reflection on reflections

[dominique]

The reflection of clouds and trees on water are quite nice. I wonder what kind of GPU power is needed here. Do we need more hamsters in the treadmill ?

[simonovman]

I don't know whether this is relevant, seeing that the engines are so different, but one of the features introduced by the "Forgotten Battles" version of IL-2 was water reflections of this sort (trees along the bank, I don't recall if they tried to do clouds too) and it did indeed jack up the resource demands. So much so that most users turned it off as not being worth the frame hit; I certainly did.

On the other hand combat simmers have different priorities; you need the best possible fps in order to shoot straight and avoid getting shot, and besides, the rates drop precipitously when you've got a lot of airplanes buzzing around the area shooting at each other and blowing up and so on. Most combat simmers regard a base frame rate of anything under 30 fps as unacceptable, whereas lots of FS users are delighted if we can maintain over 20.

And the Il-2 engine is on the whole less efficient than the later versions of FS. So it's not the same; but that's the closest comparable experience I've got to draw on, and it does indicate that water reflections are likely to create a distinct increase in resource demands. How big an increase, though, remains (like everything else) to be seen.

[scubakobe]

I think system requirements will be coming out soon, so you could make your own guesses, but I would wait for the real answer.

[simonovman]

Oh, well, the official system requirements are always wildly optimistic. That's one of the two things you can count on: the published screenshots will have been taken at maximum settings, and the published requirements will be what it takes to run at minimum settings.

That's not particularly with FS, though. In fact MSFS hasn't by any means been the worst offender in this regard. The published system requirements for Forgotten Battles are realistic only if you like slide shows, and those for Call of Duty are even more fanciful.

It's just something the manufacturers do. Like the mileage figures for new cars, or the ammunition makers' published ballistics numbers.

"Wait for the real answer" is excellent sense, providing you keep in mind that the only "real answer" that means anything is what actually happens when you install it in your machine and try to run it. And even then one person's answer doesn't necessarily translate into someone else's, because we all want different things.

[scubakobe]

Well, whatever the cause, I will be glad to have FS X. Also, I hope my ATI Radeon X300 is enough to handle all of the new stuff like reflective texturing and other stuff. No matter what happens, I will still be happy with it. I was happy with FS2004 the whole time I had it, now I am just discovering Display options, and making it look a tad better.
I sure hope it comes out in February!