Settings") and change
NoMultisampling=0
to be
NoMultisampling=1
This will turns off ingame antialiasing which seems to be incompatible with SweetFX.
Please note that I'm not providing support for SweetFX installation and settings, I just made it work with this game and now you are on your own.

-------------------------------------------------

Hi AnKor, please keep up your exploration, using SweetFX in WoFF would be awesome.

Dirk.

Hey Ankor. Blackjack you say? Sounds intriguing... I'm in for testing. Thanks for your work.
Btw, what's a DX9 ENB Series tool? Just asking. I would love to see some SweetFX options working with WOFF.

Update: I'm only getting a "Game terminated prematurely" exception error when WOFF tries to launch CFS3.

Here's what the log says:

2013/12/22 18:15:38 PatchMemorySync: Launching game
2013/12/22 18:15:38 EXE 'C:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\CFS3.exe'
2013/12/22 18:15:38 DIR 'C:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\'
2013/12/22 18:15:38 CMD 'cfs3'
2013/12/22 18:15:38 PatchMemorySync: waiting for sync
2013/12/22 18:15:38 EXCEPTION Game terminated prematurely
2013/12/22 18:15:38 TellUser Game terminated prematurely

ENB series is a graphics "improver" similar to SweetFX which predates the latter for several years.

I think I figured out why SweetFX didn't work - it requires multisampling to be off, but the minimum value in WOFF settings is 2 so it is always enabled.
I will add an option to override it in the converter, but I'm curious why WOFF devs restricted it this way.

If the game fails to start try installing the latest DirectX. If it doesn't help then perhaps I screwed something. The next version will have an option for writing a diagnostic log.

Has anyone else tried this converter?

My DirectX is up-to-date. Let's wait for the log option. Thank you

You can force your driver to override application settings though so doesn't matter what WOFF is set to.

Updated the download. Now it should work for everyone.


Yes, it doesn't matter for end result, the problem is that SweetFX inserts itself as intermediate layer in the rendering and doesn't work if a game has multisampling enabled.
So this config doesn't work:
Game (MSAA: ON) -> SweetFX -> GPU Driver (MSAA: OFF - Override)
but this one works:
Game (MSAA: OFF) -> SweetFX -> GPU Driver (MSAA: ON - Override)

It applies to any game, not just WOFF.

Did you edit the ini file and set NoMultisampling=1 as AnKor says at the start?

Hi Ankor,

I'm getting the same error even after making the adjustment in the ini.

Hey Ankor! It's now working perfectly with SweetFX! Thank you so much for this little miracle. S nastupayuschim Novym Godom!

@Rover,
Then it's my settings that I may have messed up somewhere. Would you mind telling me a step by step how you did it? What version of SweetFX are you using?

Nvidia inspector is 8xQs with 2x SGSS & in workshop I have aa set to 8.

Hey yaan,

I just copied the files to the same folder cfs3.exe is in and changed the NoMultisampling=1 as Ankor said.
Then I opened FlightFX (I got it here), created a new profile for cfs3.exe, ticked Enable SweetFX option on the right panel and proceeded to tuning in the adjacent tab. Looks like that's it.

Good luck,

Rover

Updated: And I have sadly admit I have to disable it because it leads to about 15-20 fps loss (which is critical for me). Even without sweetfx. But that's probably my system.

If you get errors, try following options

0. If you downloaded the very first original version, make sure you don't still have it. Correct d3d8.dll is 18.5 KB in size (18944 bytes to be specific) and the older one was just above 20 Kb.

1. If you already installed SweetFX or ENB Series try removing their d3d9.dll from the game folder to see if it helps. If it does then something is wrong with their config and no with the converter.

2. Try setting WriteLog=1 in d3d8.ini so it will write d3d8.log when the game is started.
If the log is short (less than ten lines) and ends with something like "Create Device RESULT = <some number>" where the number is not 0, then for some reason my dll can't set requested screen resolution. Try changing resolution in workshop to see if any of them works. Note that 16 bit modes are not supported by the converter, only 32 bit ones work, but I doubt anyone really wants to use 16 bit colors.

If the log is a large file then something else didn't work and it will difficult to figure out
I had some free time over weekend to make this tool, but now I don't have any to support it. Sorry.

Rover_27,

This is odd. I specifically tested to see if there are any performance changes, but haven't noticed any.
Though this may really depend on your system. I have an old GTX 285 (though even being old it has a bit faster memory bus than GTX 660 for example ) and run at relatively low resolution 1680*1050.

Mine is GTX 560Ti with 256 bit bus Width. The resolution is 1920x1080.
I'll try that again later with different settings

Upd: Looks like your converter's eating away 1 GB of my memory (don't ask me how)

Look



Now it says 909 virt while usually it shows around 1800-2000. Btw, what these numbers after fps mean?

Well, maybe a bit less but it will grow eventually.

Note the same setting (planes, graphics, terrain) without converter

Wow, this is very interesting!

Thank you very much for your work, AnKor!






Will need to play around with the settings some more. Couldn't see any FPS loss. (core i5-2500k@4GHZ, GTX 470, 8 Gig RAM Win7 64 bit).

Rover_27, interesting observation, will take a closer look a bit later (and I don't really know what those numbers mean too )

Para_Bellum, if you make a good looking preset -- please share it

yeah I need some settings please;)

I have. I made a few videos using it with SweetFX and posted them in the forums. Here's the link. Great stuff AnKor! Thank you very much for doing this.

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3882857#Post3882857

So what's involved with setting it up?
Putting the converter and SweetFX into the WoFF directory?

I set up SweetFX for RoF, but used the FlightFX program that Jason had Laser make....

Try creating a profile for cfs3.exe in Flight FX

Yes, extract the converter into the "OBDWW1 Over Flander Fields" folder and edit its d3d8.ini to set NoMultisampling=1 so SweetFX can work. I could have made it 1 by default, but I decided that initial config should be clear of any side effects.
Then you can use FlightFX to make a profile for cfs3.exe.

Meanwhile I researched reported performance issues a bit and found that the converter may indeed cause some FPS loss. Though for me it was not even close to losing 20 FPS, but more like occasional stuttering which didn't happen without the converter. While I believe I know the cause - a single method from DX8 which doesn't exist in DX9 and for which I had to find a workaround, but currently I don't know a better solution.

How much does this hit performance? Or does it help? I will do anything for more FPS

Thank your for all your tips Ankor...using sweetfx with Para,s settings,(on the WOFF swettfx videos page)
And Woff looks fantastic... ...Spinkick ive noticed no real fps issues,but its only a key press away to go from Sweet fx to Vanilla WOFF

Experimenting with SweetFX, fiddling around with Para-Bellum's settings
(a little les bloom, a bit of bleach).



With SweetFX, everything look like they have more "volume", don't you think?

There is a bit of stuttering here and there, though as sideffect, Spinkick,
but I can live with it at the moment.

Thanks AnKor for making this possible!

Merry Christmas!

Thanks! It is good to know my mods are useful

And I think I have some good news, even though the Christmas has already gone.
It seems my initial assumption about the mod not eating any FPS was wrong. It actually did, especially with many planes around. And while I'm still unsure whether that single method I told above is optimal or not, I have discovered a simplest change which boosts FPS even over original DX8 version.

Download link in the first post is updated.

Note there is a new option in the d3d8.ini:
ForceHardwareVertexProcessing=1
which enables improved FPS by default. There is no need to edit it except for troubleshooting.

Good job mate

Ok Ankor, I have a ? for you now that you are getting to the final stages. I run and ATI card as follows:
Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 7870 Video Card - 2GB GDDR5, 1000MHz Base Core Clock, 4800MHz Memory, PCI Express 3.0, Dual Link DVI, HDTV, HDMI, Dual Mini Display Port

How do I implement your d3d8 to work on my system. I also have ENB that ran on OFF but don't know if there is a more current version. If so, where would I get it.

If you have any specific tuning info for implementing d3d8 with ENB on my system I would appreciate your suggestions.

Thanks in advance

The reason why I am asking is that when I install the D3D8 dll and ini into my ODB directory along with ENB, I get the following results in which my aircraft shows up all black. when I remove the files everything returns to normal

list of files installed:

taken from quick combat:

taken from campaign mode:

The d3d8.dll doesn't seem to like my native 3840 x 1024 resolution.

Starting up.
Forcing Hardware Vertex Processing
Create Device Adapter = 0, Type = 1, Flags = 66
Create Device Windowed: 0, Width: 0, Height: 0, Refresh: 0, Format: 0, Multisampling: 0
Create Device RESULT = -2005530516

I also had black aircraft recently until turned skin resolution to High

Thanks Rover!

I did just that, and with some fiddling, I came up with some awesomely deep and rich coloring.
I honestly didnt think WoFF could look much better (I like the way it looks already!), but WOW!
I started with Para's settings, but then rather than messing around with SweetFX, I used FlightFX which allows presets and much easier tweaking. I thought Para's sky was a little too electric blue. I found that the settings I made for RoF worked terrifically as-is for WoFF.
I'm actually using the same preset config I made for RoF.
Here's some screens:






The screenshots make it look a little darker than it actually is.
For anyone sitting on the fence about SweetFX/FlightFX, it really makes WoFF look GREAT!

Robert_Wiggins, I'll look into black aircrafts issue (which presumable aren't triplanes from Collishaw's Black Flight ).
As for ENB and SweetFX... It may be better if someone else explains how to install and use them. They aren't something new and there ought to be some good instructions somewhere.
In short, you can get SweetFX here: http://www.guru3d.com/files_details/sweetfx_shader_suite_download.html
Extract everything into "OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields" and then edit SweetFX_preset.txt file by first deleting whatever there are and then copy-pasting there all #define lines from this post http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3882997/Re_WOFF_SweetFX_videos#Post3882997


And which resolution did you use initially? Did black aircraft appear every time or only occasionally?
And by the way, did the latest version improve FPS for you?


Thanks for the log. I've seen this kind of error and this is something I have to look into.

Hi, I use 1920x1080. Black aircraft is usually the active one. Either mine or the one I switch to in Player/Target view. Choosing High quality skins eliminated the problem. Btw, I've seen some weird terrain artefacts with the converter but I forgot to screenshot them. Next time.

As for fps - yes. I don't know what changed but it's now the same as without the converter. However, I had a one-time experience when it dropped to 2 and stayed there for a minute. Then it climbed back to 50-60. Probably some CPU glitch or smth.

OK. Thanks.
I think I've seen both of those glitches: the framerate dropped to 1-2 with no apparent reason and stayed there from some time and almost at the same time terrain textures on some tiles appeared completely wrong.
I suspect both of them may be related to the game running out of video memory (I have 1 GB card).

I get the black camel every timeand my resolution is 1920 x 1080.
I even removed and reinstalled the enb and d3d8 and it was always the same reproducable.
I can send yu my ENB settins (ini) if you would like to see it.

I get another strange glitch with terrain textures.
Seems like the TAC and parts of the sky superimposed on the terrain.





EDIT: Oh, I just saw you're already aware of it.

I have a 4GB GFX series 7 card and 16 GB of RAM...

Hi AnKor,

Don't know what you did, but it's working perfect now with no effect on the FPS. Except for the occasional drop which you mentioned. I notice that it would usually happen after time acceleration and when I'm starting to enter no man's land.

Yes, it is most noticeable after using time accel or over the front because the game has to load a lot new terrain.


Yep, that's exactly what I saw. And your specs confirm that it is not related to memory issues.
I think I've found the likely cause, but again I don't have a solution. Already spent more hours on it than I wanted to

If anyone has problems with it just set
ForceHardwareVertexProcessing=0
in the ini and everything will be back to normal at the cost of some FPS.

I doubt I'll be able to solve it anytime soon.
The main problem is that the CFS3 engine is so old and does such stuff which more modern games (i.e. those for DirectX 9) shouldn't do. Especially nasty is the way it uses screen buffer to do terrain texture combining. At first I though it is a bug, but looks like it is intentional. First of all it is very slow and apparently with hardware vertex processing something happens in a wrong order and that's why you may see parts of the screen drawn onto terrain.

ok will work on this

at the mo it turns my planes skin to black.

I did set ForceHardwareVertexProcessing=0
and still having the weird terrain issues.
I think I'm going to disable SeetFX at the moment...

I don't know how SweetFX specifically interacts with the game files.

When I use sweetfx I get much higher FPS than without it (both in campaign and QC). Also, if I disable everything in the settings file, I can enjoy all the default color schemes from the original game.

Interesting....I've flown QC and a bunch of campaign missions with FlightFX (the RoF version of SweetFX) and have no issues like what is being posted....

Looks like a miracle has happened.
While trying to fix that one method which bothered me so much (and caused all performance loss and texture glitches) I decided to override some texture settings in a desperate attempt to try a different implementation. However to my surprise after this change the game just stopped using that "bad" function at all!
I'm not entirely sure about the reason, but it looks like CFS3 is programmed better than I already started to suspect. Anyway this means I no longer need to find a workaround for that problematic function

This override is controlled by a new option in the d3d8.ini file which is turned on by default:
ForceRenderTargetTextures=1
It gives noticeable performance boost as is, but with hardware vertex processing results are even better.

The first post is updated with a download link for this new version (20131228).

Now, about other reported issues:
- Black planes: tried different skin res settings, but haven't seen this glitch yet. It might be solved with this new version though.
- Some screen resolutions not working - got an idea about possible fix, but haven't implemented it yet.

I really appreciate that you are working so diligently on this.

/this



Thank you for all your efforts, AnKor!

Really appreciate your outstanding work.

I'm trying to use it with OFF: HiTR...following all directions to the letter, but get the following log file (not working):

Starting up.
Create Device Adapter = 0, Type = 1, Flags = 130
Create Device Windowed: 0, Width: 1440, Height: 900, Refresh: 0, Format: 22, Multisampling: 0
Create Device RESULT = -2005530516

Maybe OFF doesn't work with it (unlike WOFF)...but if it does, any ideas? The error seems to be similar to what another has reported above.

Pertinent specs are Win7 32-bit (OFF, not WOFF), GTX 560 Ti, 314.22 drivers, all OFF and Win7 updates/patches current. Any tips appreciated. I've tried the various changes suggested in the total thread above, but no luck.

To make it work with OFF or even original CFS3 just run cfs3config.exe while d3d8.dll is in place and select the resolution again, even if it already shows the correct one.
When I have some free time I'm going to make a new version to solve this problem, but for now the trick is to reset the resolution.

WOFF doesn't have cfs3config anymore, but I suggest trying to switch between resolutions in workshops. Somehow it worked for me.

The problem is not in the resolution as is, but in the way CFS3 stores them in config - instead of saving all parameters like width, height and bits per pixel it just keeps a single number for "screen mode". My converter however has different mode numbers (because it skips 16bpp ones) and that's why the game might be unable to select proper one.
I only figured it out only recently and was too busy solving performance issues (the converter has little use if it eats FPS), but now it is my priority.


Thanks

Now I'm flying HiTR with SweetFX, can't see any performance hit and it looks awesome. It's like removing a protection film from your monitor, the effect is quite prominent in the split screen.

Thanks,
Dirk.

AnKor...thanks. did your suggestion, and it goes through everything until the game screen should appear with live action, but then gives me the window that says CFS3 has stopped working (you know the one). The error log is now slightly different from what I had before:

Starting up.
Forcing Hardware Vertex Processing
Create Device Adapter = 0, Type = 1, Flags = 66
Create Device Windowed: 0, Width: 1440, Height: 900, Refresh: 0, Format: 22, Multisampling: 0
Create Device RESULT = -2005530516

I'll try it without forcing vertex processing and see what happens (and I'll also reset resolution again).

Regardless, thanks for your continuing help!

With ForceHardwareVertexProcessing=0, I get same error as initially reported (several posts above).

To cover all bases, I tried Enabled=0 to see if the game runs, and it runs just fine...so I'm not sure where the problem is...

Thanks. Makes perfect sense and that got it working.

Hmm... I just noticed - although the width and height are correct, the 'Refresh' value in your logs is 0 which is not right. It should be your monitor's refresh rate (like 60) instead.
Never seen this problem before, I'll see if I can do anything about it.

Thanks for taking a look, AnKor! Just wondering...do you - or anyone - have a copy of the Nvidia Control Panel settings you're using for CFS3? Maybe I have something screwed up in there (btw I'm using a GTX 560 Ti). I've given both this http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3884065/Re_WOFF_at_Max_Settings_video#Post3884065 and this http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3884827/Re_WOFF_at_Max_Settings_video#Post3884827 a try, but no luck thus far.

GTX 670

Ambient Occlusion Quality
Anisotropic Filtering 16X
Antialiasing FXAA ON
Antialiasing Gamma Correction ON
Antialiasing Mode Override Application
Antialiasing Setting 16xQ CSAA
Antialiasing Transparency 8X Supersample
CUDA GPUs All
Max Pre-Rendered Frames 3
Multi Display Multiple (Triple Head 2 Go)
Power Management Adaptive
Texture Filtering (Anisotropic) OFF
Texture Filtering Negative LOD Clamp
Texture Filtering Quality High Quality
Texture Filtering Trilinear ON
Threaded Optimisation Auto
Triple Buffering OFF
Vertical Sync OFF

I'm not sure which settings could affect this. I haven't yet made a new version to fix the issue.
Instead (and I'm a bit sorry, but I hope you understand ) I tried something different, which for me is actually the main reason I'm working on this converter.




It may not be as obvious from the screenshot, but it looks nice in action.
What I did is per pixel diffuse and specular highlights as well as some bump-mapping. For those familiar with my ROF mods - bump mapping is done in the same way I did it for terrain there - by color detection. It doesn't work as well (and it is messed up on screenshots but it takes some time to figure out why) for aircraft skins, but we'll see what I can do.

