Hello everyone, I wanted to share some performance tips and observations for Vsync users. Hopefully this will help those of you with similar systems... rF2 Build 85 System specs: CPU: Intel i5-2500K (no overclocking) MB: Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 (F10 bios) RAM: 8GB Corsair DDR3 1600 - CML8GX3M2A1600C9 (set to XMS profile in bios) HD: Crucial 128MB SSD GPU: eVGA GTX 580 1.5GB DDR5 - model # 015-P3-1582-A1 Two 1920x1080 monitors setup in clone mode Resolution: 1920x1080x32 OS: Windows 7 64-bit, SP1 - All critical Windows updates applied - Windows Power Plan set to High Performance (Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Power Options) - No other performance tweaks/settings applied to OS ----------------------------------------------------------- Nvidia drivers: 296.10 NOTE: On my system the new 300 series drivers cause major stutter & freeze issues with rF2 ----------------------------------------------------------- Other software running during game sessions: CoreTemp eVGA Precision (just to control fan speeds and monitor the GPU) SLIMax manager (software for my shift light indicator) AVG Free version (doesn't seem to help or hurt so I leave it running) ----------------------------------------------------------- Nvidia Control Panel Settings for rF2 executable: Ambient Occlusion: Off/NA Anistropic Filtering: App-controlled AA - Gamma correction: On AA - Mode: App-controlled AA - Setting: App-controlled AA - Transparency: Multisample CUDA - GPUs: All Max pre-rendered frames: 1 Multi-display accelleration: Multi display performance mode Power Management Mode: Prefer Max Performance Texture filter - Anistropic optimization: Off Texture filter - Negative LOD Bias: Clamp Texture Filter - Quality: High Quality Testure Filter - Trilinear Optimization: On Threadded Optimization: Auto Triple Buffering: On Vertical Sync: Force On Note: Forcing vSync on in the control panel is a stutter "fix" for my particular system ----------------------------------------------------------- rF2 Video Setup: Res: 1920x1080x32 Sync: None AA: Level 3 Refresh Rate: 60Hz HDR: Off FXAA: Off Widescreen UI: On Windowed: Off NOTES: 1. I have noticed a few instances of FPS momentarily dropping below 60 with HDR on. 2. FXAA works fine turned on, but only if HDR is enabled. With HDR Off and FXAA on I get a black screen in cockpit. ---------------------------------------------------------- rF2 In-game settings: Circuit Detail: Full Player Detail: Full Opponent Detail: Full Texture Detail: Full Texture Filter: X16 Anistropic Special Effects: Full Shadows: High Shadow Blur: Off Movies: On Sun Occlusion: Yes Rain: Yes Road Reflection: Yes Env Reflection: Yes Wind and Crown Motion: Yes Visible Vehicles: 30 Mirrors: On Sounds: 32 Replays: On Fidelity: Full Record Hot Laps: On Replay Time: 40 seconds NOTE: As you can see, all in-game options are set to their max values, except shadows & shadow blur. Shadows are set to High due to the shadow bug/issues that others have already reported. Blur was removed due to minor performance impact. ---------------------------------------------------------- .PLR Modifications from stock: Max Framerate="62.00000" NOTE: This appears to be the key to getting very good performance with VSync. I can run most settings maxed out while maintaining 60 FPS at all times. With this option disabled (set to 0) I have to reduce in-game graphics settings significantly to eliminate stutter & reduced framerates. Also, just FYI this behavior was present in one of the earlier builds (not sure if it was 49 or 60), but with build 69 there was no performance benefit to enabling this setting. ---------------------------------------------------------- Observations: - All testing has been done with 19 AI cars, 5 lap races, with my car starting 10th - With the system and game configured as above, from cockpit or T-cam view I have yet to see any stutters or frame reductions below 60FPS. - Trackside cams have also shown no reductions from 60 FPS, with the exception of the Historics. Historics will drop below 60FPS momentarily in heavy traffic conditions (>15 cars in frame) at certain spots at both Spa and Monaco. - Trackside cams will occasionally show a slight stutter Potential bug with the Historics: This happens at both Spa and Monaco... I get a significant FPS increase by restarting the race session. However, you must execute the restart from the track after the green flag waves - hit esc and click restart. Exiting to the monitor and clicking "restart