CFS3 Install, Tweak & Tune Guide! :: Archived

[Jens]

Dakota,
Where do I find that? Thanks for the help.

[Jens]

I was asking about this below. I do not see a file called "cfs3.exe". I am adding a screen shot of what I see when I open the CFS3 directory. Hope it comes out. Thanks.


"You can check your exact version of CFS3 by going to "My Computer", selecting the drive volume that CFS3 is installed on, then navigate to the main CFS3 directory which is usually (on a default installation):
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Combat Flight Simulator 3

Find the file "cfs3.exe', right-click on it, choose "Properties" and then select the "Versions" tab. Version should be 3.1.0.30203 or higher"

[IMS_Dakota]

I'm betting that you probably have "Hide extensions for known file types"
check in the view tab of folder options.
In which case cfs3.exe will show as cfs3

[JG300-Stoopy]

Hi Jens.....umm....being as this is a fairly lonnnggg and detailed little thread, could you perhaps expand a bit on what EXE file you are trying to find? The CFS3.exe file, or the CFS3Config.exe file, or what?

[Jens]

I have been trying to find the exe file, but no luck. I went to Program Files, Microsoft games, CFS3, and checked every file, but no exe. I then looked at the FS9 files, and no exe. Is there somewhere else it may be?

[JG300-Stoopy]

UPDATE: New NVidia Drivers

Having got word that version 60.72 of Nvidia's driver set was were "leaked" prematurely, the ZIP was obtained from a site carrying it (google search for "NVidia 60.72") and installed to give it a shot. The official release should be available from Nvidia's (http://www.nvidia.com) site shortly. Meanwhile, a trial run with this driver set provided very positive reults.

There was an issue found on the test rig having to do with aircraft not appearing correctly, they showed as all black instead of the proper skins. Since this was a problem with the textures, some experimentation quickly confirmed that the "NO DXT1" setting ins CFS3COnfig was the problem, and the checkmarks for No DXT1, DXT3, and DXT5 were removed as shown here:



After that, all was good. There may be an almost imperceptible compromise for speed over quality, it's hard to pinpoint exactly, but the performance improvements made up for this impression in my opinion. A positive improvement in fluidity of the sim was instantly noticed, and the rigorous and tightly-controlled FRAPS flight test shows the following results on the test rig:

60.72 Drivers
2004-04-27 14:30:16 - cfs3
Frames: 2587 - Time: 98671ms - Avg: 26.218 - Min: 16 - Max: 32

This marks the first time the test rig has been placed solidly into the 26FPS realm for this test! In addition, the test rig also had some other changes performed to it that seem to have slightly compromised performance - notably, the installation of new Norton AntiVirus and Norton SystemWorks. Background tasks are increased and although every effort is made to remove them, this system has been a little "doggy" since they were added. Your results should at least match the above, but my bet would be that you'll do better!

Keep in mind this has been a tough test to get good numbers on. Mostly becuase with the frame rate limit set to 30, the only way the AVERAGE FPS will increase is to get higher "Minimum FPS" numbers more of the time. As the Average FPS approaches the maximum allowed, improvements will be harder to see in the test results. But, even more importantly, the "feel" is great with the better numbers showing up when looking at terrain.

And now the next maxim of tweaking took effect: With better FPS numbers, what eye-candy can we turn on? The first thing that came to mind was enabling Water Reflection in order to get the most out of MAX's new water textures...remember in the section regarding these, it was kind of a let-down to ot have the reflections enabled since everything look much better. Doing so resulted in these test results:

60.72 Drivers - Water reflection turned on
2004-04-27 14:35:30 - CFS3
Frames: 2437 - Time: 97453ms - Avg: 25.006 - Min: 18 - Max: 32

Which is...about where we left off before. So the point here is that you can tweak for good numbers, or tweak for eye candy with reasonable numbers if you feel your FPS budget allows it.

Since the water reflections should allow those dad-burned SpitPests to show up a little easier down low, the choice in this case seemd obvious!

A BIG TIP 'O THE HAT to FOE_PHYXIUS FOR SPREADING THE WORD ON THESE.....S! Phyx, LOOKIN GOOD!

[JG300-Stoopy]

Fix the HUD Gunsight

With all the effort to get CFS3 humming smoothly, take a few minutes and reward yourself with something that you're going to spend a lot of time of time looking at - the HUD gunsight reticule. The stock black one that comes with the game resembles something that was inspired by a shower drain more than a gunsight. And it all but disappears when looking at the ground - no good!

There are plenty of replacement gunsight reticules around, one or two on the Com-Central CFS3 downloads section; JG300 has one or two different types; and if you downloaded the full MAX tweaks package, you'll find a ZIP file called "MAXreticle.zip" that has a decent gunsight.

Like most replacement gunsights, it's color allows it to stand out against either sky or ground, and you'll notice certain aspects about it that make it more useful for lining up banked deflection shots or ranged shots:



Unzip the contents to a test directory - there is only one file called "MAXreticle.dds". Right-click on the file and select "copy".