I'm not releasing this version right now, and it may take a while to get it ready for use, because a lot of things are still missing - look at the glass windshield at the second screenshot for example.

Bump mapping is one of my all time favorites! Not to mention it works in Mods off and MP. Thanks, Ankor.

That looks fantastic AnKor. I look forward to when you release this. Thank you for all of your efforts on this. You are really making WOFF shine even more!

Fantastic news, AnKor!
It would be great if it could be applied to the terrain as well...

MajorMagee...thanks, I'll give those settings a try! And AnKor, thanks for all your efforts. You guys all make the great stuff even greater!

Updated download link in the first post. I really hope it will solve all startup issues, but if it doesn't - I'm out of ideas

Simply amazing. Thanks Ankor for your work on this.

The updated version still doesn't include bump mapping, does it?

Hellshade;

I need a little help here, what is "Bump mapping"

No, it doesn't. Just a bugfix to try to make it work out of the box for most people.

It will take me some time to get advanced lighting working. What I shown on those screenshots is not even close to correct implementation, instead it is just one step above "completely broken" state.
So don't expect it to be ready anytime soon. Probably sometime before 2015

Robert_Wiggins,
"Bump mapping" is a relatively simple graphics enhancement to add more fine details to otherwise flat surfaces. Take a look on my screenshots (especially the second one) on the previous page. Do you see anything unusual with on wings?

Thanks for your work AnKor!
I still have the version you released a week or more ago...everything works great with no issues that others are seeing.

Will your bump mapping be a mod or an addition to sweetfx?

With a few mods showing in the forums, I'm thinking of setting up JSGME for easy mod on/off usage.

Well, other than what appears like reflected light illumination on the upper wing above the cockpit and some additional contrast is there something I'm missing?

By the way, just posting this to help, but I found this SweetFX configurator program (link below) makes testing out settings and understanding what they do much easier. Install SweetFX as normal, add Ankors new files and then install this program below wherever you like (doesn't have to go into same WOFF directory).

Just remember, you have to add the CFS3.exe file using the "Add new game" button, not the WOFF.exe. The one you want to add is located by default at [INSTALL DRIVE]\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\CFS3.exe

Dont try and use the "Launch selected game button" either. Just make your setting changes, save new config and then launch WOFF as normal. Whats cool about this as that you can leave it running and Alt-Tab out of the game, make changes, alt-tab back into the game and see them as you are playing. Keep in mind that the default on/off key for SweetFX is Scroll Lock, which WOFF uses to toggle between panning and snap view. You can change that in either program of course.

Link to configurator program:
http://sweetfx.thelazy.net/?cat=3

Thanks, Madmatt!


Nothing I think
Anyway, one has to see it and it looks better in movement than on screenshots. When done properly (and it isn't yet) it adds more volume and details to textures.

AnKor, I have been following your post on this for some time and I am certainly interested in your results as they are looking positive. Unfortunately I can't even try them at the moment as my PC is in parts on the floor awaiting a new MB and processor. (God I wish it would get here!!!). Once I am up and running I will jump in. I have an ATI 7870 that will be running on an Intel I7-4770K processor on an ASUS Maximus VI Extreme board. The boot and sims will be on separate Samsung 250 gb SSD's. I shouldn't have any performance issues due to hardware limitations, but we shall see!

AnKor, reports from the fields are that the latest version adds even more smoothness and increases FPS, actually you do wonders with that converter in OFF/WoFF.

Thanks,
Dirk.

AnKor, MajorMagee, Hellshade, and Madmatt...thanks to all. But I still have no luck enabling the DX8 to 9 convertor (newest one in 1st post of thread). I've tried messing with everything, but no luck.

Mind you, my settings give a nice pic, but I would have liked to see what the DX9 with SweetFX does. But I keep getting similar error logs with all attempts; all settings give the following error log entries:

Starting up.
EnumAdapterModes 0, 0 : 0 = 640, 480, 60, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 1 : 0 = 640, 480, 72, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 2 : 0 = 640, 480, 75, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 3 : 0 = 640, 480, 59, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 4 : 0 = 720, 480, 56, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 5 : 0 = 720, 480, 60, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 6 : 0 = 720, 480, 72, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 7 : 0 = 720, 480, 75, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 8 : 0 = 720, 576, 56, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 9 : 0 = 720, 576, 60, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 10 : 0 = 720, 576, 72, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 11 : 0 = 720, 576, 75, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 12 : 0 = 800, 600, 56, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 13 : 0 = 800, 600, 60, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 14 : 0 = 800, 600, 72, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 15 : 0 = 800, 600, 75, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 16 : 0 = 1024, 768, 60, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 17 : 0 = 1024, 768, 70, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 18 : 0 = 1024, 768, 75, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 19 : 0 = 1152, 864, 75, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 20 : 0 = 1280, 720, 60, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 21 : 0 = 1280, 720, 75, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 22 : 0 = 1280, 720, 59, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 23 : 0 = 1280, 768, 60, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 24 : 0 = 1280, 768, 75, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 25 : 0 = 1280, 800, 60, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 26 : 0 = 1280, 800, 75, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 27 : 0 = 1280, 960, 60, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 28 : 0 = 1280, 960, 75, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 29 : 0 = 1280, 1024, 60, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 30 : 0 = 1280, 1024, 75, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 31 : 0 = 1360, 768, 60, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 32 : 0 = 1360, 768, 75, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 33 : 0 = 1366, 768, 60, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 34 : 0 = 1366, 768, 75, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 35 : 0 = 1440, 900, 60, 22
EnumAdapterModes 0, 36 : 0 = 1440, 900, 75, 22

Then, depending on what settings/switches I'm using, I've had the log end with these additional lines:

Forcing Hardware Vertex Processing
Create Device Adapter = 0, Type = 1, Flags = 66
Create Device Windowed: 0, Width: 1440, Height: 900, Refresh: 0, Format: 22, Multisampling: 0
Create Device RESULT = 8876086c

or:

Create Device Adapter = 0, Type = 1, Flags = 130
Create Device Windowed: 0, Width: 1440, Height: 900, Refresh: 0, Format: 22, Multisampling: 0
Create Device RESULT = 8876086c

or simply:

Cleanup
Exiting

I'm wondering if there's a problem with my Galaxy GTX 560 Ti card, or with the 314.22 drivers I'm using (sticking with those due to the well-known issues with 500-series cards and later drivers). Like you said, that "Refresh: 0" is strange...

Anyway, thanks for your assistance. I may keep tinkering, in part because it's an "interesting" problem that I'd like to figure out...but if any of you have a new idea, let me know...but thanks again. I'll be flying nonetheless!

Looking at your log makes we wonder if you're running a newer high frequency monitor and the files are only looking for 75 Hz or less and interpret anything higher as 0 Hz.

I'm on 331.82 drivers with a GTX 670 card, and 3840 x 1024 60 Hz screen. As long as I run cfs3config.exe first it starts up fine. The only thing I noticed with the latest dll update was that config now defaults to 16 bit colors and I had to make sure I changed that back to 32 bit.

MajorMagee, thanks for the ideas, but "unfortunately", I just checked and verified that my monitor is indeed running at 60 Hz (it's an old Dell digital monitor from 2009), and I did also run cfs3config.exe (the one in OFF's directory) before each flight attempt. But please - if you come up with anything else - I'm "all ears"! I'd love to solve this issue, especially since there's no apparent reason for the problem.

One possibility I thought of is that maybe my files are not placed correctly? But I thought I was sure to follow installation instructions with both SweetFX and the DX8 => DX9 convertor files in the first post. I'm at a bit of a loss right now for the answer, but the stubborn part of me will probably keep trying (and continue welcoming any ideas)...

Well, I also suspect the monitor - especially if you say it actually runs on 60Hz, but according to the log the system reports that 75Hz mode is supported. Then it might be the case that the game attempts to set the best reported mode, but fails.

Is there a line with something like GetDisplayAdapterMode after all those Enum... lines? It should tell which mode is used for your windows desktop.

Everything else seems to be ok, I also used the same older drivers until a couple of days ago.
You may try removing sweetfx's d3d9.dll from game folder to see if it makes any difference though.

MajorMagee, do you have to run cfs3config every time? I thought it has to be run only once. Something isn't right then.

If we find a confirmation that it is refresh rate related I may add an override option. Though I wonder why it works out of the box for DX8 and doesn't for DX9.

And now for something completely different (that's why I decided to make another post instead of editing previous one):





As you can see I'm making some progress and experimenting with the look.
I was able to replicate the original lighting (except that it is now per pixel which really improves highlights) and enhanced airplane model with bump mapping + fake environment reflections (apparently overdone) just to see how it works. And it looks nice

One thing I really want to add is "self" shadows - where parts of the airplane will produce real shadows on other parts and in the cockpit. This would have been a very simple task with modern shaders, but only if I had some control over CFS3 rendering engine. Which I don't.

Yes, it's just once, but I do need to do it again each time I update the d3d8.dll file to a newer version.

The bump mapping looks very nice.

You are performing some kind of magic tricks there, AnKor!
If you could implement self cast shadows it would be a real miracle!
I hope the devs will notice this thread and provide you any help needed.
As said in another post I would like to see your bump mapping extended to the terrain as well.

elephant,
The terrain in WOFF doesn't need bump mapping as badly as its ROF counterpart. Here it already has sharp and detailed textures, and that's why I haven't touched it yet - I just like how it looks as is.

There are also some difficulties with improving it. It is drawn by a very primitive method and lighting is not calculated on the GPU but comes pre-computed by CPU. I can work around it but then there are other problems - trees and static building are drawn in the same way as terrain and thus has to be separated to avoid messing them. Since I don't have any control on that part - my converter doesn't know what is being drawn it just intercept drawing calls - it may be difficult to work around. Then as I said ground textures are already well detailed and not very suitable for color difference algorithm - note how on my first screenshot on this page the brighter green field already appears bumpy because the texture is painted by an artist as if it was already lit from one side. Adding bump mapping will cause such textures to appear weird, especially if the sun shines from opposite side.

With this said I'm still going to try some terrain enhancements and of course I'll give bump-mapping a go. It is just much lower priority than airplane models.

Wow, you have some amazing skills for working with shaders. I will be following this thread closely!

Thanks so much for the detailed explanation, AnKor!
Planes should be the first priority, by all means...

AnKor, thanks for your continuing help. No, there is no line which contains "GetDisplayAdapterMode" after all those Enum... lines. My previous post included *every* line appearing in the various error logs.

I also tried removing SweetFX's d3d9.dll from game folder to see if it makes any difference (as you suggested), along with all other tips in the readme.txt and elsewhere, but to no avail. Like you said, it seems like my monitor isn't "recognized" (for lack of a more technically correct word on my part).

But I'll keep fiddling. I still would like to verify that my file structure is correct with respect to placement of all of the SweetFX files/folders; I'm not 100% sure that it is, since file placement for the SweetFX stuff is not explicitly stated (for example, some dx8 => dx9 files and some SweetFX files are found in both the main program folder containing the cfs3.exe file as well as in the \SweetFX\ subfolder or the \SweetFX\dlls\FXAA DX9 dll\ sub-sub-subfolder).

Like I say, I'll keep fiddling (I need to figure this out), but as always, thanks for your continuing !

Edit: tried running the monitor at 75 Hz, but no change in results.

When WOFF was released, it changed my life. And now I find this thread. The metamorphosis continues.

Thank you , these are good news !

Now, does this mean one can have better graphisms with no negative impact on the FPS ?

If yes, can some of you post an easy and clear step by step method on using Sweet FX with this dx9 converter (for the dumb...) ? thanks in advance !

Dummies guide, eh? I felt that way, too. Welcome to the club. I posted the same question as you. Check out the 2nd page + the OP on first page.

Here's how I did my SweetFX install:

1. Download the latest converter files from here http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3881675/DirectX_8_to_9_converter_updat#Post3881675 and install the d3d8.dll and d3d8.ini files where your cfs3.exe file is. This can be done for each install of CFS3 you may have.

2. Edit the ini file to NoMultisampling=1 for compatibility with SweetFX.

3. Run CFS3Config.exe and make sure you choose your proper display options selection again (i.e. it may show 800 x 600 x 16).

4. Download FlightFX from here http://riseofflight.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=34103 and install it on your computer.

5. Since version 1.0 of Flight FX does not have latest version (1.5.1) of Sweet FX included you need to download that from here http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=381912 and extract all of it to the FX folder where you have Flight FX installed. Let it overwrite any of the files that may have the same names as what FlightFX already had.

6. Now you can run Flight FX and click on Register New Game at the bottom left. It will open a dialog box where you'll navigate it to your cfs3.exe file. That will populate the paths at the top right of Flight FX for you.

7. Click on Enable Sweet FX and it will copy most of the needed files into your CFS3 install. It misses SweetFX_compatibility_settings.txt which is in the Flight FX / FX / SweetFX folder and needs to be manually copied into the matching one Flight FX created in your CFS3 directory.

8. Select the FX Preset you want to use from the pull down list. The files behind this list are located in the Flight FX / FX / SweetFX / Presets folder. They are just text files so you can create new presets manually by cut and past if you like. Make a back-up copy of any of your favorites because it is all too easy to overwrite them by mistake in Flight FX.

That is really all there is to it. At this point you can edit any of the settings under the FX Settings tab and the effect will be immediate.

By default the Scroll Lock key will toggle the shader effects on and off.
The Print Screen Key will place a screenshot in your CFS3 root directory (This overrules CFS3 that normally wants to save screenshots in the CFS3 folder under My Documents).
If you uncheck the Enable SweetFX box in Flight FX it will uninstall SweetFX (but not the D3D8 and SweetFX_compatibility_settings files you did manually) and you're back to normal.

Thank you ...I take a breathe and here I go..!

Very first test of self shadows.

They are more broken than you can imagine

Note that shadows on the side of cockpit are just a texture. However shadows on the seat, floor and a wing are real-time. Also note that upper aileron's shadow is missing - the game doesn't try to draw objects which aren't on screen anyway and thus I can't create a shadow for it.

There still a lot of technical issues to solve and I'm not even sure I will be able to get reliable results.
That's why I need to ask: do they really worth trying? Do you like what you see on this screenshot?

Um... hell yes? But seriously... hell yes.

But I would like to acknowledge that I have no idea what enormous kind of time and expertise you must be putting into this, so whatever you realistically can do or can't do, we certainly appreciate the effort. And the results!

I don't like to use hyperbole, but yeah, this thread is made of Awesomesauce!

I don't know what magic you do, but....



You're the MAN AnKor. STUNNING in my book!

MajorMagee, following your instructions above, and replacing all of my pre-existing DX8=>DX9 converter and SweetFX files, it's now working perfectly...thanks a bunch!!! Those instructions should be referenced for anyone having troubles with this stuff. And thanks again to AnKor as well for his coding work!

Edit: one other item I had to do (but was not aware of) is that I had to close MSI Afterburner; not sure if doing so was required by DX8=>DX9 converter, or SweetFX, or both, but it was needed to enable it all to work.

Very good improvements, guys, than you! I´m experiencing a performance boost when using the dx9 converter files only!!!

When using sweet FX I have a problem, though. The movies don´t play any more (Intro and Campaign vids), and when ALT-Tabbing, the mission ends, with an error message saying "WOFF DLL did not start or WOFF runtime crash".

Anybody else experiencing this or any suggestions? Thanks!

Thanks Ankor for the great job, and Major for the helpinng hand ....runs very well!

Are self shadows and bump mapping worth it?

Do members of the ursidae family defecate in forested areas?

I would certainly use them if you got them working to your satisfaction sir. I think self shadows would be a fabulous addition to the immersion of WOFF, even if they aren't perfect. If you are willing to invest the time and effort, I'm sure they would get a lot of use from a great many folks...especially after they see them in videos.

Wow. Definitely worth it. Self shadowing and lighting is the only piece of magic which makes some other sims out there look more modern graphically. So please keep it going. Good Stuff.

OK, that was a stupid question. Thanks for your support
Screenshot just cannot convey how cool it is too see shadows move when you turn your plane.
Still have major issues to sort out, but some things turned out to be better than I expected.


Glad you get it working
Does that MSI Afterburner has any kind of screen overlay functions - like drawing some text or graphs on screen while you playing a game? I have one report of very odd issues with my converter which I suspect are caused by some sort of overlay application.


Interesting. I've seen some issues with movies as well, but not sure what was the cause.
Unfortunately I can't suggest anything and since I'm really busy with "enhanced" converter right now I just don't have time to look for bugs in the current version.

AnKor, yes, MSI Afterburner can show frame rate and frame time, as well as GPU temp, GPU usage, fan speed, fan tachometer, core clock, shader clock, memory clock, and memory usage in the on-screen display, although I wasn't using any of those at the time. But I was displaying GPU temp and fan speed in the system tray (which was, however, covered over by the full-screen game display).

I posted my SweetFX settings and zipped them up for those that want to just dump the settings into their presets folder. I really like the final settings that I'm using. Feel free to tweak them or use them as a starting point.

I started a new thread on this since this thread is moving in a different and VERY interesting direction

Here's the link:
Sweet FX settings

These are excellent instructions.

Thanks for saving me from Mod Hell when installing SweetFX!

MSI afterburner and EVGA precision will conflict with the sweetfx injector so its not Ankor's fault :-)

This really needs some pictures of where the settings are and how to cxhange them for us computer retards.

Here do I find the ini file so I can change it?

The instructions that are here are meant for people with some know-how. I'm pretty much monkey-see, monkey-do.

Thanks.

HotTom, did you follow Major Magee's instructions on page 9? If you do that you'll have flightfx installed as well, so you just run that and can play with sliders that work instantly ingame (you can alt-tab out to adjust).

Or if you did follow them, let us know where you're stuck.

Thanks, Glubber.

