Did anyone ever buy the Aeroplane Heaven Lancaster ?

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Slipstream1
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Re: Did anyone ever buy the Aeroplane Heaven Lancaster ?

Post by Slipstream1 »

Having done a few tweaks to FSX & increasing VAS, thought I'd try the Lanc again.
Same result as last time, terrible frame rates. OK sure Duxford eats a few but as low as 5 ? Away from the airport max fps 18-20.
I appreciate that GTX1060 isn't the best but as said my other planes work well with my set up & run at a consistent 30 fps which is what I've set for FSX.
I don't object to resource hungry planes or scenery but I do object to developers & sellers not warning of it & giving requirements which are ridiculously low (especially if they' want my quids).
If a plane requires a triple Kray with Dungeness B to power it, they should say so.
Anyway, in other respects I find it a great model & have fun flying at treetop height while viewing from the bomb aimer bubble.
Here are todays screenies with a shot of how I use 3 monitors;

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/mxmtg4r9a4jw ... a4c7a?dl=0

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Re: Did anyone ever buy the Aeroplane Heaven Lancaster ?

Post by TSR2 »

That’s a really impressive set up, but I’m amazed the 1060 runs that as it looks like it’s having to render the exterior model 3 times, plus the internal VCmodel. How well does it fly away from Doxford.... over the North Sea for example.
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Slipstream1
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Re: Did anyone ever buy the Aeroplane Heaven Lancaster ?

Post by Slipstream1 »

Hi Ben, best fps I've ever had is just now at a momentary 20 but mostly 18 over vanilla scenery. In DX10 preview it works way better but bits of scenery become grey boxes. So as said earlier Steves fixer might do the trick.
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Re: Did anyone ever buy the Aeroplane Heaven Lancaster ?

Post by DaveG »

Just out of interest, I looked at the Lancs model & texture sizes in comparison to the Flight Replicas Halifax (similar aircraft, which was released around the same time) and my Beaufighter.

Code: Select all

			Lanc		Halifax		Beaufighter
MDL size(approx Mb)	109		26		15
Verts			1509442		420061		141250
Draw Calls		755		559		349
Textures (total Number)	246		53		32
Total tex size(Mb)	636		174		54
I think it's fairly obvious why the Lancaster is such a frame rate hog!
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Paul K
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Re: Did anyone ever buy the Aeroplane Heaven Lancaster ?

Post by Paul K »

Blimey! :-O

Here's a thing, Dave - as you're a modeller yourself, do you know of an upper poly limit when making a model ? Looking at those figures, the Lancaster has considerably more vertices than the Halifax, but during the testing of the latter, Mike at Flight Replicas said he was approaching the limit, and that prevented the inclusion of some nice-to-have extras.

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Re: Did anyone ever buy the Aeroplane Heaven Lancaster ?

Post by TSR2 »

There was a limit using FSDS (although I think there may have been a way around it), but if using GMAX or MAX there was no limit... well, theoretically anyway.
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Paul K
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Re: Did anyone ever buy the Aeroplane Heaven Lancaster ?

Post by Paul K »

Ah, thanks for that Ben. I've got a feeling that Mike uses Blender. I remember using Abacus's Aircraft Factory, and it too had limits on polygons and what they categorized as components and assemblies ( e.g. undercarriage ). Abacus released a patch that expanded the capacity, but my brief foray into modelling was over by then.

So, it is down to what software is used. Interesting. :)

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Re: Did anyone ever buy the Aeroplane Heaven Lancaster ?

Post by DaveG »

There was a poly limit with the exporter from Max/Gmax if I remember correctly, but that can be got around. Not sure if it still applies with the latest p3d tools though. *-)
The was also a limit on the number of polys you could map to a single texture, but again in not sure if that's still relevant. Never got near the limits myself, so didn't pay much attention to it. There's also a limit on the number of click spots as well!
It's really the number of draw calls that impact the frame rate, rather than the poly count, although they will have an effect too. Many large textures will kill your vram making an oom more likely (not a problem with p3dv4) as well as causing slow texture loading.
It's all a balancing act.
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Re: Did anyone ever buy the Aeroplane Heaven Lancaster ?

Post by SkippyBing »

The limit was a 32-bit one with the original FSX model compiler, i.e. the programme that converted the x file from Max into the MDL for FSX. LM fixed it with one of the compilers for P3D which also allows you to make FSX compatible MDLs which exceed the original compilers limitations.
I occasionally found the texture limit a pain as it would defeat my cunning plan to minimise the number of drawcalls!
There's a thread somewhere on fsdeveloper that details the best combination of P3D max plug-in and x file compiler that lets you produce limit free FSX MDLs.
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Re: Did anyone ever buy the Aeroplane Heaven Lancaster ?

Post by Paul K »

Interesting stuff. I saw Mike at Flight Replicas state that his forthcoming B-24 Liberator was proving to be a challenge in terms of model limits ( or at least that is what I understood ). I hope he's found a way round it.

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