Then open your explorer tool - at the desktop, double-click the "My Computer" icon, and navigate to the main CFS3 directory which is usually:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Combat Flight Simulator 3 and then drill down into the 'aircraft" directory and finally go into the "SHARED" directory within there.

Right click and choose "Paste" to copy the MAXreticle.dds file into this directory.

Now find the file called "reticule.dds" - right-click, choose Rename, and rename it "reticule.dds_orig".

Use the same technique to rename the MAXreticle.dds file to reticule.dds (don't forget the "u").

Find the file called "reticule.zx" and delete it - this file will rebuild the next time CFS3 is launched.

That's all there is to it...good hunting!

By the way, the Flight Of Eagles squad, both MAX_Devil and FOE_Pappy, are responsible for finding and sharing many of these tweaks as you've undoubtedly noticed - so be sure to stop by their website and forums at www.flightofeagles.com/ and give 'em a thank-you!


P.S. If you want to revert back to the stock gunsight (bleah) just go delete the retisule.dds and reticule.zx file in:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Combat Flight Simulator 3\aircraft\shared
and then rename the backup file you made, reticule.dds_orig, to reticule.dds, and you're back to stock...

That about wraps it up for this guide for now. Unless anything else rolls in this has covered all the basics of getting the game in pretty flyable shape - enjoy!

[JG300-Stoopy]

Killing unnecessary processes.

Some users report additional gains by eliminating unnecessary background tasks in Windows prior to launching CFS3. This makes sense from the aspect of freeing up system resources. However, determining which processes to kill off can be a very complex subject and can vary widely from system to system. The example below show what works on the test mule used for this guide, but it's not likely at all to match your exact system perfectly.

As mentioned at the outset of this guide, there are much better resources on the web for a lot of the technical details on this subject, starting with the thread called ""Tweaking for smoothness" right here in the Com-Central FS2002/2004 forum:

www.com-central.net/np...php?t=6495

There are also some great websites with plenty of info such as:

www.blackviper.com

...and...

www.theeldergeek.com

With that being said, here is a BRIEF demonstration of what is used on the test mule. The excellent freeware program ENDITALL2 is launched prior to any serious CFS3 session. This software tool is designed specifically for the purpose of automatic or manual "safe" termination of background processes in Windows. Enditall2 is a successor to the earlier "Enditall" program and has specific improvements geared for Windows XP; you'll need this latest version if running that O/S.

Enditall2 can be downloaded from this site:
home.ptd.net/~don5408/.../enditall/

There is also a GREAT description of the program and a few links for other topics on it's use. READ THEM FULLY as Enditall2 is indeed a powerful program that if misused, could contribute to system instability.

Here is a snapshot of what Enditall2 looks like, and these are the processes running on the test mule before Enditall2 is invoked to slay certain ones:



In a nutshell, after the unneeded services in question are determined, they can be individually Closed or Killed by Enditall2 by creating a batch file in the Enditall2 program directory that looks as follows:

Code:

rem ** Batch file for Enditall2 3/1/03 EJP

rem ** Close:
START enditall /C:navapw32.exe

rem ** Kill:
START enditall /K:directcd.exe
START enditall /K:fxssvc.exe
START enditall /K:mmkeybd.exe
START enditall /K:msmsgs.exe
START enditall /K:saytime.exe
START enditall /K:spamkiller.exe
START enditall /K:traymon.exe
START enditall /K:webshotstray.exe
START enditall /K:nvsvc32.exe
START enditall /K:devldr32.exe
START enditall /K:tosexe.exe
START enditall /K:tgcmd.exe
START enditall /K:nkvmon.exe
START enditall /K:fxssvc.exe
START enditall /K:ctsvccda.exe
START enditall /K:osd.exe
START enditall /K:nhksrv.exe
START enditall /K:devldr32.exe



rem ** end of list
rem ** 9 tasks should be terminated

rem ** Go ahead and start the GV app

Note that enditall2 must be called once for reach process it is asked to Close or Kill. It will autodetect if a copy of itself is already running and add additional calls to it's list. This is just the syntax the developer used, even though it may look a little unusual. You'll also need to determine if Enditall2 needs a "Close" or "Kill" command for each process - generally, "Close" is a nice way to shut something down, but it has to acknowledge the Close request. "Kill" is a little more forceful. You'll see which option to use when you try to Close any processes manually when experimenting with Enditall2. If "Close" does not work, you can try a "Kill", after setting an "Allow Kill" option for the process as it shows in Enditall2's list.

Creating a batch file like the above saves a lot of time and is pretty straightforward - using Windows Explorer, navigate to the Enditall2 program directory (usually C:\Program Files\Enditall2 ) and create a new text file...add/edit the contents as you need, and when you are finished, save the file then rename the file to anything.bat...it must have a .bat at the end of the filename instead of .txt in order to be a file the system will execute. Note that the batch file can also call for other programs to be launched after Enditall2 has done it's business. In this case, the GameVoice application used to be launched but is currently remarked out.