Where I'm stuck is Step 2 in Major Magee's instructions:

2. Edit the ini file to NoMultisampling=1 for compatibility with SweetFX.

I cannot figure out in what folder that ini file is located.

It's probably very obvious but I've searched and searched.

Gracias!

Look in the game directory, here:

C:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields

The file is called d3d8.ini

Report back if you get stuck. We need to get you up in those beautiful skies.

Pics for an Alternative way to install would be:

1. download SweetFX from publisher's website
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=381912

2. download converter from here:
http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3881675/DirectX_8_to_9_converter_updat#Post3881675

3. open converter zip file and copy into WOFF directory



4. change the d3d8.ini file



5. open the sweetfx zip file and copy to WOFF directory



optional step -
6. copy and overwrite sweetfx settings - I used Fifi's settings.



7. open sweetfx settings and change values to remove bloom

I'm still stuck. I downloaded and installed the two converter files again but, I'm not getting that .ini file. All I get is a readme that is titled Configuration Settings and is just a readme. This is downloaded from Post #1, is there another updated download at another location I am missing?

Nice of you to show the pics (and of Aris to cheer ) but I'm still stuck on Step 2.

I'll monkey with it some more. I'm baffled.

HotTom,

Only one converter file
Get it here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2918136/cfs/WOFF_D3D9_Converter.20140101.zip

then open the zip file and copy it to your WOFF directory as the pics above.

HotTom,


It looks like a readme, but it's the ini file. The first two lines should look like this:

[D3D8]

; Use NoMultisampling=1 to turn off multisampling in the game.
; Using this option is required for SweetFX compatibility (it doesn't like multisampling).
NoMultisampling=1


The bottom line might say 0 instead of 1, so that's where you would change it. The semicolons on the first line denote a comment line. The bottom line without the semicolon is the code.

That's the right file. Windows sometimes hides file extensions so instead of "d3d8.ini" you just see "d3d8" and the file is called "Configuration Settings" because well, that's what it is.
It opens in notepad but it is not a readme, it just had a lot of text describing what each option does. Just look at screenshot #4 above.

I expected all those descriptions to make it a bit more friendly, but looks like a wall of text may have a reverse effect
Next time I'll do it differently.

Thanks, Ankor.

So, where on that page are the settings I need to change?

All I see is the descriptive text:

[D3D8]

; Use NoMultisampling=1 to turn off multisampling in the game.
; Using this option is required for SweetFX compatibility (it doesn't like multisampling).
NoMultisampling=0

; By default CFS3 (and WOFF) uses Mixed Vertex Processing which means that some geometry calculations are done by the CPU.
; Perhaps it made sense for early GPUs which were slow or had incompatibilities, but in modern world it should be a non-issue.
; This converter can force Harware Vertex Processing which will utilize GPU better and should increase FPS.
; Use ForceHardwareVertexProcessing=0 for troubleshooting if something doesn't work as expected.
ForceHardwareVertexProcessing=1

; Use Enabled=0 to turn off the converter and keep using original Direct3D 8.
; Might be useful for troubleshooting if you want to compare how the game works with and without the converter.
Enabled=1

; This option should solve performance issues and terrain glitches caused by switching from Direct3D 8 to 9.
; It doesn't seem to have any bad side effects, so don't turn it off unless something goes really wrong.
; Note that cfs3config.exe has built-in options to use Render Target for terrain and airplane textures.
ForceRenderTargetTextures=1

; DirectX 8 and 9 behave diffirently when game asks for a list of available display modes.
; When this option is set to 1 the wrapper uses DirectX 8 code to create such list.
; This should solve startup issues when game cannot set correct video mode.
; Use EnumAllDisplayModes=0 to try DirectX 9 mode list if something doesn't work right.
; You will have to start cfs3config.exe and select resolution again after changing this option.
EnumAllDisplayModes=1

; Use WriteLog=1 to write d3d8.log file with debugging information.
; Do not use it unless asked by the author
WriteLog=0

HotTom,

The bottom line, which I've bolded.


; Use NoMultisampling=1 to turn off multisampling in the game.
; Using this option is required for SweetFX compatibility (it doesn't like multisampling).
NoMultisampling=1

EDIT: Glubber beat me to it.

Yeah, but yours is much nicer.

Excellent work on the self shadowing AnKor!

Doh! Got it (finally)! Thanks, Guys!

See? I told ya I gotta have pictures.

Okay, I got it all set up including setting NoMultisampling to 1, but if I have SweetFX enabled and try to start WOFF it crashes immediately. With SweetFX disable it starts right up.

Any guesses what I have configured incorrectly?

Is this what you see in FlightFX?

Yup, except I have a RoF profile in there, too (not active). Otherwise, the settings are identical.

I copied Barn's setting for the detailed stuff. Haven't tried going back to the defaults (yet).

Your FlightFX folder looks like this?



And your FX folder inside your FlightFX folder looks like this?




And step 7 went well?

7. Click on Enable Sweet FX and it will copy most of the needed files into your CFS3 install. It misses SweetFX_compatibility_settings.txt which is in the Flight FX / FX / SweetFX folder and needs to be manually copied into the matching one Flight FX created in your CFS3 directory.

I copied it and put it in the SweetFX folder that was created in my WOFF folder.

I don't see a separate CFS3 directory. Where is it?

Hi Folks;

Is anyone using "D3D9" and "SweetFX" with an AMD 7870 card?

I'm looking for some help to implement these two products with my system. I would certainly appreciate some guidance from anyone else on an AMD 7870.

Best Regards;

You did it right. And if your other two folders are similar to what I posted above I'm not sure what to tell you. Everything seems to be in the right place.



Hi Robert,

I'm not using a 7870, but a 6950 with no probs. Are you having issues as well?

I looked at the folders you showed above and everything you have there is in mine although there are several other items in each of mine.

Maybe I need to scrap it and start over?

Well, I'll tinker with it some more tomorrow...thanks for all your patience!

No prob! Like to get you set up.

Have you used flightfx/sweetfx before with other stuff (you said you had a ROF profile)?

Maybe when you attack it again tomorrow you can post screenies so we can see what you've got going on.

Hi Glubber. Thanks for responding. I'm not having any problems to speak of. Just not sure how to implement Sweet and D3 on my kind of system. Most people are using FX cards. I could use some guidance here.

I just followed MajorrMagee's instructions from page 9 to the tee. Haven't had any problems so far.

Glubber;

I followed your instructions to a "T" but had some problems.
The D3D9.DLL and ini files would not work and caused the following errors when I run WOFF:




I then removed them from the "OBDWWI Over Flanders Fields" directory and left Sweetfx on and everything ran fine.

Don't know what I am missing with the D3D9 files out of the picture. Do you know what the problem might be.

Hi Robert,

So you had

d3d8.dll
d3d8.ini
d3d9.dll
d3d9.fx

in your OBDWW1 folder, got the error message above and removed the two d3d9 files and now it works ok (but I assume with Sweetfx not working)? And you have the SweetFX_compatibility_settings.txt in the Sweetfx folder in the OBDWW1 folder? And your other folders look like mine pictured in the posts above?

Beyond that I'm not really sure. I know there were a couple times I did a double take during the instructions, so maybe trying again just to be sure.

Robert,

1. Reinstall Directx (download from a site like this: http://www.filehippo.com/download_directx/

2. Reinstall Directx web installer from: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35 (extra step which won't hurt if not help)

3. Reinstall Directx from your video card cd. (extra step)

If that fails, then this is a very advanced option which only should be tried if you are comfortable with cleaning your registry and it is what worked for me (CAUTION: will delete your pilot history and any workshop settings):
1. Uninstall WOFF, and remember to delete the C:\Users\<NAME>\AppData\Roaming\OBD_Games\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\ directory.

2. Clean the registry with a SAFE registry cleaner. I used ccleaner and used it three times in a row to get rid of all problems.

3. Reinstall CFS 3

4. Reinstall Directx

5. Reinstall WOFF without patches and check the sweetfx again. If it doesn't work, then keep installing the patches one by one starting from the very first patch v.01, then v.02, then v.03 etc... and keep checking the sweetfx after each patch upgrade. If one of them works, then upgrade to latest patch 1.10.


Eventually after step 5, one of the previous patches worked and I was able to use sweetfx without any problems after that.

HotTom--
First I followed Ankor's instructions from page 3:

Yes, extract the converter into the "OBDWW1 Over Flander Fields" folder and edit its d3d8.ini to set NoMultisampling=1 so SweetFX can work. I could have made it 1 by default, but I decided that initial config should be clear of any side effects.
Then you can use FlightFX to make a profile for cfs3.exe.

Then I set up FlightFX.
When I set FlightFX up, I just copied my whole folder from RoF, then pasted into WoFF (it has to be in the directory with the CFS3.exe file).
then I started Flight FX, clicked on "Register New Game", then browsed to find the CFS3.exe file.
That was it.

I gave you incorrect info. I removed the d3d8.dll and d3d8.ini and left the d3d9 files in and everything ran ok.
Don't know if Sweetfx is working or not, but it is set up as specified.
Yes the error occurred loading quick combat. Haven't tried it with missions but suspect it is the same.

Yes. I've been running with RoF for quite some time and it works very well.

The game only recognizes Directx 8, so deleting those files means you don't have sweetfx running.

If you really want sweetfx, then you may need to restart from scratch.

I'd suggest to uninstall cfs3 and woff. Then reinstall cfs3, your video card drivers, directx (from link posted above) and last woff without any patches. Then patch the game starting from the first one and testing to see of sweetfx works after each patch upgrade.

Remember that if you press U while SweetFX is installed, it will stop SweetFX from running, and pressing U again will activate it again. That'll tell you right there if you have sweetfx running.
Alternatively, you could put the split screen on...

Tom, before you reinstall (which isnt as much of a headache as it sounds), try this:

Extract the converter to the "OBDWW1 Over Flander Fields" folder and edit its d3d8.ini to set NoMultisampling=1 so SweetFX can work.
Then copy your flightFX from RoF.
Then paste flightFX into WoFF into the same directory that has CFS3 in it (should be OBDWW1 Over Flander Fields)
so it should look something like this: C:\WoFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\FlightFX
Then open flightFX and click on register new game.
Then browse to find the CFS3.exe file.
Then choose whatever presets you want (mine, or your RoF settings, etc).
Then fire up WoFF and start a QC mission.
Pause the mission and press U to see if things get kind of hazy (original WoFF look), or sharp and more deep colors (sweetFX is working).

If you're still crashing, then something got messed up with some of your editing/unzipping ankor's files, and it'd be best to reinstall WoFF and start from there.

SweetFX is INCREDIBLE in WoFF! Worth it completely.
Hope this helps!

I couldn't get it to work either, so I backed out all of the files that were put into "OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields", and I'm back to vanilla WOFF. No re-install. It's easy to see what files were added by sorting them by date.

Yup, I was thinking about doing what you guys recommend: reinstalling FlightFX but leaving WOFF as it is (minus the FlightFX/SweetFX files). I have some time over the next couple of days. Will give it a go!

Thanks for all the advice and encouragement!

It's not the U key by default. It's actually the Scroll Lock key which enables and disables it. The Pause key reloads all the shaders. Using either Sweetfx Configurator or FlightFX you can remap which key turns it on but freshly installed it is the the Scroll Lock Key.

Madmatt

Robert, do you have an Nvidia card? I ask because I too can replicate the same crash on my 780ti card. It's triggered by a certain combination of Nvidia driver settings and possibly AA levels. I tested this last night and it looks like Sweetfx and the dx8-dx9 converter don't always play nice with the Nvidia drivers (just released ones or older).

I'm still trying to pinpoint which setting seems to trigger a crash but I believe it is related to the level of multisampling you select in the Nvidia control panel. I'll report back what I find when I can do some more testing.

Madmatt

Sorry, just a stupid question. I have tried the converter. What does it do when using it alone? I don't need Sweetfx etc. since IMO the colours of WOFF are spot on. I have the impression that performance is a bit better. Does it have any graphically changes? I think it looks better now but could have been placebo too so not sure. Can someone please tell me if it has any effects when using it alone?

If you haven't changed anything in d3d8.ini (most importantly kept NoMultisampling=0 as it was originally), then graphically it will be exactly the same as original DirectX 8 version.

The improvement in FPS, especially with many aircrafts around, comes from so called hardware vertex processing (there is an option to turn it off in the d3d8.ini, if you want to compare results). This feature offloads more drawing work from CPU to GPU, and since modern GPUs are blazing fast and don't have as many compatiblity issues and missing features as decade old ones it makes very good sense to use it.

Another option which makes game work better (and really required for DirectX 9 compatibility) is "render target" textures. Curiously this option is also available in texture overrides screen of cfs3config.exe (which WOFF doesn't have) - apparently CFS3 devs implemented support for this feature, but didn't enable it by default because it most likely caused issues with too many contemporary GPUs.

Ok, Thanks for the info. You are doing a great job. Really looking forward to the selfshadow and lighting stuff if successful.

Madmatt, if u look at my previous threads u will see I run an AMD 7870.

Ankor, please look at my previous posts in this thread where I am having problems and looking for answers. I run an AMD 7870 with ASUS Maximus VI extreme MB, and Intel I7-4770k (3.5 ghz).

Ankor,

I don't know if you're already aware, but a configoverrides.xml exists in the users/appdata.... location. I tried adjusting the terrain line from its current value of "0" to d3dusage_rendertarget, but got a woff.dll error when I tried to launch the game.

yaan98, thanks, I've seen that file but haven't really tried editing it. I believe it is overwritten each time the game starts, isn't it? Though perhaps some options are preserved.
I'm not entirely sure if that config option does what I expect, I got it working mostly by coincidence

Robert_Wiggins,
it is hard to tell what is wrong. I doubt it is related to your video card at all, converter doesn't do anything special and should work for AMD, NVidia, and perhaps even Intel HD.

You say you tried removing d3d8.dll (my converter) but kept d3d9.dll (sweet fx). Have you tried the other way around - i.e. keep my converter without using sweet fx. If it works this way then perhaps something wrong with you sweet fx config. I once messed it up (not sure how) and the game didn't run until I deleted and reinstalled sweet fx files.

By the way, looking at the 3rd page of this thread it seems that you had my converter working, although with missing aircraft skins (which I was unable to reproduce, but I believe it is already fixed)
What happened since then? Does one of my updates break something for you?

I tore my system down and updated with new motherboard and processor so I was unable to test it since then.
I will try your converter again.
Ankor;

Ankor;

Just tried running with only D3D8 ini and dll in the "OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields" folder but got the same error. As soon as I take the D8 files out everything runs fine again.

Hi Folks;

I know many people have posted procedures on the installation of SweetFX, FlightFX, and the D8-D9 files placement. That said there always seems to be room to misinterpret the file placements and directory structure. In order to eliminate any of the instructions from being part of the problem why I can't get WOFF to run after executing them, I am asking for your help to clarify the following instructions I am following.


I would really appreciate if someone would clarify the following for me.

Originally Posted By: MajorMagee

Here's how I did my SweetFX install:

Statement:

1. Download the latest converter files from here http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3881675/DirectX_8_to_9_converter_updat#Post3881675 and install the d3d8.dll and d3d8.ini files where your cfs3.exe file is. This can be done for each install of CFS3 you may have.

Question:

Which cfs3.exe? The one in the "OBDSoftware/CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields" directory?


Statement:
2. Edit the ini file to NoMultisampling=1 for compatibility with SweetFX.

Question:

No Problem with this it is very clear

Statement:
3. Run CFS3Config.exe and make sure you choose your proper display options selection again (i.e. it may show 800 x 600 x 16).

Question:

CFS3Config only exits in the "Combat Flight Simulator 3" directory. run it from there ?


Statement:
4. Download FlightFX from here http://riseofflight.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=34103 and install it on your computer.

Question:

Any special location to install?


Statement:
5. Since version 1.0 of Flight FX does not have latest version (1.5.1) of Sweet FX included you need to download that from here http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=381912 and extract all of it to the FX folder where you have Flight FX installed. Let it overwrite any of the files that may have the same names as what FlightFX already had.

Question:

No problem with this once we are sure where FlightFX is installed.


Statement:
6. Now you can run Flight FX and click on Register New Game at the bottom left. It will open a dialog box where you'll navigate it to your cfs3.exe file. That will populate the paths at the top right of Flight FX for you.

Question:

Which cfs3.exe file in which directory?


Statement:
7. Click on Enable Sweet FX and it will copy most of the needed files into your CFS3 install. It misses SweetFX_compatibility_settings.txt which is in the Flight FX / FX / SweetFX folder and needs to be manually copied into the matching

Question:

it says "it will copy most of the needed files into your CFS3 install" Is this the "Combat Flight Simulator 3" directory?

Further to the above this is the directory structure I get when I install FlightFX:

Robert,

You don't need to mess with the MS Combat Flight Simulator 3 installation at all. It was only used for the initial setup of WOFF and has nothing to do with the game after that. You can even safely uninstall MS CFS3 from your computer without any adverse effects in WOFF.

I've tried the flightfx, but I don't like that it installs a program on my pc.

Why not give my manual method a try (I even put up pics)?

Thanks for the reply yann98;

Could you kindly give me a link here. There are so many threads to chase through. Thanks

about halfway down the page

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3892674/11

I followed your procedures as outlined in the above link and still failed with the same error.

Robert,

I just installed it using Yann's manual instructions and it works perfectly.

You will need to change back D3DSWAPEFFECT_COPY_VSYNC to the default D3DSWAPEFFECT_DISCARD in the Configoverrides.xml file or you will get a DXInit error when the mission starts.

Now if I could just turn SweetFx on and off so I can see the difference.

Scroll Lock toggles SweetFX for me. Bear in mind it also toggles pan-view and snap-view.

SkyHigh;

Thanks for that juice bit of information. Wonder why we have to set DISCARD when everyone says to set it as VSYNC for AMD cards?

