[fsphiladelphia]

OK -- I decided that I wanted to see how much I could get out of this system (without overclocking my video card).  So I got the driver cleaner pro, cleaned out my drivers, reinstalled forceware, and then installed nvtray.  From there, I made sure that the settings were on high quality, and I moved the AA from 8xS AA to 16xS AA.

At first I went into the game and I noticed next to a cap ship that if I scrolled around, the hull textures would ripple/twinkle/flicker -- like a 'paging' effect, I think is what it is called.  So I thought, OK this is not going to work out.  But my framerates stayed pretty high, up in the 80's.

When all hell broke loose in the mission and 3 minbari capships started blowing things up and there were multiple fighters, the framerates dropped, and when things started exploding near me, framerates dipped into the 30's.

So I came out of the program and added the -img2dds flag and -mipmap and I also enabled Vsynch in the launcher.  Previously, I had it disabled in the launcher and enabled in the nvidia control panel.

When I went back in, the vsynch has the framerates pegged at 59 or 60 at all times, there doesn't seem to be any slowdown at all in the middle of huge chaotic combat situations, including with lots of explosions, and the effect when I am near capships is almost non-existent (to the point where it's truly not a big deal).

Couple of questions -- first, what is the official terminology to describe that wavy ripple flicker effect near large textures?  Second, are there any other steps that I can take or things I can add to the command line to smooth the performance out?  Third, I see that my video card's temperature is at around 67C during the game -- is this too hot for a geforce 7600 GT?  While doing this post (ie: almost idle) it is at 58C.  Is that too hot?

I hope that I'm at an appropriate temperature with the core because Freespace has never looked this good on my system and it seems to be holding up OK so far.

[wdarkk]

The AA slider in the launcher is a placeholder and doesn't actually do anything.

[fsphiladelphia]

The AA slider in th' launcher is a placeholder an' doesn't actually do anythin'.

I set the AA via nvtray.

[Herra Tohtori]

Couple o' questions -- first, what is th' official terminology t' describe wot wavy ripple flicker effect near large textures?

Like with beams looking like comicbook thunderbolts with kinda jagged edges flickering in and out of existence?

Second, are there any other steps wot I can take or thin's I can add t' th' command line t' smooth th' performance out?

Not that I know of... except -img2dds, which essentially converts all textures to a DDS format, which lowers the system and GPU memory requirements and and also ensures rather smooth mip mapping... but the thing is, as far as I know DDS compression is rather unfriendly at effects with smooth gradients in them, so it might cause some pixelation. Or not. Anyway, you might want to play around with it - if it causes any observable pixelation/compression artefacts but doesn't affect framerates in any meaningful way, you might as well chalk it out of your command line if it is there. And enable mip mapping in driver control panel.

Third, I see wot me video card's temperature is at aroun' 67C durin' th' game -- is this 'ere too hot fer a geforce 7600 GT?  While doin' this 'ere post (ie: almost idle) it is at 58C.  Is wot too hot?

It's not too hot, the throttledown temps are way higher than that... GPU's in general can take that much heat easily. However, if you really want to improve it, fit your GPU with a new cooler. I've got an XFX GeForce 7600 XXX-edition [which actually is factory overclocked a lot higher than it's supposed to be according to the manufacturer's web page - default 650MHz for core versus supposed 590MHz, quite a difference I dare say, and 2x800 MHz for the memory...]. Ever since I fitted it with a Zalman VF-700Cu heatsink/fan, it rarely goes past 50 degrees Celcius. Most of the time it's idling at about 43-45 deg C when the ambient room temperature is about 20 degrees Celcius.

I hope wot I'm at an appropriate temperature with th' core on account o' Freespace has ne'er looked this 'ere good on me system an' it seems t' be holdin' up OK so far.

It seems all right to me for a retail cooler, mine used to idle at +50 as well and load at about 60 degrees.

And my older MSI GeForce 6600 was even hotter with it's default cooler... never tried fitting that with a new cooler and it works perfectly fine still, I'm just not using it.


By the way, did you know that NVidia's Quadro drivers work rather fine on GeForce cards (which normally use ForceWare drivers)? On my particular PC, the Direct3D performance on some games seems to be a lot better with Quadro drivers, on others there's no observable effect. The bad thing is, Quadro drivers make things look really crappy at 8SxAA - it makes everything kinda fuzzy.

[fsphiladelphia]

I just went with the Forceware drivers because I didn't know there were other options.  I don't know if I'm going to be using 8SXAA on FS2 anymore since 16X seems to be just fine, performance wise.  However, a quick test on Star Wars Battlefront II shows me that I can't go past 8SXAA on that game (or probably any other).