race" will not produce any improvement. When I go to the grid from the UI, the FPS average at Spa and Monaco while sitting on the grid is about 50. After the green flag waves, I hit escape, then click restart race. By doing this the FPS goes to 60 and remains there for the entire race (from cockpit view). Running other cars at Monaco or Spa does not show the same behavior, so I believe this issue is specific to the historic GP cars, and not the tracks. Scenarios tested: Historics at Monaco Historics at Spa Formula Renault at Malaysia GT World Endurance at Mills (this seems to be a particularly demanding combination, and why I had to eliminate shadow blur) Formula ISI at Portugal Meganes at Mills
Good writeup Natural1. We have very similar specced rigs and my testing so far is quite comparable to yours. The performance is better than i expected to be honest, although i think i was lucky enough to buy Rfactor2 the day before 85 came out, lol. Here are my findings for a comparison, hope you don't mind. F2 Build 85 System specs: CPU: Intel i7 930@ 3.8 Ghz MB: ASUS P6X58D-E RAM: 6GB Corsair XMS DDR3 1600 HD: OCZ Vertex 3 128MB SSD GPU: MSI Twin Frozr II GTX 580 1.5GB DDR5 37" LG TV Resolution: 1920x1080x32 OS: Windows 7 64-bit, SP1 - All critical Windows updates applied - Windows Power Plan set to High Performance (Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Power Options) ----------------------------------------------------------- Nvidia drivers: 290.53 NOTE: On my system the new 300 series drivers cause major stutter & freeze issues with rF2 ( I'm too lazy to try them yet ! ) ----------------------------------------------------------- Other software running during game sessions: Logitech Game Profiler AVAST ----------------------------------------------------------- Nvidia Control Panel Settings for rF2 executable: Note: I haven't made a profile for Rfactor2 ----------------------------------------------------------- rF2 Video Setup: Res: 1920x1080x32 Sync: Video AA: Level 4 Refresh Rate: 60Hz HDR: ON FXAA: ON Widescreen UI: On Windowed: Off NOTES: 1. I have noticed a few instances of FPS momentarily dropping below 60 with HDR on. ( the only drops under 60 fps for me are on the grid at Spa and Monaco before race start with historics ) 2. FXAA works fine turned on, but only if HDR is enabled. With HDR Off and FXAA on I get a black screen in cockpit. ( I haven't tried this ) ---------------------------------------------------------- rF2 In-game settings: Circuit Detail: Full Player Detail: Full Opponent Detail: Full Texture Detail: Full Texture Filter: X16 Anistropic Special Effects: Full Shadows: High Shadow Blur: On Movies: On Sun Occlusion: Yes Rain: Yes Road Reflection: Yes Env Reflection: Yes Wind and Crown Motion: Yes Visible Vehicles: 30 Mirrors: On Sounds: 32 Replays: On Fidelity: Full Record Hot Laps: On Replay Time: 40 seconds NOTE: As you can see, all in-game options are set to their max values, except shadows & shadow blur. Shadows are set to High due to the shadow bug/issues that others have already reported. ---------------------------------------------------------- .PLR Modifications from stock: Max Framerate="62.00000" NOTE: I haven't tried this , i will give it a go. ---------------------------------------------------------- Observations: - All testing has been done with 29 AI cars, 5 lap races, with my car starting randomly on the grid - With the system and game configured as above, from cockpit view I have yet to see any stutters or frame reductions below 60FPS. ( like above, i can go as low as about 45 on the grid at Spa and Monaco in the historics, but that is the only time it drops ) - Trackside cams have also shown no reductions from 60 FPS, with the exception of the Historics. (I haven't really paid much attention to track cams yet.) - Trackside cams will occasionally show a slight stutter ( not really used trackside cams ) - I use paid version of Fraps to monitor framerates -Setting sync to video in configure sim menu works fine for me. Scenarios tested: Historics at Monaco and mod tracks Historics at Spa and mod tracks Meganes at all tracks and mod tracks Cheers.
Yes please do post your own findings. If anyone wants to use my format from the original post as a template, please go right ahead. I think it would be great to get some documented data on how various systems perform and which modifications help and which ones don't. I'm especially interested to know whether the "Max Framerate" tweak works for others, and on what hardware.