SkyHigh; Update: it didn't work. Same error as before. D3D8 just won't work with AMD7870 card for me, or it is something in WOFF. Are u using an AMD card?

D3DSWAPEFFECT_COPY_VSYNC works fine unless I use the DX8-DX9 converter and SweetFX.

Now that my processor is fast enough, VSync isn't necessary...I only used it to reduce microstuttering, and I'm not seeing any lags or stutters at all anymore. The value of Vsync usually is to match GPU and monitor rates so you don't get screen tearing, and I've never seen that in WOFF yet.

I can't understand why I can't get it to work. I have tried all the suggestions and even posted my outcome here but so far nobody has nailed it for me. I sent the error logs to the devs in hopes they may be able to give me some leads. I am one of the few with an AMD 7870 so maybe there is a problem in that area.

Robert, I'm posting pics of each of my folders so you can have one last gander. Your folder above doesn't match mine exactly, but that may not be the issue, so YMMV. Regarding CFS3.exe, as others have pointed out, it's the one in your WOFF directory. Regarding CF3config... I couldn't even find it. I just opened WOFF at that stage and set my resolution right where it was at in the workshop. Probably pointless, but it made me feel good. I didn't even install CFS3 by itself, as when I installed WOFF it just had me insert the CFS3 cd and I guess it took the requisite files from there:

Here's my root Flight FX folder

...
Here's the FX folder in the Flight FX folder:

...
Here's the SweetFX folder in the FX folder:

...
Here's the WOFF folder:

...
Here's the SweetFX folder in the WOFF folder:


Good luck!

Robert,

Take a look at this:

http://www.overflandersfields.com/Downloads/FAQ%20WOFF.pdf

...and especially check out page 22, item # 19...

It may not apply, but then again, it might be worth a try...

Thanks for responding Geodude. That particular item in the FAQ is not an issue for me. I have the correct settings for my monitor and in WOFF and I know this because WOFF works fine in native mode and only fails when I try to apply D3D8 code.

Try to reinstall directx.

See my post on page 14

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3881675/14

May I ask why I need to re-install Directx when it is working fine with WOFF now? My problem seems to be with the D3D8 files.

It's good practice to restore corrupt files if any. It may not work, but it's worth a try and won't hurt anything.

I had to go through those steps myself.

All your folders looked like mine above, Robert? Bummed you can't get this thing going.

Yeah! Thanks Glubber! I've reloaded my Direct X drivers as Yaan98 suggested. I will try again to see if I can get the darn thing to work in WOFF. My graphics quality and response in native WOFF is really good so I'm not too concerned. It would just be nice to do a comparison but I'm not going to drive myself crazy with it.

Yeah, ultimately the goal is just to have a great time with WOFF. And it's plenty beautiful as is.

Robert,

There's a number of SweetFX downloads out there. I had a problem initially, but the download file that worked for me had the name "SweetFX-Configurator_standalone_with_SweetFX_1.5.1.7z" (no quotes); I had problems with other files.

Also...you've probably seen the tips, but just in case you haven't, one of the troubleshooting tips from a SweetFX webpage helped (along with Major_Magee's instructions):

Overlay:
SweetFX uses much of the same trick that overlays (like for example fraps, MSI Afterburner, Overwolf and so on), and sometimes they can step on each other’s toes. The result can be crash, instability, or just plain weird stuff. The injector SweetFX use do have some tricks for working with the Steam overlay, but the rest of them can (and probably will) cause problems. Try turning off all the overlay and/or video record programs and see if that makes a difference.

Geodude,

Thanks for trying to help. Interestingly I did try the install "SweetFX-Configurator_standalone_with_SweetFX_1.5.1.7z" that was on my last attemptas I too was suspicious of my previous sources.

I do in fact run as Administrator priv on my software and I have my OS on one SSD and my game software on a separate SSD so write access is no problem.

The log.log file is always empty for my failures.

I'm not sure if the split install suggestion applies to WOFF.

Overlay programs are not running unless you are suggesting trackIR. It's a minimalist environment in a dual boot scenario so all that I run is MS Security Essentials and TrackIR with WOFF. I have fraps but am not using it currently.

Thanks for all your suggestions.

yaan: Thank you! Tossed all the stuff I had installed (including FightX; still using it in RoF but it was creating a conflict in WOFF) and used your method to install SwetFX directly. Input all setting by hand (borrowed from Broadside ) and WOFF now looks great!

Thank you!!!

This looks really cool, however I am having trouble doing the downloads and setup. Could someone write up an idiots guide to install this? My expertise is not in computers and I would really appreciate it.

Thanks,
Crimson Tide

Crimson;

read some of the earlier posts in this thread. It has been done a few times here for reference. I think u will find them.

Excellent Tom! I was about to write you a pm to see if you got things sorted out.
WoFF looks SO GOOD with Sweet FX, that I dont think I could go back to flying without it. Just seeing the texture on the ground takes this game to a whole new level.
Glad you got it working!

OK Yaan;

I tried this all again after fresh downloads just as shown in your screen caps. Remember I run AMD 7870 card.
It was a no go!!
Here is a screen cap of WOFF failing on load with a popup:


Here is the "log.log" file contents up until the crash:

Robert,


You may need to disable any type of overlay (e.g. ATI Tray Toos, Overclocking Programs) as it may be a problem with an incompatible overlay program.

Another place to look is that you might have an incompatible anti-aliasing mode set in the drivers (or maybe forced by a third-party program). If that is the case, switch that off and try again.

yaan98;

do you know what antialiasing modes would be he problem? If so, I can try changing things. I only use ATI's "Catalyst Control Centre" not any third party tray tools, and as I have said before my gaming boot option is very bare bones on running apps. I have no overlay tools running. I will screen cap my tray later and post it here so you can see it.

I don't use ATI, but I'm guessing that CCC should have an option to force AA to "use application setting" or something similar.

Also, did you test sweetfx in CFS3 and/or OFF? If either of those work, then the problem is probably specific to WOFF.


My only other recommendation would be to backup your pilot information and do a clean uninstall, then reinstall CFS3 then WOFF and test the sweetfx after applying each patch one-by-one in sequence starting from v1.01.

Other than that, I'm out of ideas.

Is there anyone elso in this thread who runs an ATI card and has sweetFX running? If so, I would appreciate knowing what your Catalyst Control centre settings are at. A screen capture with snipping tool would be great. Hopefully it will give me a base to work from.

Robert ive got ATI 5770.....latest 13.12 drivers...Anti Aliasing mode=Overide App settings,AA=8,filter=box,Anti-Aliasing method=Multisampling,Morphological Filtering=Off

Anisotropic Filtering=Overide application settings,Anisotropic filtering=8,Texture Filtering quality=standard,surface Format Optimization=on

Wait for vertical Refresh=Always On
OpenGL Triple Buffering =on

Tessellation Mode Override Application Settings
Maximum Tessellation...OFF

Thats my ATI settings with SweetFx and no problems with WOFF at all...Hope it Helps

Same settings here, with exception of Box filter. Also, Vertical Refresh may not work with WOFF, depending on which ATI card you have. Many ATI users will need to use a third party Vsync program (e.g. D3DOverrider) to actually see vsync applied in-game.

Is there much of a difference with Box and your settings BirdDog?Im pretty certain that my 5770 is fine aswell bud using CCC vertical refresh,ive tested it on other games and it caps them at 60fps to reduce tearing etc... But like BirdDog says Robert, different cards may use D3DOverrider

Box filter isn't available on later ATI cards. Your choices are Standard or Edge-Detect filters and Multisampling, Adaptive Multisampling, and Supersampling AA methods.

As for Vsync being on in Catalyst, whether or not it will work depends on whether there is in-game support for Vsync. Even if your game supports Vsync, ATI drivers don't always activate Vsync properly, depending on the version of card, game, and Catalyst driver. It's a well-documented, annoying problem with ATI drivers.

Since WOFF doesn't support Vsync, you have to go with a 3rd party Vsync product if you want Vsync. Since patch 1.11, I haven't been able to tell much difference with Vsync on or off. Running completely smooth without it.

Thanks for the update BirdDog,il have a look at a 3rd party product to check my v-sync settings..

Robert, I am using a 6870 and having zero problems.

In AA: AA Mode and AA Samples both use app settings. Filter is standard, AA Method is Multisampling and Morph Filter is Off.

In Textures: AF Mode and level both are set for application settings, Texture Filtering Quality is Standard and Surface Format Opt is on.

In Frame Rate, Vert Refresh is Off unless application specifies; Open GL Triple Buffering is Off.

In tessellation: Tessellation Mode and Max Tessellation: Use application settings.

Don't know if helps but there it is. Based on what Bird Dog posted I may change my Vert Refresh to On but see no need to fool with Open GL Triple Buffering as this is not an Open GL sim.

I have been very impressed with what good FPS I get with rather high app settings.

Adger,

I use D3DOverrider and have never experienced any problems with it. You have the option of turning Vsync and Triple Buffering on or off. Very easy to create a profile for CFS3.exe or other applications.

You basically load it before starting a game, and it resides in memory. You can get it here: http://www.mediafire.com/download/u7li53d4a17d4yp/D3DOverrider.rar

BirdDog, HotTom, Adger;

Thanks folks for the comeback!! Well I don't know if this will matter but one thing stands out. My vert refresh was set to "on, unless application specifies" and my tessellation mode was set to "AMD Optimized".

I will try one more time to see if the adjustment has any effect.

Best Regards;

OK I have discovered what is causing WOFF to fail on load. I have all of the SweetFX files in the WOFF OBD folder as specified. When I remove the "D3D9.dll" file Woff runs fine. If I put it back I get the same crash of WOFF when it loads. I will look for another D3D9.dll to confirm if something is wrong with mine.

I'm getting closer!! Where is the best place to get this file (locations where you have downloaded it from)?

I'm not convinced that that's the problem, Robert, since so many of us are downloading the same file and using it with no problem. If there's something that's corrupting your download, well that might be an issue, but if you've repeatedly downloaded it and it's still that file give you a problem, I think the problem lies elsewhere. Of course, that's probably the least helpful answer for you right now, since I don't have a solution. Sorry!

edit...

Just throwing this out there... did you have a different video card in your comp before your 7870? And if so, you completely uninstalled all those drivers?

Correction to my last post:
Removal of the D3D9.dll got WOFF up, but as soon as I tried to load a quick combat it failed with a dll error.
I then removed the D3D8.dll, and everything ran fine, but no sweetFX. all the other sweetFX files remained in the WOFF folder

In response to your ?, my vid card has been in for nearly a year with no problems and I haven't changed it.
There is definitely some problem with dll resolution when WOFF runs, but I'm lost at this point as to where to look.

By the way, before this recent test I had uninstalled WOFF, and then re-installed it adding the latest patch V1.11

Thanks for responding

So, just perusing the net looking for ANYTHING... do you have the latest version of Internet Explorer installed? Some folks last year had issues with sweetfx and ie10, but it's hard to believe those would still be persisting.

Also, what are your graphics settings ingame, resolution and all?

Just for troubleshooting purposes...while keeping both the d3d8.dll and d3d9.dll files present (i.e., not removed), have you tried changing the line in the "SweetFX_compatibility_settings.txt" file (in the main WOFF directory) from:

#define SweetFX_shader_model 3

to read:

#define SweetFX_shader_model 2

This should *NOT* be required, but it would be weird if doing so enabled SweetFX to work with your card. It might tell the coders something...but I'm just guessing at this point. You seem to have tried most everything, but I can't help but feel it's some "simple" thing we're all missing.

This. I wish we could all sit around Robert's computer and tackle this thing.

So far he's tried a couple different methods, first involving flightfx and then yaan's more straightforward sweetfx install. WoFF has been reinstalled, no wrappers are running in the background, reinstalled directx (?)... it's either something more complicated or as simple as misplaced folders or files, but from all he's said it sounds like it should be good to go.

Yeah, been stewing over this one.

Robert, if you want, you can try this:
1--Download the newest drivers for your video card (or an older set if you have the newest.
2--Uninstall your video card in device manager.
3--Reboot.
4--Let windows find your video card and load it with the default driver.
5--Install your new set of drivers.
6--Load up WoFF and play a QC
7--Install SweetFX ala the instructions posted earlier
8--Load up WoFF and enjoy SweetFX (hopefully the error is now gone)

Alternatively, after step 2, do this: NUKE your current video drivers with a video card nuker
like this one
This gets rid of any straggler files or contents from previous driver versions.
I use Nvidia only, so I just googled a drive nuker for ATI...someone else might have a better nuker to recommend.

As an additional step, you can then wipe your drive of Woff, and reinstall WoFF in a different directory (like C:\games\Woff)

Then reboot and continue with step 4.

That's a clean sweep of things. Something just isnt right...

in answer to your ?'s: IE 11, in game graphics res 1920 x 1080

my log.log file errors with the following:

full path: G:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\
redirecting CreateDevice
initialising shader environment
D3DXCreateEffectFromFile failed
G:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\d3d9.fx(210,18): error X3004: undeclared identifier 'SweetFX_main'

the contents of my D3D9.fx file looks like this:

/**
* Copyright (C) 2011 Jorge Jimenez (jorge@iryoku.com)
* Copyright (C) 2011 Belen Masia (bmasia@unizar.es)
* Copyright (C) 2011 Jose I. Echevarria (joseignacioechevarria@gmail.com)
* Copyright (C) 2011 Fernando Navarro (fernandn@microsoft.com)
* Copyright (C) 2011 Diego Gutierrez (diegog@unizar.es)
* All rights reserved.
*
* Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
* modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
*
* 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice,
* this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
*
* 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the following disclaimer
* in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the
* distribution:
*
* "Uses SMAA. Copyright (C) 2011 by Jorge Jimenez, Jose I. Echevarria,
* Belen Masia, Fernando Navarro and Diego Gutierrez."
*
* THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS
* IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO,
* THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
* PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL COPYRIGHT HOLDERS OR CONTRIBUTORS
* BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR
* CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF
* SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS
* INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN
* CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE)
* ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE
* POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
*
* The views and conclusions contained in the software and documentation are
* those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing official
* policies, either expressed or implied, of the copyright holders.
*/

//Include SweetFX settings
#include "SweetFX_preset.txt"
#include "SweetFX/SweetFX_compatibility_settings.txt"

/**
* Setup mandatory defines. Use a real macro here for maximum performance!
*/
#ifndef SMAA_PIXEL_SIZE // It's actually set on runtime, this is for compilation time syntax checking.
#define SMAA_PIXEL_SIZE float2(1.0 / 1920.0, 1.0 / 1080.0)
#endif

/**
* This can be ignored; its purpose is to support interactive custom parameter
* tweaking.
*/

/*
float threshold;
float maxSearchSteps;
float maxSearchStepsDiag;
*/

/*
#ifdef SMAA_PRESET_CUSTOM
#define SMAA_THRESHOLD threshold
#define SMAA_MAX_SEARCH_STEPS maxSearchSteps
#define SMAA_MAX_SEARCH_STEPS_DIAG maxSearchStepsDiag
#define SMAA_FORCE_DIAGONALS 1
#endif
*/

// Set the HLSL version:
#define SMAA_HLSL_3 1

// And include our header!
#include "SweetFX\Shaders\SMAA.h"


/**
* Input vars and textures.
*/

texture2D colorTex2D;
/*texture2D depthTex2D;*/
texture2D edgesTex2D;
texture2D blendTex2D;
texture2D areaTex2D;
texture2D searchTex2D;


/**
* DX9 samplers.
*/
sampler2D colorTex {
Texture = <colorTex2D>;
AddressU = Clamp; AddressV = Clamp;
MipFilter = Point; MinFilter = Linear; MagFilter = Linear;
SRGBTexture = true;
};

sampler2D colorTexG {
Texture = <colorTex2D>;
AddressU = Clamp; AddressV = Clamp;
MipFilter = Linear; MinFilter = Linear; MagFilter = Linear;
SRGBTexture = false;
};

/*
sampler2D depthTex {
Texture = <depthTex2D>;
AddressU = Clamp; AddressV = Clamp;
MipFilter = Linear; MinFilter = Linear; MagFilter = Linear;
SRGBTexture = false;
};
*/

sampler2D edgesTex {
Texture = <edgesTex2D>;
AddressU = Clamp; AddressV = Clamp;
MipFilter = Linear; MinFilter = Linear; MagFilter = Linear;
SRGBTexture = false;
};

sampler2D blendTex {
Texture = <blendTex2D>;
AddressU = Clamp; AddressV = Clamp;
MipFilter = Linear; MinFilter = Linear; MagFilter = Linear;
SRGBTexture = false;
};

sampler2D areaTex {
Texture = <areaTex2D>;
AddressU = Clamp; AddressV = Clamp; AddressW = Clamp;
MipFilter = Linear; MinFilter = Linear; MagFilter = Linear;
SRGBTexture = false;
};

sampler2D searchTex {
Texture = <searchTex2D>;
AddressU = Clamp; AddressV = Clamp; AddressW = Clamp;
MipFilter = Point; MinFilter = Point; MagFilter = Point;
SRGBTexture = false;
};

//Include the main SweetFX control shader
#include "SweetFX/Shaders/Main.h"

#if (USE_SMAA_ANTIALIASING == 1)

