Chuffy's Flying Circus

Other Games => Other Flight Sims => IL2: Cliffs of Dover => Topic started by: Badgerton Smedly on October 21, 2012, 03:36:25 PM

Title: Steam Patch - Version 1.11.20362 Review and Advice Thread
Post by: Badgerton Smedly on October 21, 2012, 03:36:25 PM
Tally Ho All!

I know that many amongst us have tried previous versions of Clod with varying levels of success, so I thought it worth raising a topic to review it and try to offer a Q&A slant on the thing.  I've watched the 1C Forum boards everyday over the past year for word of improvements (official and not beta), so I'll try to pick out the note worthy bits which you can look into later.  There's a fair amount of wool and fog around it all because it appears the Dev team started on BoM (Battle of Moscow) as soon as they finished the initial release of Clod which has meant limited accurate gen has been released.

I'll cover an overview of what is important from a playabiity perspective and then it would be worth everyone who's had a dabble putting in their towpenneth worh to help others get set up.

A worthy question to answer before I start is "Why bother?"  Well the IL2 franchise is the only worth while venture out there which is evolving into the next coding architecture to keep up with certainly what the masses want and what PC/technology can offer.  The current IL2 offering is great and works fantastically over all machines now, but what will come next and offer that next little extra and scalability?  Well, not Clod, but as BoM is said to install over it, then the future is pointing this way.

Right, to the Briefing Tent!!  I'll break out the subject grouped by notable 'Game Features/Changes' and then 'Set-up Notes'.  These are all based on off-line experience at the moment - I go on-line tonight (before Downton starts).

Final note - Excuse the first draft typos, I'll edit them later.

'Game Features/Changes'
AI Performance:
• The Tie-Fighter like performance has been sorted out in the latest patch, so you won't have to deal with 109's pulling turns at 15g. The squad AI is certainly more intelligent now and this has been helped by them actually following the limited commands there are available to give.

Visual Stuff:
• The colours and textures have been toned down somewhat as have the tracer effects. Not the end of the world and I'd be interested to see what people think.
• The game's (AA Antialaising) has not been optimimised in the graphics engine, so tweaking is required.  I'll touch on this later.
• Clouds and smoke are still a problem because of the way the smoke particles are rendered on screen.  Your FPS will take a hit but that can be limited in the settings.
• The mission set up screens are still terrible.  The 3D model of your chosen kite is poor. 

Game Play Stuff
• I've still got to get into the new features on offer but the are more versoins of AC available based on octane levels.  I'm sure that this is just online so I'll cover that another time.
• TrackIR and the general 6FOD works well. 
• As mentioned, AI is certainly smarter and yesterday a 110 certainly didn't want to give up on me where as before they were a little more shy.  On the down side my wingman got a bit over familiar and took a section of my starboard wing off when rejoining formation.  Hmmm that smacks of old Il2 behaviour I think!


'Set-Up Notes'

Right, this is the important bit.  NOTE!!!!!!  The settings in game do not offer the diverse changes in set-up that you think, in fact some do not really do anything.  I'd recommend that you look on the 1C forum to get the detail but follow the general guide below.  Feel like it's a waste of time because your rig isn't new?  It doesn't matter!!  Top end kit won't give you much over 2 or 3 year peices of kit!  There are guys out there running this game on core Duo machines with 4 gig of ram.

So on the in-game settings:

• Detail Levels: Set everything to MEDIUM to start with.
• Switch the SSAO (i think its called) and Epilepsy jobby OFF.
• Forest amounts to very low (this is not medieval England any way)
• Buildings to Low
• Building details to low.
• Keep effects to medium

To test the setup play a track (hurri vs he111) over water and see what FPS you are getting.  It's not just about FPS, look at stutters too.  The game is terrible at managing VRAM (on your card), so you have to allow for this in the settings. When you're happy with the 'over water' track then run the Black Death' track and see how it performs.

