I’ve downloaded it, will have to wait until I finish work tonight. From reading the unwashed and the temper tantrums, I’d say don’t hold your breath.
One thing I’ve seen, is they’ve fixed the place names on the map. Now at least, we’ll know where we’re getting stutters.
Perhaps that should be a feature, instead of front markers, they could be stutter markers. Abandon all hope past this point. 
they’ve fixed the place names on the map. Now at least, we’ll know where we’re getting stutters
lol 
Ming
This was posted in SimHQ…doesn’t make for good reading, but it sounds familiar
Gibbage posted a rather good analysis at ubisoft’s own CloD forum (http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/8071032709/m/5181035919). I’ll quote it here. I’m still thinking my way through the implications, but Gibbage concludes that the problems run deep in the code and won’t allow a quick fix. I hope he’s wrong.
Gibbage:
I know everyone is thinking the same thing. “Ow god, Gibbage cant STFU”, but this is in NO WAY a rant, I swear.
I know I have been ranting a LOT recently, but thats only because I was hoping for so much more in 8 years, and initial indication’s seemed to show Oleg needed a few more years. So I got the game, and did a little in-depth research myself.
First, for those who dont know, a little background about me, and why you should or should not care.
I did a lot of work on the original IL2 series as an artist for Oleg. My work includes the IL2 Spitfire IX and VB, Ki-43, P-63, PBY Catalina and quite a few others. Im rather familure with IL2’s game engine. Im also a 3rd party add-on maker for other games like FSX, CFS, and have a LOT of experience working with many different game engines like Unreal, Crysis, and MSFS series. I personally was hoping to do work in IL2: CoD since Oleg planned on releasing an SDK, but reading the early reviews really dashed those hopes.
So I got a copy of the game, and gave it a go. Here is what I found out so far.
The game in no way uses todays hardware to its fullest potential. Playing on medium settings, 1680x1050, on a Q6600 (Quad 2.4ghz) and an older ATI 4850, not only am I getting bad FPS (10 over city, 24 over land), its not even stressing my computer out! My CPU is at 24-30% usage, and GPU usage dips to 40-60% over city’s! This I think is the heard of the problem. Let me explain further.
I have an old ATI 4850 1gb video card. Its run about every video game I have thrown at it like a champ. I can hear when its getting a good workout by the fan kicking into high gear. I never heard the fan speed up once. I loaded the Catalyst Control Center to get a temp and activity reading. Flying over a city, something that should be EXTREAMLY demanding, only taxed my GPU at 40-61%.
I highlighted that in bold because I think this is the root to IL2:CoD’s current problem. At first, I was thinking that the game was CPU bound, in that it was using the CPU more then the GPU. If the CPU cant calculate what it needs too fast enough, the GPU waits for frames to render. That would explain the low GPU activity right? Wrong. Looking at my quad core Q6600, a relatively slow CPU by todays standard, the main core was only at 60-70% also, and the CPU itself was running at 24-30% total. So the game is not CPU or GPU bound.
That means, in effect, no matter what sort of hardware you throw at this game, it will never get measurably better. If it cant use 100% of my 3 year old rig, it wont run on anything well. There is no computer that could ever run this game at full detail.
Here is the interesting thing. Over a city, I was getting 10FPS or lower, and the GPU was at 60%, but when out of the city, my GPU was running at 90%. Houses and buildings are causing some sort of bottleneck. Luthier mentioned this in his update about the performance patch. Trees didnt seem to be as bad as houses, but IL2 CoD uses Speed Tree and it has been around for some time in many other games. Speed Tree is a 3rd party component that handles the vegetation. They take care of the shrubbery so Oleg can work on rivit counting on tanks.
Now, even without houses, I had to lower my detail settings rather low, and quite honestly, to a point where the original IL2 terrain looked better.
Is the above bottleneck fixable? Yes. I doubt its an easy fix, but its fixable. That only explains the lack of GPU usage though, and not the lack of multi-GPU support, or multi-CPU support. I think multi-GPU (SLI) can be fixed, and from what I heard, its just the stupid epilepsy filter blocking it. Even if you disable it, the post process layer may still be active, just not doing anything. If that post process layer cant thread out to multiple GPU’s, its going to be VERY hard for Oleg’s team to work around that.