/**
* Function wrappers
*/
void DX9_SMAAEdgeDetectionVS(inout float4 position : POSITION,
inout float2 texcoord : TEXCOORD0,
out float4 offset[3] : TEXCOORD1) {
SMAAEdgeDetectionVS(position, position, texcoord, offset);
}

void DX9_SMAABlendWeightCalculationVS(inout float4 position : POSITION,
inout float2 texcoord : TEXCOORD0,
out float2 pixcoord : TEXCOORD1,
out float4 offset[3] : TEXCOORD2) {
SMAABlendWeightCalculationVS(position, position, texcoord, pixcoord, offset);
}

void DX9_SMAANeighborhoodBlendingVS(inout float4 position : POSITION,
inout float2 texcoord : TEXCOORD0,
out float4 offset[2] : TEXCOORD1) {
SMAANeighborhoodBlendingVS(position, position, texcoord, offset);
}


float4 DX9_SMAALumaEdgeDetectionPS(float4 position : SV_POSITION,
float2 texcoord : TEXCOORD0,
float4 offset[3] : TEXCOORD1,
uniform SMAATexture2D colorGammaTex) : COLOR {
return SMAALumaEdgeDetectionPS(texcoord, offset, colorGammaTex);
}

float4 DX9_SMAAColorEdgeDetectionPS(float4 position : SV_POSITION,
float2 texcoord : TEXCOORD0,
float4 offset[3] : TEXCOORD1,
uniform SMAATexture2D colorGammaTex) : COLOR {
return SMAAColorEdgeDetectionPS(texcoord, offset, colorGammaTex);
}

float4 DX9_SMAADepthEdgeDetectionPS(float4 position : SV_POSITION,
float2 texcoord : TEXCOORD0,
float4 offset[3] : TEXCOORD1,
uniform SMAATexture2D depthTex) : COLOR {
return SMAADepthEdgeDetectionPS(texcoord, offset, depthTex);
}

float4 DX9_SMAABlendingWeightCalculationPS(float4 position : SV_POSITION,
float2 texcoord : TEXCOORD0,
float2 pixcoord : TEXCOORD1,
float4 offset[3] : TEXCOORD2,
uniform SMAATexture2D edgesTex,
uniform SMAATexture2D areaTex,
uniform SMAATexture2D searchTex) : COLOR {
return SMAABlendingWeightCalculationPS(texcoord, pixcoord, offset, edgesTex, areaTex, searchTex, 0);
}

float4 DX9_SMAANeighborhoodBlendingPS(float4 position : SV_POSITION,
float2 texcoord : TEXCOORD0,
float4 offset[2] : TEXCOORD1,
uniform SMAATexture2D colorTex,
uniform SMAATexture2D blendTex) : COLOR {

float4 SMAAoutput = SMAANeighborhoodBlendingPS(texcoord, offset, colorTex, blendTex);

SMAAoutput = SweetFX_main(texcoord,SMAAoutput); // Add the other effects

return SMAAoutput; //Returning the pixel
}


/*----------------------------------------------------------*/

/**
* Time for some techniques!
*/
technique LumaEdgeDetection { // Pass 1A
pass LumaEdgeDetection {
VertexShader = compile vs_3_0 DX9_SMAAEdgeDetectionVS();

#if COLOR_EDGE_DETECTION == 1
PixelShader = compile ps_3_0 DX9_SMAAColorEdgeDetectionPS(colorTexG);
#else
PixelShader = compile ps_3_0 DX9_SMAALumaEdgeDetectionPS(colorTexG);
#endif

ZEnable = false;
SRGBWriteEnable = false;
AlphaBlendEnable = false;

// We will be creating the stencil buffer for later usage.
StencilEnable = true;
StencilPass = REPLACE;
StencilRef = 1;
}
}
/*
technique ColorEdgeDetection { // Pass 1B
pass ColorEdgeDetection {
VertexShader = compile vs_3_0 DX9_SMAAEdgeDetectionVS();
PixelShader = compile ps_3_0 DX9_SMAAColorEdgeDetectionPS(colorTexG);
ZEnable = false;
SRGBWriteEnable = false;
AlphaBlendEnable = false;

// We will be creating the stencil buffer for later usage.
StencilEnable = true;
StencilPass = REPLACE;
StencilRef = 1;
}
}
*/
/*
technique DepthEdgeDetection { // Pass 1C
pass DepthEdgeDetection {
VertexShader = compile vs_3_0 DX9_SMAAEdgeDetectionVS();
PixelShader = compile ps_3_0 DX9_SMAADepthEdgeDetectionPS(depthTex);
ZEnable = false;
SRGBWriteEnable = false;
AlphaBlendEnable = false;

// We will be creating the stencil buffer for later usage.
StencilEnable = true;
StencilPass = REPLACE;
StencilRef = 1;
}
}
*/

technique BlendWeightCalculation { // Pass 2
pass BlendWeightCalculation {
VertexShader = compile vs_3_0 DX9_SMAABlendWeightCalculationVS();
PixelShader = compile ps_3_0 DX9_SMAABlendingWeightCalculationPS(edgesTex, areaTex, searchTex);
ZEnable = false;
SRGBWriteEnable = false;
AlphaBlendEnable = false;

// Here we want to process only marked pixels.
StencilEnable = true;
StencilPass = KEEP;
StencilFunc = EQUAL;
StencilRef = 1;
}
}

technique NeighborhoodBlending { // Pass 3
pass NeighborhoodBlending {
VertexShader = compile vs_3_0 DX9_SMAANeighborhoodBlendingVS();
PixelShader = compile ps_3_0 DX9_SMAANeighborhoodBlendingPS(colorTex, blendTex);
ZEnable = false;
#if (Need_sRGB == 1)
SRGBWriteEnable = false;
#else
SRGBWriteEnable = true;
#endif
AlphaBlendEnable = false;

// Here we want to process all the pixels.
StencilEnable = false;
}
}

#else // if SMAA is off

/*---------------------------------------.
| :: SweetFX - SMAA_off vertex shader :: |
'---------------------------------------*/

void DX9_SMAA_off_VS(inout float4 position : POSITION
,inout float2 texcoord : TEXCOORD0
//,out float4 lumacoord[2] : TEXCOORD1
){

//lumacoord[0] = pixel.xyxy * (float4(0.5, -0.5, -0.5, -0.5) * offset_bias) + texcoord.xyxy;
//lumacoord[1] = pixel.xyxy * (float4(0.5, 0.5, -0.5, 0.5) * offset_bias) + texcoord.xyxy;

}

/*--------------------------------------.
| :: SweetFX - SMAA_off pixel shader :: |
'--------------------------------------*/

float4 main( float2 texcoord : TEXCOORD0
//, float4 lumacoord[2] : TEXCOORD1
) : COLOR {

float4 SMAAoutput = tex2D(s0, texcoord);

//SMAAoutput = SweetFX_main(SMAAoutput,texcoord,lumacoord); // Add the other effects
SMAAoutput = SweetFX_main(texcoord,SMAAoutput); // Add the other effects

return SMAAoutput; //Returning the pixel
}

/*--------------------------.
| :: SweetFX - Technique :: |
'--------------------------*/

//What Shader Model should we use?
#if (SweetFX_shader_model == 0)
#define vertex_shader_model vs_2_0
#define pixel_shader_model ps_2_0

#elif (SweetFX_shader_model == 1)
#define vertex_shader_model vs_2_0
#define pixel_shader_model ps_2_a

#elif (SweetFX_shader_model == 2)
#define vertex_shader_model vs_2_0
#define pixel_shader_model ps_2_b

#else
#define vertex_shader_model vs_3_0
#define pixel_shader_model ps_3_0

#endif

technique SMAA_off { // Not doing SMAA.
pass SMAA_off {

VertexShader = compile vertex_shader_model DX9_SMAA_off_VS();
PixelShader = compile pixel_shader_model main(); //Use this with GPU Shaderanalyzer

ZEnable = false;
SRGBWriteEnable = false;
AlphaBlendEnable = false;

// Here we want to process all the pixels.
StencilEnable = false;
}
}
#endif

Two silly questions :

1. The d3d8 files (dll and ini) have to be extracted in the directory where the CFS3.exe is : I understand that it is the WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields directory (and then the d3d8.dll coexists with a previous d3d9.dll) am I correct or do I have to intell them to the CFS3 directory, provided that i have a cfs3 install ?

2. How can I check my DXconverter/ FlightFX /SweetFX modification is running well ?

Thaaaaaaaaaaaaank you !

CSF3 install has nothing at all to do with WOFF. You can uninstall CFS3 if your WOFF install is working.

NEVER !

Robert, can you post pics of your Woff folder and sweetfx subfolders?

here they are:

Sweetfx folder in the obd folder:


sweetfx presets folder contents:


sweetfx shaders folder contents:


OBD folder showing sweetfx files page 1:


OBD folder showing sweetfx files page 2:

This sounds like the problem I was having. WOFF would crash with FlightFX/SweetFX installed.

I threw away all that stuff and started over with Yann's directions (somewhere back in this thread) installing SweetFX directly (and the converter) and NOT using FlightFX. Worked fine and looks great.

You might give that a try.

But that is what I did!

Robert,

When you open up the 'SweetFX_readme.txt' what version does it say you have? Your readme is older than mine by almost a year.

Also, you don't have the file 'shader.fx' which is in the picture of sweetfx files from yaan's instructions. Did you get it from his link or did you use another method?

If you did follow his instruction, try this link and install again: SweetFX download

But if you didn't, where did you download from?

edit...

In fact, I just rechecked and a LOT of your files in the shaders folder are a year older than they should be, and several files are missing. It looks like you somehow downloaded an older version. The link above has files with the same dates as my files.

I'm posting the last half of yaan's instructions below... don't worry about the converter as you've already installed it. These just deal with installing SweetFX, which you should have now from the link above. When you copy over, it should replace all the files that are already there, so just hit "move and replace" if it asks:

Glubber;

sweetfx.readme:


shader.fx was there but I had removed it after testing. I followed your procedures and downloaded again and copied in place as you advised. Here is a directory listing of the OBD files:



here is the sweetfx_setting.txt:


Here is the results in the log.log after running another test:


I did not do yaan's "open sweetfx settings and change values to remove bloom"

What am I missing?

Robert,

If you PM me, I can send you a single file that you simply unzip into your WOFF directory. Would save you a lot of headaches...already has settings, etc.

This was your pic of your shaders folder:



And here's mine:

...

Do you now have all those with those dates?

here are my shaders as of last download u gave me:

Well, other than trying a fresh reinstall of everything to be sure the sweetfx update didn't go screwie somewhere, I think I've exhausted all my amateur abilities. I thought for sure something was going wonky with all those old and missing files. Where did you get it from before?

In any case, I hope someone with better insight than me will happen along and help you out. You might try other forums, like at Tomsharwdare or Anandtech to see if a more tech savvy crowd can help you out.

Good luck!

Thanks for all your effort. Only one file was missing but that was between tests so not important really. It was always there when testing.

The files I got originally were from Ankor's post [/url]

Then I tried Yaan's [url=ht...th#Post3891977]

I tried so many things my head is spinning

Why is it so damned hard???? I can't count how many hoops I have jumped through.

I mean where did you get your original sweetfx files, the ones that were dated from a year before?

Yeah. Are all the files there new, then? Is there anything that you might have taken out or altered from default other than nomultisampling? Maybe start from scratch and give the flightfx instructions another try?

Definitely frustrating.

All the files were there in my last test as per your download instructions. Only the nomultisampling was altered.

I will remove all D3D8, D3D9 and sweetFX directory and files. download one last time for these files and try one last time. After that I say to hell with it. I need to spend some time flying the sim instead of trying to play with the graphics capability.

Robert, did you try this?

I would definitely try that before giving up.

Again it is a no go.
WOFF fails without loading and I get the following:


and the Wofflog.txt has the following:
--WOFF Runtime Log Started for Phase 4 V1.11 - 4201 : 1/13/2014 11:42:06 PM
Main Menu Screen Starts to Load!
Attempting to gain access to Windows File System for the First Time........Done!
Getting Aspect Ratios from Registry........Done!
Attempting To Resize Main Menu To Res........Done!
Blank Background Loaded!
Integrity Check :Getting Paths......Done!
Integrity Check :Getting Registry......Done!
Checking Default Files......Done!
Integrity Check :Checking Assets Folders......Done!
Integrity Check :Saving Registry......Done!

WOFF Path read... G:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\
File to patch set... G:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\CFS3.exe
Assets Path set... G:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\assets
Campaign Path set... G:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\Campaigns\CampaignData\
Application Data Path set... C:\Users\rwiggins\AppData\Roaming\OBD_Games\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields
WOFFScenery Path set... G:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\WOFFScenery
Main Log Path set... G:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\Logs

Main Summary...... Critical Paths:
--File To Patch: G:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\CFS3.exe
--Assets Path: G:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\assets
--Campaign Path: G:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\Campaigns\CampaignData\
--App Data Path: C:\Users\rwiggins\AppData\Roaming\OBD_Games\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields
Data ID Reference...
Aspect ratio 16:9
ScreenRes: 1920 x 1080
OS: Vista/Windows7

Window adjusted.
Validating WOFF GPU Res Modes...
--User Selected Bit Depth: 32
--User Selected Resolution Is Supported: 1920x1080
--User Selected Resolution Mode Number Matches Set Mode Number: 16
800x600 - Mode Value: 17
1024x768 - Mode Value: 18
1152x648 - Mode Value: 19
1152x864 - Mode Value: 20
1280x720 - Mode Value: 21
1280x768 - Mode Value: 22
1280x800 - Mode Value: 23
1280x960 - Mode Value: 24
1280x1024 - Mode Value: 25
1360x768 - Mode Value: 26
1360x1024 - Mode Value: 27
1366x768 - Mode Value: 28
1440x900 - Mode Value: 29
1600x900 - Mode Value: 30
1680x1050 - Mode Value: 31
1776x1000 - Mode Value: 32
1920x1080 - Mode Value: 33
Current Runtime Res Set To: 1920x1080 WOFF Master Mode Value: 33

--Number of WOFFCraft Detected!: 56
Variables Initialisation begins: Settings Will Now Be Read...
First Layer Variables all set:
Aircraft Skin Resolution: Normal
Transfers: Reviewed
Cloud Fog: On
Gun Jams: On
Weather Mode: Historical Weather Gen
Weather: Dynamic
Player Flight Model: Realistic
Player Guns (Effectiveness) : Normal
Player Main Guns Settings : Normal
Player Rear Guns Settings : Normal
Player Overall Game Realism : Normal
Detail Texture Setting : High
Outcomes : Easy
Ground Gunnery : Normal
Wind : On
Historical Mission Types : On
Historical Videos : Off
Aspect Ratio : 16:9
Random Aircraft Failures : On


INI File read...
INI Settings Follow....
GCraftCruiseSpeedModifier : -8
Global Promotion Value : 1500
Global Light Aircraft Activity Value : 2
Global Med Aircraft Activity Value : 3
Global Heavy Aircraft Activity Value : 4
Global Circle the Field Value : 0.04
Global Circle the Target Value : 0.07
Global In Cloud Bumps Light Value : 50
Global Wind Scale Vertical Light Value : 50
Global Wind Scale Horizontal Light Value : 50
Global Wind Turbulance Light Value : 60
Global In Cloud Bumps Medium Value : 50
Global Wind Scale Vertical Medium Value : 50
Global Wind Scale Horizontal Medium Value : 50
Global Wind Turbulance Medium Value : 60
Global In Cloud Bumps Heavy Value : 55
Global Wind Scale Vertical Heavy Value : 55
Global Wind Scale Horizontal Heavy Value : 55
Global Wind Turbulance Heavy Value : 65
AI Max Altitude Safety Factor Fighters (%) : 10
AI Max Altitude Safety Factor Bombers and Recce/Bombers (%) : 10
Map Text RGB : RGB(55,55,255)
Game Start Year : 1915
Wind Safety Margin : 17
Health Visual Effect Red : On
Health Visual Effect : Off

Second Layer Variables all set:
Campaign Air Activity : Medium
Campaign Time Advance : Auto
Always Announce Weather Stats : Off
Player % Stats : Off
Player Log Book Settings : Log Only Campaign
Player Formation Setting : Position By Rank
Terrain Object Density Setting : High
Flight Altitude : Historical
Number of Sorties Per Day : Historical

Initialization Complete.

Manager Initialized!
Attempting To Run Opening Splash Video.....

I still believe that narrowing the problem down is a good option.

Install sweetfx into CFS3 or OFF (same way as before) and launch either game.

1 - If the mission loads and you are flying, then there's a conflict between the converter and your WOFF.
2 - If it doesn't work, then there is a more general problem with other applications which are running (in the background??) and conflicting with the converter.

If you can narrow it down to either WOFF or other applications, then you can begin to troubleshoot the problem more specifically.

Thanks, but no thanks. I have had enough of this for now. It's time to get back to flying the sim. I doubt it is worth my time.

Enjoy, Robert! If you hadn't heard about SweetFX, it never would have mattered. So put if out of your mind and join the war!

You're welcome...I guess.

Robert_Wiggins, I will look into compatibility issues a bit later, but until then - if it doesn't want to work, just leave it alone

The new version is being worked on and results are promising. I didn't want to post new screenshots - wanted to make it a surprise, but on the other hand... why not?
Though screenshots don't convey all aspects anyway, so instead I recorded a short video (720p).


The video is recorded without SweetFX, only my own improvements.
Comments are welcome.

I am unable to comment. My jaw has just dropped down to my knees and will probably need surgery to reset it.

Excellent job Ankor!

Does that include the 'apparently overdone' environmental reflections you posted a pic of a few pages back as they looked fantastic. Looked like proper doped crates.

WOW!

Fantastic Ankor just....Fantastic

wait a second.... what was that? and how... oh my... Ohrenet' mozhno! Bravo!

My only remark would be that from certain angles the doped surfaces look a bit too reflective (mirror like).
If you could tone down just a bit this effect (only on cloth covered surfaces) it would be perfect!
Don't know if it's possible to have different reflection per material (RoF does it via alpha channels) or you have to find a sweet spot to balance things up...

Perhaps someone can offer further advice?