Right, for those with ndivia cards, there is some work you can do there.  Remember the tweak guide I posted a while ago?

http://www.tweakguides.com/NVFORCE_6.html (http://www.tweakguides.com/NVFORCE_6.html)

If you have a SLI set up then e-mail me and we'll set you up a profile and how to get that working.

Remember the old IL2 rules: If you apply settings on your card then don't apply them in-game and vice versa.  I'll post some screenies with the settings a bit later.

As mentioned, I'll go on-line and get kicked around there tonight to see how the flight models compare.  I'll use the Spitfire 1a and Rotol Hurricane.  Can't abide those BLue crates, so that'll have to be another time.

That's all for now.  Let Us know how you get on by posting here. 

Good luck!

Badger

Title: Re: Steam Patch - Version 1.11.20362 Review and Advice Thread
Post by: =CfC=Fitz on October 21, 2012, 04:44:55 PM
I'll be keeping an eye on this thread to see if they have managed to fix anything. I'm very pessimistic personally  :( After finding that with everything set to off if possible or low if not, visuals look like an 8bit arcade game but still really laggy and certainly not playable. I uninstalled at this point and haven't looked back.

Unless there is an order of magnitude performace increase, I don't think I'll bother re-installing. Perhaps when CloD '46 comes out I will.....
Title: Re: Steam Patch - Version 1.11.20362 Review and Advice Thread
Post by: Badgerton Smedly on October 21, 2012, 10:18:13 PM
Fitz, I think that there are many  improvements in performance, but not if you're expecting '1946' like results.  I think the code just isn't up to it.

Realistically and major gains will be delivered with BoM (if it gets there) and that I think will be at least 12 months away and that's being optimistic.

Dash this dirty business we call "war"!


I blame the Hun and all his evil deeds! Beastly fiends!

Badger
Title: Re: Steam Patch - Version 1.11.20362 Review and Advice Thread
Post by: =CfC=Fitz on October 21, 2012, 11:14:18 PM
Well the only thing I have that's a bit below par is my graphics card but I was only two patches behind this one and the game was completely un-playable with everything off or on low. This meant the graphics were considerably worse than '46 but still framerates in single digits.

As an aside, when checking resources my CPU was running at 50% on one core, 25% on another and idling on the other two. My RAM was only a third used and my GPU wasn't even breaking a sweat. It's just very poorly coded. I was hoping that they would eventually 'fix' the engine but I think that this isn't likely to be on the cards.

I could probably do some tweaking to fool my machine into running at full whack but I'm not sure that the performance gain will make it playable. Even if it does, I'm not sold on what CloD has to offer in comparison to the latest version of '46. Big fail from the banana camp..... Now if the RoF chaps were to do a WW2 sim, my ears would definately prick up!
Title: Re: Steam Patch - Version 1.11.20362 Review and Advice Thread
Post by: =CfC=Father Ted on October 22, 2012, 01:52:40 AM
Quote from: =CfC=Fitz on October 21, 2012, 11:14:18 PM
Now if the RoF chaps were to do a WW2 sim, my ears would definately prick up!

This would seem to be the logical thing, but I wonder if there's a "gentleman's agreement" between the two publishers about not treading on one another's toes.  Also, I wonder if the RoF engine might struggle with the more complex demands of WW2 combat - but that's just uninformed speculation.

CloD runs okay on my mid-range pooter, but it doesn't offer me enough over IL2 to persuade me to put the time into learning it.  The other thing is that I'm now totally sold on MP for these games - SP holds zero  attraction.  If CloD develops a robust MP scene, and if my mates (ie Chuffolites) embrace it, then I'll jump, but until then it's IL2 and RoF.

So, Badger, stick up a server and let's fly!
Title: Re: Steam Patch - Version 1.11.20362 Review and Advice Thread
Post by: Badgerton Smedly on October 22, 2012, 08:19:25 AM
A good perspective Ted. The current state of Clod is the same as IL2 back in 2003. The main difference is that there weren't really that many expectations back then.