Multi-CPU on the other hand, is something deeply ingrained into the core of the games engine. The game needs to be written early on with multi-threading in mind. Some band-aids that dev’s have used in the past is offloading small things like sound processing onto the other CPU’s, but that only free’s up about 5% at best. Right now, multi-CPU is not a problem since IL2:CoD cant even use 100% of 1 CPU, let alone multiple, but if they fix the GPU bottleneck, the CPU may be the next blocking issue. Things like the DM, engine systems, flight dynamics, and physics must be calculated on the CPU. Having multiple aircraft in the air will GREATLY tax a CPU! So having multi-CPU support in a flight sim is a lot more critical.
A lot of the above problems is typically the result of very old code being used on new hardware. You cant teach an old dog new tricks! As hardware changes, software must change with it. Microsoft’s Flight Sim series suffers GREATLY from old code in that no matter what hardware you throw at it, you cant get much better frame rate in FSX. I remember the joy and excitement after making my last big upgrade. It was WORLDS faster then my old computer, in both CPU and GPU, yet FSX didnt get any better. Same thing is happening with IL2: CoD, leading me to conclude that there is still a massive amount of old IL2 code in the “new” engine. Quite frankly, there is no real way to fix this problem this late in development. You can patch a few small problems like the building bottleneck, but ultimately, I think old code will keep IL2 in the slow lane.
We will see very soon. To those people having unplayable frame rates, hold off on any hardware upgrades. It wont do much for you. Your best bet is that Oleg’s team patches this thing up.
On a side note, im having another issue I havent seen spoken about on the forums. I have a really bad control delay in my game. Stick inputs are delayed by 1/2 a second. Its really bad, and is messing up fine-tune aiming. Anyone else having this issue?
P.S. To those defending the game. Why? If you purchased a brand new car, and it was only delivering half the horse power, and getting half the MPG it should, would you defend the car maker? Would you have “faith” that Ford or Toyota would fix it? If you knew the car had these problems, would you still buy it to “support” the car maker? Me, I would just take it back to the dealer and get my money back. It truly defies logic to defend a bad product, no matter what the product is. IL2 CoD is simply an unfinished game that was released early. Defending this type of action is like giving a kid in the middle of a temper-tantrum a cookie to make them stop. It only ENCOURAGES bad behavior.
Buy the game AFTER they finish it, and that will tell the publishers and distributors that you will NOT put up with them publishing unfinished games!
I will revisit the game after Luthier drops the magical patch.
I read the same post and I agree to that it is not encuraging.
The destiny of COD unsure and the baby genetic flaws.
Doctors are working on the problem.
But at least we have it’s older brother 1946 and Team Didalos are already working on the next patch. HSFX have been updated to 4.101. with their HSFX5.
During the last couple of days I seen a lot of thing in COD that I either don’t undestand or dislike. Like migrating from XP to Windows 7. It look nice, the engine are updated and made for the future, but all the serious buttons are burried below yet another layer and take 10 time the time to do.
Ooohhh now that’s an improvement
now you can choose which refresh rate it sucks at !
To those defending the game. Why?
Oleg gave us a brilliant sim that lasted us for years. Honourable men and women recognise their debts. Slack can be cut
Ming
Certainly Oleg deserves the slack as you say, Ming.
Ubisoft is who should be getting a hard time for forcing the early release (which must be what has happened here). Trouble is by extension then Oleg is also on the receiving end…
Oleg would do well to scrap the relationship with them and try to find a more respectful publisher (if there is such a thing). Not certain why he didn’t go independent and directly through Steam but I assume there will have been contractual issues.
Hello everyone btw Watching thread with interest as I have purchased a copy which (according to UPS) is being loaded onto a Heinkel somewhere in Germany at the moment.
Nice to see you on the boards James!
I have purchased a copy which (according to UPS) is being loaded onto a Heinkel somewhere in Germany at the moment
So assuming the Heinkel is running at the same FPS we’re all getting, it should be delivered some time in July. 
I should just put a bunch of my photos in a big powerpoint presentation and make the noises myself until it arrives then?
If you make dambuster style fake goggles with your hands and have your other half make plane noises, you’ll get a great doppler effect as well.
I think its a winner, perhaps you should market it?
A patch has been released… I daren’t look.