I have d/l SweetFx..Had DX9 already installed..manually transferred the files into the OBD folders as shown above..used Broadside' settings..installed as shown into the presets file..then put into the file that has the line #include: etc..and I don't see any difference when running WOFF. I checked my Nvidia Inspector and Control Panel and Muti-sampling is disabled.

The d/l is the latest 1.5.1 and it came with a GUI SweetFX configure tool.

Not sure what I am doing wrong?

Did you hit scroll lock while ingame to see if it turns off and on, cptroyce?

And respond in the SweetFX thread, as I just saw you posted in there as well. Unfortunately, this converter thread has become the tech support thread for SweetFX.

AnKor, well, what can I say,..

Thanks for responses!


I changed the way reflections are applied to somewhat more natural but they are still there, more noticeable on bottom side of wings and engine cowling. But I agree that one looked great and I'll try to keep that effect.

Good point. For this video I used constant reflectivity but you are right - it should vary by surface.
Of course there is no such layer in current textures, but at least there is "specular power" parameter available for various materials. It defines how sharp and focused the sun highlights are, and I think I can reuse it to define how reflective the material is.
The problem is however, that specular power doesn't seem consistent for models. For example the Pup has highly specular wings, while Camel ones are much less and an Albatros (don't remember which) has different specular power for parts of the lower wing before and after the strut.
I'm not sure whether it is intentional, or maybe it just didn't matter much for devs because original DX8 engine is not good at showing sharp highlights anyway.

Of course I'll look into it more once important issues are fixed.

If anyone has other suggestions about image quality, feel free to post them. I'm a programmer not an artist so I may be missing something


Da ya sam ofigel


It is important that you edit d3d8.ini and set NoMultisampling=1 in that file, not just disable it in the inspector. In fact you may try overriding and enabling it in the inspector/control panel after that, though I'm not entirely sure it really works.

I don't have an d3d8.ini file. I have a d3d9.dll file..which I can't open. Where would I find the d3d8.ini I've looked everywhere that I ccan think of?

Thnaks

The very first post. The file contains d3d8.ini and d3d8.dll. SweetFX won't run without those.

Thanks very much Got them!

Ankor, The self shadows look great but you seem to be getting a lot of microstutters in your video. Was that a by-product of the video encoding or are you usually getting that type of performance in-game?

Madmatt

I have tried Broadside's settings file and apparently it is causing WOFF to not load up.

However, the default SweetX settings do not cause problems; although the default effects are barely discernible.

Is there other SweetX settings files that I could try that already work with WOFF?

Royce

Do the self shadows replace the game's ground shadow, or do you have to turn that off to avoid seeing double?

Most impressive AnKor. I would have thought that this was impossible. Really, Top Notch work sir. Thank you for all of your efforts. I am looking forward to your release of this with great anticipation whenever you feel it is ready.

I've seen some people report that various SweetFX settings cause WOFF to crash when they load a mission. One thing I have found which helps is that if you get a crash when you "Go to Field", go into the Workshop and change the game resolution, then LEAVE and go back to Workshop and reset resolution to the proper size. For me at least, that seems to do the trick!

Madmatt

Wow, this is incredible work! I can hardly believe this is still the cfs3 engine. I've done a fair bit of work on shader effects in CFS3, nothing like what you're doing, just edits in the shaders.xml and hex editing aircraft models. A number of the things you are after CFS3 has always done, but for some reason the devs have opted not to use these features in WOFF or P3 from what I could tell.

CFS3 already does reflections and a model can be given an additional texture which determines how reflective each part of the main texture is seen. Check out the stock P-51D in cfs3 for example. Same goes for specular effects. The specular power of any part of a model is determined by both a specular texture (I'm pretty sure not used in WOFF) and by the modeler when he builds the plane.

I suggest you have a look at stock cfs3 and see what features you can find there that may no longer be present in WOFF, it might give you more to work with. Let me know if you have questions about it. What you're doing is way over my head but if anything I've been able to figure out about cfs3 features can be of use, I'd love to help.

MMATT

What or whose settings values do you use? Perhaps I could try those?

Thanks
Royce

See this post, I listed them all there:

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3894821/Gratuitously_pretty_pic_thread#Post3894821


Madmatt

FPS drop when recoding was about 2-3 times, I had to reduce resolution and it was getting below 30 occasionally anyway. My PC is a bit underspec - 1 GB GTX 285 and I was recording at all settings maxed out.
From my experience these microstutters happen during first few minutes of gameplay, perhaps due to things still loading and settling in the memory. After that it is mostly smooth.
And keep in mind that this is not the final state.


No, they work together. Check the video for how I fly over hangars and look at my own shadow below. In that scene the shadow which is literally on the ground is game's standard shadow, but the shadow on hangars and houses is part of self shadowing - you won't see it in stock game. I have to note though that I'm not yet sure if this feature will be in the final release.


And I was sure someone must have looked into it already!
Tweaking shaders.xml was where I started: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3879254/Tweaking_shaders_xml_to_get_be#Post3879254
But I quickly found out that original fixed function rendering (DirectX 7 way, not even DirectX 8) is too limited for what I wanted to see. That was when I decided to try something bigger, though at first I didn't even believe I will be able to pull it off.

Yes, I noticed that original CFS3 has environment reflections on P51-D and a special texture which defines their strength. However, most of original rendering stuff is of no help for me, because I had to rewrite shaders from scratch - moving from fixed function to shader model 3.0 is a huge leap
Actually the fact that WOFF devs didn't use original reflections made my life much easier - I didn't have to mimic it, but just created my own in the way I find it easier. This also means that CFS3 is not supported by my converter because it will mess the look of those shiny planes.

I don't know what kind of help I may need, but thanks for your offer!

Sounds like you won't need much help at all! The stuff I know about is the very stuff you're completely replacing so I doubt it would be of much use. I thought you were still having to work some with the DX8 (and apparently earlier!) shader effects and adding DX9 shaders over top of them, but it sounds like Dx8 will be all but gone when you're done. Very impressive! I'll be looking forward to trying it out in WOFF and hoping I can tweak my CFS3 stuff to keep up or disable any conflicting features. Yeah I know, I still actually enjoy Cfs3, but I like to tinker with things and Cfs3 is very tinker friendly, hence WOFF is still using it I guess.

Well, I have tried to resolve my problem with implementing sweetFX on my ATI 7870 driven system to no avail.
In addition to the following I also have a WOFF dump which I have kept but that is out of my league.

I set up another drive as a boot environment and loaded WOFF to it and of course the catalyst drivers.
I then applied the sweetFX files just as shown below into the "OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields" folder:



screen capture of "OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields" Directory:





When I start WOFF, the spash screen (dog looking at record player) is replaced by a yellow animated audio sine wave on a black background and then we carry on to WOFF main screen. At this point I start the "quick Combat" session and when I press the "go to field" button I always end up in an endless loop (see screen capture here):


The sweetFX log.log file is empty so no data to report.

The WOFF logs on the other hand have lots to say:

OFFLog.txt contains:
--WOFF Runtime Log Started for Phase 4 V1.12b - 4204 : 15/01/2014 7:02:16 PM
Main Menu Screen Starts to Load!
Attempting to gain access to Windows File System for the First Time........Done!
Getting Aspect Ratios from Registry........Done!
Attempting To Resize Main Menu To Res........Done!
Blank Background Loaded!
Integrity Check :Getting Paths......Done!
Integrity Check :Getting Registry......Done!
Checking Default Files......Done!
Integrity Check :Checking Assets Folders......Done!
Integrity Check :Saving Registry......Done!

WOFF Path read... C:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\
File to patch set... C:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\CFS3.exe
Assets Path set... C:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\assets
Campaign Path set... C:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\Campaigns\CampaignData\
Application Data Path set... C:\Users\Robert Wiggins\AppData\Roaming\OBD_Games\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields
WOFFScenery Path set... C:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\WOFFScenery
Main Log Path set... C:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\Logs

Main Summary...... Critical Paths:
--File To Patch: C:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\CFS3.exe
--Assets Path: C:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\assets
--Campaign Path: C:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\Campaigns\CampaignData\
--App Data Path: C:\Users\Robert Wiggins\AppData\Roaming\OBD_Games\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields
Data ID Reference...
Aspect ratio 16:9
ScreenRes: 1920 x 1080
OS: Vista/Windows7

Window adjusted.
Validating WOFF GPU Res Modes...
--User Selected Bit Depth: 32
--User Selected Resolution Is Supported: 1920x1080
--User Selected Resolution Mode Number Matches Set Mode Number: 17
800x600 - Mode Value: 18
1024x768 - Mode Value: 19
1152x648 - Mode Value: 20
1152x864 - Mode Value: 21
1280x720 - Mode Value: 22
1280x768 - Mode Value: 23
1280x800 - Mode Value: 24
1280x960 - Mode Value: 25
1280x1024 - Mode Value: 26
1360x768 - Mode Value: 27
1360x1024 - Mode Value: 28
1366x768 - Mode Value: 29
1440x900 - Mode Value: 30
1600x900 - Mode Value: 31
1600x1200 - Mode Value: 32
1680x1050 - Mode Value: 33
1776x1000 - Mode Value: 34
1920x1080 - Mode Value: 35
Current Runtime Res Set To: 1920x1080 WOFF Master Mode Value: 35

--Number of WOFFCraft Detected!: 56
Variables Initialisation begins: Settings Will Now Be Read...
First Layer Variables all set:
Aircraft Skin Resolution: Normal
Transfers: Reviewed
Cloud Fog: On
Gun Jams: On
Weather Mode: Historical Weather Gen
Weather: Dynamic
Player Flight Model: Realistic
Player Guns (Effectiveness) : Normal
Player Main Guns Settings : Normal
Player Rear Guns Settings : Normal
Player Overall Game Realism : Normal
Detail Texture Setting : High
Outcomes : Easy
Ground Gunnery : Normal
Wind : On
Historical Mission Types : On
Historical Videos : On
Aspect Ratio : 16:9
Random Aircraft Failures : On


INI File read...
INI Settings Follow....
GCraftCruiseSpeedModifier : -8
Global Promotion Value : 1500
Global Light Aircraft Activity Value : 2
Global Med Aircraft Activity Value : 3
Global Heavy Aircraft Activity Value : 4
Global Circle the Field Value : 0.04
Global Circle the Target Value : 0.07
Global In Cloud Bumps Light Value : 50
Global Wind Scale Vertical Light Value : 50
Global Wind Scale Horizontal Light Value : 50
Global Wind Turbulance Light Value : 60
Global In Cloud Bumps Medium Value : 50
Global Wind Scale Vertical Medium Value : 50
Global Wind Scale Horizontal Medium Value : 50
Global Wind Turbulance Medium Value : 60
Global In Cloud Bumps Heavy Value : 55
Global Wind Scale Vertical Heavy Value : 55
Global Wind Scale Horizontal Heavy Value : 55
Global Wind Turbulance Heavy Value : 65
AI Max Altitude Safety Factor Fighters (%) : 10
AI Max Altitude Safety Factor Bombers and Recce/Bombers (%) : 10
Map Text RGB : RGB(55,55,255)
Game Start Year : 1915
Wind Safety Margin : 17
Health Visual Effect Red : On
Health Visual Effect Red : On
Map Waypoints : On + vbCrLf
Second Layer Variables all set:
Campaign Air Activity : Medium
Campaign Time Advance : Auto
Always Announce Weather Stats : Off
Player % Stats : Off
Player Log Book Settings : Log Only Campaign
Player Formation Setting : Position By Rank
Terrain Object Density Setting : High
Flight Altitude : Historical
Number of Sorties Per Day : Historical

Initialization Complete.

Manager Initialized!
Attempting To Run Opening Splash Video.....
Opening Splash Video Done!
Attempting to Load WOFF Campaign Manager!
WOFF Campaign Manager Loaded!
Pilot Dossier Loaded: 3
Menu Startup All Done!
--Missions and QC: Entering State
**Opening Player Squadron File: RFC-28
**Player Squadron Service Type : Fighter
**Player Squadron Pilot Service Type : Fighter
**Player Squadron Ace Craft Role : Fighter
**Player Squadron Slot3 Craft Role : Fighter
**Player Squadron Player Rank Number : 3
**Player Squadron Player Craft Slot : Player Ranking sets Slot Used for Player Craft only to Slot 3:camel
**Player Squadron Ace Craft Slot : Player Squadron Status Is Elite or Good - Aces are using Slot 1:camel
**Player Squadron Number Of Ace Craft : 8:camel
**Player Squadron Number Of Reserve Ace Craft : 1:camel
**Player Squadron Active Slots : Slot3:camel
**Player Squadron Number Of Craft Available Slot1 : 0 : IdenticalAsSlot3
**Player Squadron Number Of Craft Available Slot2 : 0 : IdenticalAsSlot3
**Player Squadron Number Of Craft Available Slot3 : 6 : camel
**Player Squadron Number Of Reserve Craft Available Slot1 : 0 : IdenticalAsSlot3
**Player Squadron Number Of Reserve Craft Available Slot2 : 0 : IdenticalAsSlot3
**Player Squadron Number Of Reserve Craft Available Slot3 : 1 : camel
**Player Squadron Dual Role : False
**A Flight Type : Single Seater
**B Flight Type : Single Seater
--CampaignFlight: Gun Setup Data reported as: Lewis ROF:9 Spandau 1917 Vickers ROF:12 --
**Player Squadron AI Pilot1 Lieutenant Jack Nash Rank Num: 3 Craft Slot: 3 Craft: camel
**Player Squadron AI Pilot2 Sergeant Marc Alford Rank Num: 1 Craft Slot: 3 Craft: camel
**Player Squadron AI Pilot3 Sergeant Phillip Cudney Rank Num: 1 Craft Slot: 3 Craft: camel
**Player Squadron AI Pilot4 Lieutenant Kimball Griffith Rank Num: 3 Craft Slot: 3 Craft: camel
**Player Squadron AI Pilot5 Sergeant Jake Salisbury Rank Num: 1 Craft Slot: 3 Craft: camel
**Player Squadron Number Of Craft Required For Slot1 : 0 : IdenticalAsSlot3
**Player Squadron Number Of Craft Required For Slot2 : 0 : IdenticalAsSlot3
**Player Squadron Number Of Craft Required For Slot3 : 6 : camel
--QCFlight: Gun Setup Data reported as: Lewis ROF:12 Vickers ROF:12 Spandau 1917 --
--Dynamic Weather Cloud File: C:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\Weather\OFFLightskybox.xml
--QC : Going to Hangar
**QC Player Craft skin setup successfully: C:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\Aircraft\camel_Sqd\textures\default_t_1917_Bri.dds Copied To C:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\Aircraft\camel_QC1\textures\camel_QC1_t.dds
**QC Player Squadron Craft skin setup successfully: C:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\Aircraft\camel_Sqd\textures\default_t_1917_Bri.dds Copied To C:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\Aircraft\camel_SQ1\textures\camel_SQ1_t.dds
--Terrain Rolling Sounds: ShortGrass
--A Battle is raging... attempting to copy battle facilities for: 1917Ypres2
**Battle facility: 1917Ypres2_1_.xml copied!! From: C:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\WOFFScenery\Facilities\Battles\Raging\1917Ypres2_1_.xml
**Battle facility: 1917Ypres2_2_.xml copied!! From: C:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\WOFFScenery\Facilities\Battles\Raging\1917Ypres2_2_.xml
**Battle Smoke copied!! From: C:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\WOFFScenery\Facilities\Battles\Smoke\ground_smoke_1.xml
**Facilities Edited and Copied!! From: C:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\WOFFScenery\Facilities\1917+\Day
**SceneryManager SetupConfigOverridesSettings Complete!
File to patch will be... C:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\CFS3.exe
15/01/2014 7:02:53 PM ....calling WOFF dll.......
15/01/2014 7:03:01 PM WOFF dll/patcher has exited. Buffer this run is:
--Mission Evaluation....Getting Outcomes Data
!!WOFF DLL did not start or WOFF DLL runtime crash!
!!Send all the log files located in \Logs to OBD Support for assistance in this regard.
!!Mission outcome could therefore not be evaluated!: C:\Users\Robert Wiggins\AppData\Roaming\OBD_Games\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\Outcomes.xml
Also make sure the latest Microsoft C++ runtime DLLs are installed correctly on your PC. These are located in your \toolbox\c++Runtimes Folder.
--Mission Evaluation....Determining Captivity Criteria
--Mission Evaluation....Determining Player Performance
--QC: Returning from WOFF....Getting User Aircraft Data
--QC: Returning from WOFF....Setting Skins
--Missions and QC: Exiting
--WOFF: Exit normally

woff.log looks like this:
2014/01/15 19:02:53 WOFF DLL_PROCESS_ATTACH 4.1.9.2.DEBUG
2014/01/15 19:02:53 Patcher starts...
2014/01/15 19:02:53 Patcher bufferLength 0x000003E8 messageBuffer 0x10C3F2B4
2014/01/15 19:02:53 Patcher: Validate returned ''
2014/01/15 19:02:53 Patcher: options validated. applying patches
2014/01/15 19:02:53 PatchMemorySync: about to CreateEvent(PatchGo)
2014/01/15 19:02:53 PatchMemorySync: PatchGo handle 0x00000364
2014/01/15 19:02:53 WARNING PatchMemorySync: 'PatchGo' already existed. Resetting existing event ...
2014/01/15 19:02:53 PatchMemorySync: about to CreateEvent(PatchDone)
2014/01/15 19:02:53 PatchMemorySync: PatchDone handle 0x0000064C
2014/01/15 19:02:53 WARNING PatchMemorySync: 'PatchDone' already existed. Resetting existing event ...
2014/01/15 19:02:53 PatchMemorySync: Launching game
2014/01/15 19:02:53 EXE 'C:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\CFS3.exe'
2014/01/15 19:02:53 DIR 'C:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\'
2014/01/15 19:02:53 CMD 'cfs3'
2014/01/15 19:02:53 PatchMemorySync: waiting for sync
2014/01/15 19:02:53 PatchMemorySync: sync obtained
2014/01/15 19:02:54 PatchMemorySync::Done: terminate=0
2014/01/15 19:02:54 PatchMemorySync::Done: SetEvent(PatchDone)
2014/01/15 19:02:54 PatchMemorySync: waiting for game to end
2014/01/15 19:03:01 PatchMemorySync: GameDone
2014/01/15 19:03:01 PatchMemorySync: CloseHandle(process)
2014/01/15 19:03:01 PatchMemorySync: CloseHandle(PatchDone)
2014/01/15 19:03:01 PatchMemorySync: CloseHandle(PatchGo)
2014/01/15 19:03:01 PatchMemorySync: FIN
2014/01/15 19:03:01 Patcher: ApplyPatches complete
2014/01/15 19:03:01 Patcher: returning results
2014/01/15 19:03:01 Patcher: errors.cstring 0x00000000
2014/01/15 19:03:01 Patcher: errors.len 0x00000000
2014/01/15 19:03:01 Patcher: messageBuffer set
2014/01/15 19:03:01 Patcher returns 0