Yes I am a Clodite!! The motivation for me is that The IL series up to 46 has had its day. The modding certainly broke up the MP community and gave us fish-tailing Spitfires. I appreciate the UP series improved this but I want to plug and play. Also, if you're thinking towards recruitment then Clod is in the focus at the moment. Any way I know that CfC has plenty of life with 46 so this isn't a priority.

RoF also had a shoddy first delivery but is getting there. There are a couple of RoF guys now on the BoM team so that should help :) Let's see what happens!

No need to wait for the server Ted - we can jump on the ATAG server fttb. I'll post when I'm up.

Toodles

Badger
Title: Re: Steam Patch - Version 1.11.20362 Review and Advice Thread
Post by: CFC_Conky on October 24, 2012, 07:59:58 PM
I'm surprised the coding is so buggy in Clod, Russian programmers are usually very good because they had less access to high-end hardware, making efficient coding necessary.

I guess they've now become as lazy as their western counterparts :D!

BTW, my new neighbor is a Russian chap who works as a lead programmer for Microsoft. I should hit him up for a free version of Win8  ;).

Pip, pip,
Conky
Title: Re: Steam Patch - Version 1.11.20362 Review and Advice Thread
Post by: Badgerton Smedly on October 25, 2012, 08:01:35 AM
Conky

I think the production team were push to get something out or drop the idea all together, so they got what was effectively a 'proof of concept' build (not even alpha),  plugged in some fixes that would be reusable, tarted it up and got it out. Patches have been space because of the focus on the sequel.

Because of the lack of effort and focus so of the models aren't finished (which could mean the were tested but not reworked) and some fixes impacted other functionality that worked before. Ie lack of adequate testing. It all points to no time investment and lack of focus, I presume because of the sequel.

So, because of the buggy code, which is reasonably stable now is not optimised how can you get it to work to the quality of comparative games? PC Power. This is not acceptable I agree, but it's an unfortunate fact. If you want it to run with good FPS (50-60) with features turned up to the higher rung then beefier faster kit is required. Very poor and the anger because of it is justified.

The sad fact is that once you do get it working and working well with its new features DM and FM's you don't want to touch 46 again, it feels quite primitive. All a matter of perspective, I know.

Anyhoo - onwards to give Harry Hun 6 of the best!!!

Toodles

Badger
Title: Re: Steam Patch - Version 1.11.20362 Review and Advice Thread
Post by: CFC_Conky on October 25, 2012, 11:00:26 PM
Tally Ho Badger!

I also believe that the future of WW2 flight sims points to products like Clod. RoF is already a big leap in graphics quality, and like IL2 back in 2001, bring current systems to their knees. That said, as old as ol' '46 is, with the more powerful pc's, vcards, bigger monitors and visual enhancements brought about with the mod packs, it is still a very nice looking sim.

My current machine is reaching the end of it's useful life when it comes to the newer games; RoF is playable but only if I turn everything waaaayyy down and operate a the relatively low resolution of 1280X1024. Still nice on my new 27" monitor but the writing is on the wall... I'm probably two generations of cpu's behind the power curve, running WinXP 32bit with a paltry 4gb of ram and an anemic GTS250 512mb vcard.

In the meantime, the high-speed aluminum tubing is running smoothly, I will be in London on the 11th. I'll try to remember to have a minute of silence at 11am.

Pip, pip,
Conky
Title: Re: Steam Patch - Version 1.11.20362 Review and Advice Thread
Post by: Badgerton Smedly on October 26, 2012, 07:52:34 AM
Tally Ho Conky!

No truer works were ever spoken!

Well for those Chaps who can dabble in a bit of CoD this sub-forum is here. As people do upgrade their kit it'll get easier to play if they want to. I'll plug some technical tips here over the weekend.

As Fitz has said, upgrading kit can be affordable if done yourself. I took his advice last time and saved a packet. Bundles are a good route too but a little more expensive per item. Any way, I digress!

I'll pop you a mail regarding the 11th.

Toot-Toot!!

Badger