The final version of the patch is slowly propagating through the steam system. If you have enabled automatic updates in the game, steam will automatically download and install the patch as soon as it’s available in your region. You do not have to do anything manually, even if you have already installed a beta version of the patch.
The process should take another couple of hours, and may take even longer. Right now it’s beyond our control.
The patch size is about 50 Mb.
Quote:
Thank you for purchasing Cliffs of Dover! If you have previously purchased our sims, you
should know that they are a constant work in progress. We as a team are proud of the fact
that we continuously support, expand and improve on our releases. We hope, with your
support, to continue this tradition and to help the series grow in the coming years.The current patch contains the following changes:
DRM
- Solidshield protection was removed from the game. The game no longer requires a
second authentication key. Cliffs of Dover only needs to be authenticated once with a
single key during first install. NOTE: this action is automatic and does not require any
action from the player.GRAPHICS
- Significantly optimized buildings. Performance gain is less noticeable on above-
recommended specs;- Removed momentary freezes caused by trees and other vegetation; also changed the
way far-away trees are generated;- Improved block loading, i.e. the periodic loading of 8x8km terrain blocks as the
player moves about the terrain. Performance gain is most noticeable on
above-recommended specs;- Expanded the resolution selection in Video Options to include non-native options;
- Streamlined cockpit render. Also made sure that stars and other bright objects no
longer shine through the cockpit at night.AIRCRAFT
- Removed “rubber bands” from player aircraft that made its movement smoother by
delaying graphical representation of the plane behind its physical position,
with the rare unintended consequence of making tracers appear to fly out sideways;- Reworked aircraft visual fx and added some new ones, such as new MG131 hit FX;
- Improved performance in FM module by 0,001%;
- Turned on cockpit gauges in the FIAT G.50;
- Fixed fps drop when zooming in on a bomber formation;
- Added a special penalty to aircraft with large parts of wing missing. Though this
is less realistic, this will address most common misconceptions while we work on
even more accurate wing calculations specifically for this scenario;- Fixed issue when missing control surfaces could still control aircraft;
- Fixed some damage visuals on FIAT G.50;
- Fixed FIAT G.50 visual and control animations;
- Fixed FIAT G.50 receiving too much lift despite wing damage;
- Fixed FIAT BR.20 radiator flaps disappearing in rare cases;
- Fixed Blenheim propellers and turret visuals;
- Fixed some He 115 visuals;
- When a He 115 loses a float, the physical behaviour model will no longer lose a
marble;- He-115 nose gunner will no longer attempt to hang out of a detached nose section;
- Fixed a visual issue with the Hurricane radiator flap;
- Ju 87 floor window no longer affects the sea;
- Fixed minor visual details in the He-111;
- Damaged Wellingtons will no longer occasionally disappear at a distance;
- Sunderland’s top turret will always behave properly when the plane is broken in
half;- Fixed an issue when engine controls could fail to react to user input for 2
seconds after mission start with Anthropomorphic Control switched to ON;- Fixed an issue when the Bf 109 on Anthropomorphic Control with Complex Engine
Management would also lock other controls;- You will now see overspeed FX and damage when expected;
- Bumped up engine radiator drag to more realistic levels;
- Exposed bulkheads left after engine detachent on 2-motors will now produce
significantly more drag;- Adjusted magnetic compass damping to match the characteristics of a Soviet A-4
compass, as many were unhappy with its present wobbling;- Fixed minor Bf 109 damage visuals;
- Reduced Bf 109 flaps deployment time to 25 seconds.
MISC
- Redesigned multiplayer client and server GUI;
- Fixed multiplayer server search;
- Added Voice and Music volume control options in Sound Options;
- Made multiple other fixes to the sound engine;
- Cleaned out some stuff being stored in memory, putting less stress on lower-end
machines, especially running DX9;- Changed bail-out camera sequence for the player;
- Captured AWOL location labels in Full Mission Builder and put them back to work;
- Fixed some erroneous location labels around the map;
- Made numerous changes to localization texts;
WHAT TO EXPECT FOR US IN THE COMING DAYS AND WEEKS:
- SLI and Crossfire support;
- Improved multicore support;
- Additional optimization;
- New multiplayer maps;
- Additional variants of existing aircraft;
- New missions and campaigns!