mission.log looks like this:
2014/01/15 19:02:54 SIM OFFDLL_PROCESS_ATTACH 4.2.0.4
2014/01/15 19:02:54 SIM MAIN
2014/01/15 19:02:54 crash collector in place
2014/01/15 19:02:54 Args ok
2014/01/15 19:02:54
2014/01/15 19:02:54
2014/01/15 19:02:54 <Mission>
<Params Date="10/20/1917" Time="11:05" Weather="OFFDynamicMissionWeather.xml" Version="4.0"/>
<Overview>Try to survive...
</Overview>
<AirFormation ID="6000" Country="Britain" SquadName="RFC-28-B" Skill="2" Morale="4" Payload="0" FuelPct="100" AmmoPct="100" FormType="Chevron" OffsetScaleFactor="0.4" Directive="cap">
<Route ID="5000">
<Waypoint Type="Turn" Lat="N49*55'31.3788"" Lon="E3*6'36"" Alt="610" Speed="46" IsWarpable="y"/>
<Waypoint Type="Turn" Lat="N49*55'45.588"" Lon="E2*51'4.9683"" Alt="610" Speed="46" IsWarpable="n"/>
<Waypoint Type="Turn" Lat="N50*13'39.7988"" Lon="E3*6'46.8"" Alt="610" Speed="46" IsWarpable="y"/>
<Waypoint Type="Turn" Lat="N48*58'23.612"" Lon="E2*40'42.3847"" Alt="610" Speed="46" IsWarpable="y"/>
</Route>
<Unit ID="9570" Type="camel_QC1" IsPlayer="y" Skill="2" Morale="4" Payload="0" FuelPct="100" AmmoPct="100"/>
</AirFormation>
<Facilities>
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<Facility ID="9551" Type="mission_spawn_facility_6k2" Lat="N50*51'0.6212"" Lon="E2*35'2"" Heading="0" Country="USA" IsOneShot="n" Spawns="FriendlyGround2.spawns"/>
<Facility ID="9552" Type="mission_spawn_facility_6k3" Lat="N50*49'58.7875"" Lon="E2*37'47"" Heading="0" Country="USA" IsOneShot="n" Spawns="FriendlyGround3.spawns"/>
<Facility ID="9553" Type="mission_spawn_facility_6k6" Lat="N49*55'31.3788"" Lon="E3*6'36"" Heading="0" Country="USA" IsOneShot="n" Spawns="FriendlyGround4.spawns"/>
<Facility ID="9554" Type="mission_spawn_facility_6k7" Lat="N50*51'0.6212"" Lon="E3*6'36"" Heading="0" Country="USA" IsOneShot="n" Spawns="FriendlyGround5.spawns"/>
<Facility ID="9555" Type="mission_spawn_facility_6k10" Lat="N50*49'58.7875"" Lon="E2*37'47"" Heading="0" Country="USA" IsOneShot="n" Spawns="FriendlyGround5.spawns"/>
<Facility ID="9556" Type="mission_spawn_facility_6k13" Lat="N49*55'31.3788"" Lon="E3*6'36"" Heading="0" Country="USA" IsOneShot="n" Spawns="FriendlyGround7.spawns"/>
<Facility ID="9557" Type="mission_spawn_facility_6k14" Lat="N50*51'0.6212"" Lon="E2*35'2"" Heading="0" Country="USA" IsOneShot="n" Spawns="FriendlyGround8.spawns"/>
<Facility ID="9558" Type="mission_spawn_facility_6k15" Lat="N50*49'58.7875"" Lon="E2*37'47"" Heading="0" Country="USA" IsOneShot="n" Spawns="FriendlyGround9.spawns"/>
</Facilities>
<FrontLine>
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</Mission>
2014/01/15 19:02:54
2014/01/15 19:02:54
2014/01/15 19:02:54 FacilityMasterList done
2014/01/15 19:02:54 GlobalLayerList::LoadData done
2014/01/15 19:02:59 UnitDataMasterList done
2014/01/15 19:02:59 GlobalLayer::LoadGlobalLayer done
2014/01/15 19:03:00 RANDOM START 0x000000011B0DDBAF
2014/01/15 19:03:00 I 0x000000011B0DDBAF
2014/01/15 19:03:00 desktopRect L R T B 0 1920 0 1080

Robert, did you try this:



So just to be clear, he's saying set your resolution to something else in workshop, return to main menu (DON'T start a mission), and then go back into workshop and reset your res to your native setting.

So after Ankor is done, ROF has what? More realistic crashes and DM and that's about it...?


Very impressive!!

Well Glubber....I've tried just about everything else, so I guess I should give this a try. Can't see why that should work though. Upon initial setup of workshop it was set to 1920 x 1080 same as my graphics card and native windows mode. All the same so to speak.

I will give it a try and report back but it seems like a long shot to me.

Best Regards

I hear ya, Robert. I think we've exhausted the short shots.

By going into Workshop and selecting a new resolution you are causing some changes to various configuration files to be made. Then exit workshop, re-enter workshop and put your resolution back to what you want.

I can't fully explain exactly why this works, but for me it does. I have found often that after I make changes to either my Nvidia settings or even SweetFX and I then go to launch a mission, it will not work and upon "entering field" the CFS3 game engine will crash immediately and take me back into the WOFF campaign manager.

However, if i first go to WORKSHOP, then leave and then launch the mission, it will work from that point on. I dont have to go to Workshop before every mission, only if I start playing with SweetFX settings like SMAA or FXAA.

In fact, I tested this last night and found that just opening workshop and then exiting, not even making any changes, seemed to do the trick. YMMV but good luck and give it a try, takes just a second to do.

I believe it essentially re-initializes the DirectX settings each time you open the Workshop. In the past with OFF you did this by running CFS3config.exe. Well, we no longer have that in WOFF, but the workshop allows access to those same types of settings and SweetFX seems to like that.

Madmatt

ROF is fine WWI sim, especially for those wishing for multiplayer options. There are many people who enjoy it and have plenty of reasons to continue do so. Our enthusiasm for WOFF and what the modders are accomplishing is greatly appreciated by the Devs, however I am also pretty certain they don't want to start an "us vs them" thread, even if entirely unintentionally.

I would also like a take a moment and thank the moderators over at the ROF forum for having allowed an on-going thread for WOFF in their free subject area. Many ROF'ers learned about WOFF through that thread and I would like them to feel just as completely at home here as they do over there. I'm sure all of us do.

Madmatt;

Tried you suggestion but it doesn't work for me. I still get WOFF hanging. See excerpt from WOFFlog:

File to patch will be... C:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\CFS3.exe
16/01/2014 7:09:23 PM ....calling WOFF dll.......
16/01/2014 7:10:52 PM WOFF dll/patcher has exited. Buffer this run is:
--Mission Evaluation....Getting Outcomes Data
!!WOFF DLL did not start or WOFF DLL runtime crash!
!!Send all the log files located in \Logs to OBD Support for assistance in this regard.
!!Mission outcome could therefore not be evaluated!: C:\Users\Robert Wiggins\AppData\Roaming\OBD_Games\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\Outcomes.xml
Also make sure the latest Microsoft C++ runtime DLLs are installed correctly on your PC. These are located in your \toolbox\c++Runtimes Folder.

Glubber;

I agree, but it's like an itch you can't seem to reach to scratch. It's subliminally driving me crazy. I would like to get it to work, if for no other reason than discovering what the problem is.

RJW,

Do you have all the latest Microsoft Service Packs for your OS? Latest DirectX?

Have you used the Administrator Tools, Event Viewer tool to rule out some kind of hardware or OS errors that might be causing application (WOFF) errors?

My apologies if you have already tried these suggestions. Good luck and I hope you track down the problem.

Herr_Prop_Wasche;

Good to see you on the board. It's been a long time since!

Yes I have been there and done that!.

It's really too bad I can't experience SweetFX, since I have a really high end system now.
I'm running an Intel I7-4770K cpu on an ASUS Maximus VI Extreme MB, ATI 7870, two Samsung SSD's (one for sys and one for games), Samsung BX2450L.

Your not using a no cd crack are you (obviously to preserve the life of your cfs3 cdrom)?

I was using one initially before I realised it was a casue of crashes.

No cd crack?

WOFF doesn't need a cd once it's installed. At least mine doesn't.

Glubber;

The No CD crack was useful when running OFF so you didn't have to have the CFS3 disk in your drive each time you ran OFF. It is not required for WOFF and according to the devs can cause problems if you use it.

Best Regards;

Small status update.

I still work to solve some issues which I initially believed to be minor -- they consume much more time than I expected (and it is really tiresome process: start the game, look what is wrong, turn on logs to capture the issue, study logs to figure out the cause, try to implement the fix, test to see if it helped, rinse and repeat).

After those are solved the shadows will still require some work to make sure they look good and don't eat too much FPS.

Great, Ankor. Thanks for the update! May you have strength and will to finish this task.

Thanks for the update, AnKor. Sorry it's turning out to be more challenging (and/or tedious) than you thought. What little we've seen already of the shadows looks pretty impressive, and I can't imagine what must be involved in getting it to work as desired. Hope it isn't causing you too much frustration.

Of course, we're certainly grateful for you effort! What you're single-handedly bringing to this sim is another level of immersion that really puts the icing on the cake.

So, thanks!

+1

Thanks AnKor, sounds like you are getting nearer to completion quickly - keep going nearly there.

(We know exactly how you feel over the last few years of WOFF!).

We'll have to start calling you AnKor HA.

Another week has passed. I didn't have much time, but sill made some good progress.


Looks like I may need some beta-testers quite soon

Looks splendid. My eye wouldn't be reliable enough for beta-testing, but somehow I can't foresee a shortage of volunteers!

That looks amazing!

Fantastic!

Reporting for duty...

Wow AnKor,its looking great

That's looking great Ankor. I also will volunteer to beta test it as well.

I'd happily donate some time on my GeForce GTX 780 Ti Superclock card for testing if you need it.

Madmatt

Alright, count me in, Ankor. I have a couple of hours to invest daily.

Happy to help if I can!

I'm in too, I think....
I'm not sure what I would need to look for while testing or under what conditions....I'm new to beta testing.

Missed this thread until now, sorry.
Is this only the "DX8 to DX9 Converter" working in this video?

Those shadows don't quite look right....

they need to be displayed on my monitor.

Great work sir. Thank you for all of your efforts.

Nothing too difficult

Thanks everyone! I will explain details later, when the tool will be ready for testing.
It will be good if someone with AMD GPU will be able to help with testing. It seems that the minimum requirement for AMD will be HD 4xxx series, but hopefully it is not a problem since they are around for many years.


Yes, nothing else, but this version is not yet available.
The latest one published on January, 1st (available in the first post) doesn't have any visual enhancements.

Ah, okay, I see - that first version is the one I used so far.
The new one with the enhancements makes me curious - looks like
lighting effects working there on the wings - looks great!

There are all sorts working on there Olham, self-shadowing, reflections, bump mapping etc.

Stop teasing me Pol, I can't get it to work on my system.
No big deal though. The stock WOFF is still great to me

No they are only in AnKor's version Robert

6950 at the ready!

How "hungry" would that new version be, for CPU, GPU and memory?

I'm running a HD 4890 currently and would be willing to help test. Planning on upgrading cards soon, but they certainly last a lot longer then in the old days.

Glad to help out any way I can, Ankor.

Thanks again for all your efforts here. They are much appreciated.

System specs:
e8400 OC to 3.8ghz
8 GB DDR2 RAM
Gigabyte GTX 760 2GB

Count me in AnKor if you need another beta tester. I'm running a Radeon 7850.

Kudos to you, AnKor for your work,

I didn't think it possible but you have
made WOFF look even better.

Can I make one small request though?
As a er... "technically challenged" type of
bloke, and once any probs have been ironed out,
is it possible to have an idiot-proof step by
step guide - you know, step 1) turn on computer,
sort of thing?

Many thanks.
RS

I'm with you on that point also RamblingSid!!
It would be nice to have a download package that would install all the necessary parts as mods that could be installed with JSGME. That would make it easy to uninstall at any time. Don't know if this is possible but would be a great advantage.

Best Regards

It is possible and I have done it.
Depends on where you have your JSGME installed...
I have mine in C:/OBDSoftware/WOFF
So you create a folder named: whatever you want actually, I have named it SweetFX.
Then within that folder create another one named: OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields
Put in that last folder both SweetFX and AnKor's Converter files.
This is your Mod folder (SweetFX).
Do the nessecary changes at the ini files, drop the new Mod (SweetFX) into your MODS folder and enable.

Great to hear. Now what would make it easier is if all the necessary files (SweetFX, D8, etc) were packaged up in one bundle so people wouldn't have to go out to various locations to get the files. Make it a one-stop-shop so to speak.

Great to hear. Now what would make it easier is if all the necessary files (SweetFX, D8, etc) were packaged up in one bundle so people wouldn't have to go out to various locations to get the files. Make it a one-stop-shop so to speak.

True, some sort of all-in-one guide (A stickie perhaps) where people can go to get the latest and greatest, with a simple outline would be helpfull, as well as links to download the latest versions of all items, or even a quick install deal where you download one item and it gives you all you need would be vunderbar. In the meantime I'd like to ask if any progress has been made with the most excellent bump mapping and light effects that AnKor most recently tantalized us with? Guess I'm waiting for all of these things to "gel" before commiting to upgrading with them, but it seems very close.

RA.

hi all, i am new to all of this stuff but am loving woff!! thanks so much to all of you!

baby steps, tonight i decided to do the 'first step' and did the direct x 'upgrade'

all went well and smooth but i found a couple of interesting items on my rig (a laptop running an a8 amd, quad core radeon dual graphics ... a few years old now)

frame rate increase was quite significant .. from about 23 fps to 31 or so

strangely though .. my screenshot key - which has always stayed as default 'k' assignment, would not work, nor work when reset or remapped to any other ... and

i could not get my graphics to look as nice as with the 'older' direct x settings, just the fine lines .. the ''rigging' on the planes was much more pixelated than in the older set up views

i tried all kinds of adjustments to my graphics card settings but could not get them nice and crisp and smooth with the direct x upgrade ...??

went back to pull out the two files for the upgrade, et voila, fps dropped back, but the screenshot k key working again and the rigging looking really nice and purdy again too

angkor or others ... any thoughts or advice to keep my rigging quality and screenshot capability with the direct x 'upgrade' and fps improve??

wondering if it can be handled with one of the 'ini' settings?

great stuff and can't wait to see how it all evolves!!

thanks, Ron

SweetFX reassigns your screenshot key to printscreen by default, and the value can be reset in the injector.ini file.

Pixelated rigging indicates a conflict with your anti-aliasing settings. Try changing your SweetFX preset to
#define USE_SMAA_ANTIALIASING 0 and let your regular video card settings take over.

thanks major, these are just findings with the direct x conversion .. have not yet built up the courage to attempt the sweetfx install!!

Change of plans.
I wanted to do a kind of "closed beta", but really don't have time for that. Instead I will just publish development version in its current state.

Disclaimer:
This is unstable development version.
Do not use if you just want to play the game. Download only if you know what you are doing!
May contain nuts bugs.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2918136/cfs/WOFF_D3D9_Extended.20140201.Beta.zip

This version doesn't include d3d8.ini, you can just use your existing one.

Special feature:
You can use numpad 0 to switch between original and new renderer ingame. It is an useful feature to compare FPS and to look for visual glitches.

Known issues:
- ALT-TAB is not supported yet. The game will hang and crash after alt-tabbing.
- Only WOFF is supported now (you may try running it with CFS3 or OFF, but no guarantees).
- Fog/mist may not work properly. Sometimes you will see distant building pop through fog or appear too bright.
- Bump-mapping is there but it is not correct and toned down.
- Reflections are not entirely correct as well.
- Shadow quality... varies. That's where all my work is focused now and that's what I need some feedback on. Note that such glitches like upper wings/aileron's shadow disappearing when looking down is also a known issue.

I am also very interested in how this mod affects FPS.

Leave feedback here. You may create and publish videos and screenshots anywhere of course, but please make it clear that this is work in progress to avoid confusion.

Please do NOT contact devs for any support on this stuff.

Would like to try it and downloaded it. But how do I activate it? Is there a guide what to throw in where or what to do to get the shadows etc.?

Just unpack the archive into "OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields" folder (that one where cfs3.exe resides). The archive contains d3d8.dll and "shaders30" folder with some files.
It should work out of the box. Though you may need to reset screen resolution in workshops.