NOTE ABOUT AERO DESKTOP COMPOSITION:
If you are experiencing an issue with framerate in the game, disabling Aero Desktop
Composition in windows can slightly improve in-game FPS. NOTE that this is an unsupported
feature at this time. If you experience any problems, please reenable Aero again. Aero is
only available in Windows Vista and Windows 7 and is not available in Windows XP.
Brose to the main install flder for Cliffs of Dover. By default it is
(Program Files)\Steam\steamapps\common\il-2 sturmovik cliffs of dover
where (Program Files) is the actual physical location that can vary for your individual
machine.Find a file called Launcher.exe in the folder
(it may simply be Launcher, if you have disabled the display of file extensions in
Windows)Right-click the file and select Properties.
Select the Compatibility tab in the window that appears.
Check the “Disable desktop composition” checkbox in the Compatiblity tab and press OK.
Depending on your system specs, you may see a performance increase when flying the game.
Improved performance in FM module by 0,001%
Woa!! :eek: Does that mean what I think it does?
Imagine going 500.005 km/h instead of just 500.000 km/h! :roflmao:
- Made multiple other fixes to the sound engine;
…but the sound of a rolling undercarriage is still there when standing still, oh well, the patch was quickly downloaded and installed.
Hello Guys,
I have no problems with COD at all
Well, after patch:
1920 X 1080, everything maximum, 8x Antialiasing, Fraps Benchmark on mission two of britisch campaign (6 Hurricanes attack 12 Stukas)
min 28 max 59 average 54 Frames…no stutters
with Intel I7 950, 8GB Ram and NVidia GTX 580…
with a modern high-spec computer completely playable…so its the upgrade-race again…
Thor
Thor, how many cores were used and to what percentage? Could or should there be more frames from such a powerfull machine?
Sorry just tried this out again post patch and its still an awful sim, sorry needs more patches before i will play this.
First impression: Well, unfortunately not very good. :rolleyes: Way too much fluff, and annoying crap before getting close to actually getting to fly. Ok, I haven’t really spent any time setting things up, hopefully I can turn most of it off. Yes, I hate intro videos in general, I might watch them once, but every time after that is just annoying.
As I said, haven’t spent any time setting things up, flew in 1920x1080, 2x FSAA, everything on medium. Tried the training flight in the Tiger Moth. Had very low framerate, didn’t manage to find a way to measure the framerate, but I’m pretty sure I had single digits close to the ground when sitting out the landing. At higher altitude it was tolerable.
As to graphics looks, way too cartoonish for my taste, can’t explain it better then that. Colors as such wasn’t too off-putting for me, but the whole feeling I got was more something I would expect from a game on the Amiga then from a realistic flight-sim. I must say the movies I’ve seen have looked better, so it might just be a setup thing.
Well, no more testing for me tonight, too tired at the moment, and I need to clean my guns…
Well I got the patch on.
Its a great improvement, its running as slick as Ming trying to sell a used car.
Need to sort out the anti aliasing though because flybys still look jaggy
and I did get a pause when I flew past a 110 close
still don’t like the colour of that grass though.
I got mine installed and managed to get flying immediately. Didn’t see any sign of any movies or anything or did you dive right into a campaign?
Managed to start the Spitfire the Hurricane, they aren’t as complete to start as I had hoped they would be (you don’t need to prime etc). Taking off is a nightmare with the micro stutters and I am fairly certain I am missing out some key things with the controls - haven’t had a proper chance to sit down and look at manual etc yet.
LOADS of buttons to configure and so on but desperately need to sort out the performance first. Over land is more or less pointless flying. Out at sea I can have a bit of a scrap quite happily.
Bloody tricky to fly and shoot accurately but then I haven’t been flying in a combat sim for ages. Feels much more like you’re flying than it did in previous versions, the sun playing havoc with the gunsight and shadows etc are lovely. Love the fact that you kill off the crew of the other aircraft and they stop returning fire, seems much more realistic than it used to on 1946 etc.
Sounds are a bit crap inside, not noisy enough mostly. Got a couple of frightening spins going in the Hurri which I managed to recover from - they worked nicely. Bloody easy to fry your engine!
Thor… from the sounds of things I need a new PC… dagnabbit - that’ll have to wait!
@Insight - I’ve got the same processor as Thor and similar spec of pc, so I’m guessing he’s not taken a trip over London.