I lose about 10 FPS. If I use the 0 key toggle more than a few times the shadow rendering stops working fully. I can still see an overall change in the scene rendering, but the shadows don't show up (the light/dark contrast gets too low perhaps?). If I exit back to the user interface, and than fly again the shading is restored.

Thanks for your trust. I tried it in Quick Mission and the first thing to report is - my fps is the same as before (have to try in campaign mode).
Funny thing is to listen to the GPU fan when enabling and disabling the new renderer. My musical ear registers instant change of fan speed tone pitching up several cents and then down again when pressing numpad 0. I can even play some primitive melodies this way! Haha!
Btw, it looks and feels gorgeous. Man, I'm so proud to be a witness to this miracle.

Update:

Everything looks fine except for the yellow bridges and strangely colored hangars:

Really brings things to life AnKor. Fantastic work.

Ankor, thanks for this mod. I just gave it a quick run. I use your dx8 to dx9 conversion mod, combined with SweetFx. I have all settings in WOFF maxed out, and generally get about 50-60 fps. When I use your new mod, I get a drop in fps from 50-60 down to about 35-40 in cockpit view. However, fps remains normal in the outside views. I am also finding a slight choppiness or micro-stuttering(is that the correct term?)when I look down on the terrain from the cockpit. Incidentally, this choppiness gets much worse when I press number-pad zero and remove the effects. The actual shadow effects look superb. I would be very happy if the choppiness could be eliminated and perhaps with a somewhat higher fps.

Intel(R) Core i5-3570K CPU @3.40GHz, overclocked to 4.0 GHz
8.00GB RAM
GeForce 660TI with 2GB memory

It looks so good that going back to standard rendering is almost too much to bear.

Unfortunately, I'm seeing a weird double display of the cockpit, one normal, and one that moves as I turn my head with TrackIR, so for now it's not really usable.

Forts of Verdun. Not an easy-to-miss target now)
Note the strange meshy shadow on the side of my Camel's hump




And some strange shadow on the Camel's wing that I believe to be an upper wind cutout shadow, although inverted.



Just have a look at that fps! (ok, ok, just bragging...)

Anyway, I can't imagine my flying without this mod anymore. It's a life-changer

great stuff guys

question, does the default k screen capture key work for either of you or are you using your own assigned through sweet fx or other

i like having the capture option but mine is still awol with the dxf convert mod ... and it seems to be kicking my resolution down too?

maybe i will have to layer in sweetfx and see if that helps ???

regards, Ron

Try SweetFX and use Printscreen button. In my case the K button stopped working for screenshots at some point although I didn't unbind it.

Very good job AnKor.

Haven't tested much yet. So far I've seen everything FPS-wise from 60 down to 15, depending of where looking and how manouvering etc. Also TrackIr seems to get somewhat slower, but obviously depending on the FPS rollercoaster. If the shadows might have a bit less impact to FPS it would be great. OTOH you get nothing for nothing, so hard to impossible to have those great shadows and having stable and high FPS I suppose. Will test later more. Very good so far

I imagine Gothas will be pure masterpieces with self-shadows

I wish to correct my above post. The 'terrain choppiness' I reported has nothing whatsoever to do with your mod, but had another cause. I can confirm the reduced fps (an acceptable trade-off in my case) and I also have seen the unusual-coloured hangars.

Thanks AnKor,

Just tested it out on some Camel QC flights and for the first public version I think you are off to a good start.

Here are my initial observations.

First my system specs:
CPU: i5 3570K overclocked to 4.3Ghz
System RAM: 16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3
Video: GeForce GTX 780 TI Superclock edition w/3GB GDDR5 RAM
OS: Windows 7 (x64)
Storage: 2 x Samsung 840 Pro SSD drives + 2 Western Digital Velociraptor 10k RPM drives running in RAID 0+1
Monitor: ASUS VG278HE (144Hz)
Resolution: 1920x1080

Workshop settings: All 5's, all other settings (textures, density, etc...) set to high
Test run on WOFF v1.15b with SweetFX and cloud mod installed.

Nvidia Inspector Settings:




I am seeing as much as a 50% or more impact on framerate with the new render enabled from the cockpit view. I tested with SweetFX on and off and it made no difference. Here are some test numbers I just pulled from a QC. With external views, I often see slight improvement on base framerate with render enabled, but that might make sense since there are less shadows being rendered.

Frame rate, Camel QC, no enemy units

From cockpit, Looking straight ahead, default zoom without new render code:
92 FPS

With new render code enabled:
42 FPS

Looking over right shoulder at wing
Render code disabled:
60 FPS

Render Code Enabled
34 FPS




External View
Without Render:
90 FPS

With Render enabled:
92 FPS



Shadow Bug. In the Camel I am also getting the following shadow bug. The shadow from the top wing and cutout is being displayed directly above the windscreen.



If you can get the framerate penalty to be reduced and continue to improve the shadow quality, I think you will have a real winner here. The effect of having self shadowing in the cockpit as you fly around is very cool. For those that havent seen it in action, its similar to how it works in other current sims like ROF or the new IL2-BOS.

Madmatt

Do you get this double-cockpit issue with WOFF?
If it is what I think it is (a screenshot could really help ), then I've only seen it original CFS3 and actually know the reason - this only happens when there are any labels on screen. I will eventually fix it, but it is low on my priority list because it didn't happen in WOFF for me.

I will comment on other issues later. So far they are all already known to me, but I appreciate reports anyway.

When speaking about FPS it will be useful to tell CPU/GPU model and memory and screen resolution. Small FPS drop is expected (as well as additional GPU load to spin up its fans, I also use my hearing to measure it ), but 10 is really a lot.
I still have some optimizations up my sleeve though, so it may improve later.

Madmatt, thanks for great report! So the framerate drop in cockpit is quite heavy. Will have to investigate

Ha! I waited for someone to notice it. There is something directly above the windscreen... a propeller!
Though it looks odd indeed and I'm still unsure whether it may look like this IRL. Can anyone comment on this?

PS: Hellshade, that shot looks awesome!

I've updated my post to include my full system memory in case that helps. Also updated my sig to show my system specs.

Madmatt

I believe it's making the shadows across the prop. I noticed this in my Pup.

First group of tests in daylight with no fog or mist. I apologize in advance for the numerous screenshots, but I love to take pics and I don't know of another way to convey my testing results. If you have another suggestion, I would gladly do it.

System specs
i5 2500K @ 4.2
16 GB Memory
120 SSD
EVGA 680 GTX 2 GB
Gigabyte Motherboard
Windows 7 Pro x64
Monitor Asus 24in
USB headphones

My Inspector Settings:





All Shots are ENABLED except where otherwise noted. FPS is displayed in upper left hand corner of screen.

Cockpit Front



Cockpit Right



Cockpit Left



Cockpit Back



Chase View



Target View



Spot View



Engine Start



Engine Start looking right



Engine Start looking left



Takeoff



Takeoff looking right



Takeoff looking left



Red Area shows no shadow in corner of cockpit. Notice the gun's left side on both images.



Red Area shows shadow in same area when turning head slightly to right



After 2 minutes, a reflection appears



Another view of a reflection



Another reflection



This screen is to show the FPS drop when looking down at the instruments



Same as above




These next group of pics show the FPS comparison between enabled and disabled

DISABLED



DISABLED



ENABLED



ENABLED

I agree that is probably what it was, but I think in reality that's an almost impossible surface angle for which to cast a shadow upon. The sun would have to be just above the wing and directly behind but even so the resulting shadow would not look as it does I do not think.

Madmatt

AnKor, I have some good news. Don't smack your head on that wall too hard as I think I know where the heavy FPS hit is coming from.

Ambient Occlusion!

I had that set to Enabled and at High Quality in my first round of tests. Now on your original DX8 to DX9 renderer it did not cause much of an impact, which makes sense because the shadows were still very basic and not self-casting.

However, with this new renderer the shadows are more advanced so any AO setting is going to have more heavy of an impact.

Here are my new results with changing only the Occlusion setting in Nvidia Inspector.

With Ambient Occlusion Enabled (High Quality)
Cockpit view front:
39 FPS




With Ambient Occlusion Disabled
Cockpit view front:
76 FPS


With renderer disabled
Cockpit view front:
79 FPS



So now I am only getting a few frames hit. The frame loss does get worse if I look down into the cockpit, which again makes sense due to the more complex geometry the shadows are being rendered upon.


Hope this info helps!

Madmatt

I have a 3970x OC'ed, MSI GTX 780 Ti, NOT using SWEET FX, and still using your original d3d8.ini file with your new beta rendering, and it has IMPROVED my FPS by 5 to 15 FPS depending on Internal or External view versus non-rendering . Also I have not gotten the strange front Camel reflection (yet), nore do I have any strange colors other people are complaining about.

As a side note: It did up my GPU temperatures from 45 degrees C, to 65 degrees C and it upped my D3D usage from 60% to 100% using the shadow render. So there is a price to pay for the additional "goodies" even on my PC.

I don't get much stick time lately, but here's a quick campaign video showing what it looks like using AnKors Shadows. Great stuff AnKor. Thanks a ton for this!

AnKors Shadows (beta) + Vanilla WOFF (except for Aris's Cloud Mod) 720P) No SweetFX

Yes, the double cockpit was in the original OFF, and not WOFF (I know you warned us not to try it but I'm just a tinkerer at heart ).

I'm not sure if the reflective prop circle is a problem that should be fixed or is actually more true to life. I wish one of us had a real Camel to go check it out with.

I can confirm that the FPS hit drops to 4 from 10 if I turn off Nvidia's Ambient Occlusion.

The label off trick works to prevent the double cockpit issue in OFF but if you hit Tab to assign the next target the problem comes back even with the labels turned off.

After further testing, I do see the "yellow" bridges and hanger tents with the render on, but they turn the correct colors when the render is turned off (this is without using SWEET FX).

I think the shadow on the prop is probably not too far off. A propeller will reflect light into the pilots eyes (which is why most are painted flat black on the face nowadays), so it doesn't seem unreasonable to see shadows cast on it.

In regards to testing, I've only had time for a little and confirm about a 50% drop in fps whenever I'm in the cockpit, little to none in external view. Also tested in CFS3, where it also worked (though the reflective planes are messed up as expected). It did seem to crash the game a lot, particularly when sweetfx was enabled. More details as I have time.

Is this what you mean by the double cockpit? The image below alternates with the normal cockpit image as I turn my head with TrackIR. BTW, using an ATI 7870 with Catalyst 13.12 drivers.

My problem with a shadow being cast upon the prop isnt with if it could happen or not, its how its rendered in game. The shadow, to me at least, appears to be drawn as if the prop surface is horizontally flat like the lower wing, not vertical like the gauge panel in the cockpit. It also looks like its rendered just beyond the cockpit glass and not the few feet in front where the prop is located.. Maybe it's just me though...

Madmatt

So I tested it out and while it does have the odd rendering gltch,(when zoomed away from the plane, it sometimes does not render the shadow right next to the fuselage on my E.1, zoom it in and its fine) seems to work quite well! I get the prop shadows as well. I do not have the oddly colored bridges and hangars, I am running sweetFX.

2nd Batch of pics. All are done during campaign play (test pilot).

Notice also that there is a slight discoloration on the underside of the wings.

With the sun at my 2 c'clock, there is no shadow above the windscreen



Still going counterclockwise, with the sun at my 3 o'clock the shadow starts to appear.





Still turning the plane to show the shadow



Now, the sun is directly behind me and the full shadow of my cockpit view is there.



Another thing that I noticed was the shadow on wings anomaly. Here it is normally.



When I lower my head slightly down, parts of the shadow are missing. Almost seems similar to the instrument shadow anomaly I noticed in my previous post.






These pics as well as the previous ones were all taken with SweetFX enabled. The FPS drop and variability with it disabled was too noticeable.

Thanks for your work on this, just tried it out and it's pretty great! Only issue is the way certain bridges and buildings stick out now with that brown/yellowish color that's been reported by others.

Not running any mods besides aris cloud mod.

Hi Ankor,

Just downloaded your beta and here is what I've got:













As you can see, most detail has been lost on my plane but the outside world looks fine other than the clouds. The white rectangles are the Aris cloud mod clouds. FPS looking back over my left shoulder is normally mid 50's and is showing mid 30's. Other 2 views are low 50's FPS which is just 3 or 4 FPS low (if at all). My normal FPS is mid 50's most of the time unless very close to ground or other high load conditions. Also, the center message display stopped working. Double checked that it is on, as it notifies you of that, but then as you switch views or labels no message displays.

My system:

AMD Radeon 7850 2 GB
i5 2320 3.0GHz 12 GB RAM

Edit: Just to make sure that something else hadn't gone wrong with my WOFF installation unrelated to this Shaders beta test I removed the Shaders30 folder and replaced the d3d8.dll file with your original d3d8.dll file from your DirectX 8 to 9 Converter package and everything worked perfectly again.

Thanks for such detailed reports!
I will try to publish updates for the converter as I will be making progress in improvements and bugfixes.
Now I'll try to briefly explain all issues and what I'm going to do about them.

1. Hangars and distant objects appearing yellow-red. Long-standing and annoying issue, but I finally found the cause which had been even more trivial than expected: I just messed the order of color components - RGB vs BGR, so instead of blueish tint the fogged objects were getting reddish one

2. "the strange meshy shadow on the side of my Camel's hump" (Rover_27) - good catch, I believed it was fixed already. It is a matter of fine-tuning some coefficients. Too much and shadows become disconnected from objects, too less and you get this. The former is generally more acceptable than the latter.

3. "some strange shadow on the Camel's wing that I believe to be an upper wind cutout shadow, although inverted." (Rover_27 and yaan98) - the game tries to avoid drawing objects which are completely out of sight, and when you look down the central section of upper wing is not fully drawn and thus it can't cast correct shadow. Very noticeable in some planes at certain angles. Will work with devs to fix this.

4. FPS drop in the cockpit, especially when looking at the instruments. This one bothers me, good thing that disabling AO helps, but there is definitely something wrong. Good chance that my shaders are not optimal, but I can also tell that CFS3 engine is awful when it comes to drawing the cockpit (no blame on OBD here), and it may require some serious rework to improve the performance.

5. Shadow on the propeller. I agree it looks weird and I'm not sure whether it is correctly projected, but there is a problem: it not easy to get rid of. Will get back to it later.

6. "Red Area shows no shadow in corner of cockpit... shadow in same area when turning head slightly to right". Yep, quite annoying clipping issue, there are more weird issues of the same nature when zooming in/out. Looks like something is wrong in my math, but can't yet figure out what.

7. Increased GPU temps/usage. Obviously improved graphics doesn't come for free and additionally I streamlined the rendering to utilize GPU more efficiently (previously it was too limited by CPU). However as I said there is a very good chance that my shaders can be optimized further to reduce the load - 100% on GTX 780 is too much.

8. "Double cockpit" in OFF/CFS3. Will look into it a bit later, but I'm going to solve it even if it doesn't happen in WOFF.

9. "Notice also that there is a slight discoloration on the underside of the wings." (yaan98) - will look into it, I've seen it before, not sure about the cause (might be fog related). Though I might have seen it without my renderer as well.

10. BirdDogICT, Bucksnort. Hmmm, this is something new and very unusual. Apparently AMD related (their drivers are generally more strict and don't forgive mistakes as NVidia ones do) and obviously I will have to find a way to solve it. I think I should even make it my current priority.

Thanks for the feedback. Strange that I don't have shadows on propeller at all

Small update.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2918136/cfs/WOFF_D3D9_Extended.20140202.Beta.zip

First, it has correct fog color and second, more important, it might fix AMD rendering issue. Or not. I have no way to test it here and that's why I need your help


Forgot to mention:
chrispdm1, shadow distance is not properly tuned yet. I have to find balance between quality and maximum distance.
If you see any obvious issues like that - post a screenshot.

yaan98, I think it may be better if you put large groups of screenshots into spoiler tags: [ spoiler][ /spoiler]
Otherwise it becomes more difficult to find other information

It just so happens, I took some screenshots and forgot to post them, my bad!!

Dear Ankor. One song comes to mind after this update
And the song is: "Goodbye yellow brick roooooaaad...." (bridge?)
Thanks, this is a good one

Bucksnort's issue looks like it could be a GPU that can't keep up. I've had it happen before in CFS3 quite a bit when I was playing from a laptop with just an intell chip. If there was too much going on, the texture sheets stopped being displayed on different objects and produced results similar to those. Adding the shadows may have been too much. Try removing the aris clouds or turn down some settings and see if that changes anything.

Lowering things that GPU memory like lower AA filtering or quality may help Bucksnort, or reduce terrain and scenery a notch.

Since installing the beta I am getting pretty consistent runtime crashes in CFS3 a few minutes into every flight. I turned on your internal debug logging but in a 60 second flight it created a whopping 800 meg log file (and also killed the framerate). I can't open the log since most editors have a 512 meg file size limit. Here is the Windows APPCRASH log in case it may help.

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: CFS3.exe
Application Version: 3.1.0.30203
Application Timestamp: 3e3ebe85
Fault Module Name: d3d9.dll
Fault Module Version: 0.0.0.0
Fault Module Timestamp: 4ee53333
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 0000781d
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.28
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: 0a9e
Additional Information 2: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
Additional Information 3: 0a9e
Additional Information 4: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789

Read our privacy statement online:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=104288&clcid=0x0409

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Madmatt

Sorry, didn't make a difference with AMD rendering. It's worse when tagential to the sun, disappears when sun is directly behind. Different AA, terrain/scenery slider, label settings don't help.

Campaign with same settings as before.

Some noticeable drop in frame rate only when engine start looking right, left and behind. No noticeable Frame Rate drop anywhere else.


No more discoloration.

I know you haven't worked on these, but I'll report them for consistency sake:
Shadow in front of windscreen still there and appears when the sun is from 4 o'clock to 6 o'clock.

Missing wing is still there.