Generally speaking tho, if you are very uncertain with things like how to create batch files, then you should really read up on this program and what it does....there is a certain level of user knowledge assumed.

Then, by going to the Start -> Run... menu in Windows, the batch file can be called and Enditall2 will process the list of services or programs in the batch file. When it's all done it will look something like this:



Some programs will not die quietly - don't be surprised if you receive some messages caused by abnormal termination. Enditall2 will take a minute or two to try to kill them quietly, but it's not an immediate process and you need to give it some time to complete - about 15-20 seconds usually.

As far as system performance, the flight test with FRAPS logging was run both with and without Enditall2 having slayed these unneeded processes. NO difference was seen on the test mule, your results may vary, but generally if you are running extra programs during CFS3 (like Gamevoice, Teamspeak etc) it may make a difference - it did on the test mule when Gamevoice has been used in the past, which was not tried this time.

If you're going to try this, just be advised that although it can very well have benefits in terms of smoothness and stability for CFS3, it is a power-user tool so take your time and read the material available to make sure you are doing it right.

Good luck - no matter which way you decide, odds are that CFS3 should running pretty smooth and looking very good by now!

[JG300-Stoopy]

Decrease Sound Acceleration

As FOE_Pappy pointed out this needs to be covered..S! and thank you, Pappy!

DirectX seems to allocate a lot of resources toward game sound that really doesn't need to be there, and with Hardware Sound Acceleration enabled or set to full, this will have a negative effect on CFS3. Commonly, noticeable gains are experienced when moving this setting to a lower value, with no noticeable impact on sounds.

This setting is found in the DirectX diagnostics utility, "dxdiag" which you can launch by going to your "Start" menu, select the "Run...." otion, and enter "dxdiag" as shown:



Once DxDiag is up, it takes a few seconds to gather system information, Click on the "Sound1" tab and set your Hardware Sound Acceleration level to "Basic" as shown:




How good is it? Well the test mule was already running with this tweak, so the tweak was backed out by moving the option up to Full, and the test flight reports that we would have been getting:

DxDiag Sound Accelleration to "Full"
Frames: 2239 - Time: 94266ms - Avg: 23.751 - Min: 11 - Max: 32

With DxDiag Sound Accelleration back to "Basic", the test flight gives this improvement:

Frames: 2306 - Time: 89500ms - Avg: 25.765 - Min: 18 - Max: 32

...a very significant improvement for such little time spent!

[JG300-Stoopy]

Defrag your Hard Drive...Again!

Yup it's that time- good to do this on a regular basis, especially for CFS3!

CFS3 benefits greatly from a nice clean file system, and back during the Pre-Installation checklist, it was recommended that the hard drive be cleaned up and defragged - well, a number of files have been added and/or moved since then, so it's now that time - Go run Defrag again and keep your machine running well.

And remember, the more often you run Defrag, the less time it takes to finish. Some folks defrag weekly. Goes quick that way.

Generally this is always a good idea after installing and setting up ANY large program too - and also after Uninstalling.

[JG300-Stoopy]

Multiplayer "Blank Map" FIX

56th_Capt_Predator PM'd with this great tip!

While not a "performance tweak" per se, it's still a mind-blower and fixes a real nuisance problem in CFS3 where airfields don't always show on the map in Multiplayer rooms. While the FFA guys may not care, those of us who fly missions, official matches that require forming up over or near an airfield, or do cross-country airfield hops and air races really need this...because all too often, you hit the map key and get.....nuthin'. Just a empty map with no airbases!

Previously (at least to some of us) the only known fix was to exit MP, go into Quick Combat, set up a flight anywhere in the same country, spawn, check the map, exit, go back into MP, login, and re-join the room. Frikkin' headache.

Here's the PERMANENT fix: Go run CFS3Config again (don't forget to make the cfs3config.xml not read-only if you are using that tip) and uncheck the "Disable Movie UI" box right here in the "Custom Settings" -> "Overrides" section:



Yes, this will re-enable the "preview" screen in CFS3 where you see the airfield and the selected plane. Takes a few more seconds to load CFS3 too, so be prepared.

But from now on, the "M" map key will always show the airfields (yup, the screenshots are from verifying the fix...apologies to "the Editor" for popping in and out of his room to do this) just like this:



Much better eh? And the map is now also zoomed out, which was an unexpected result, but hey, it works!

Good one..thanks and ~S~ to 56th_Capt_Predator, and all the 56th gang!

[JG300-Stoopy]

'Airfield Creep' and the "No Parked Planes" Tweak:

Credit for this goes to Sugita for passing along....as well as a link to the ZIP file hosted at sim-outhouse which has no author (or instructions).

This tweak deals with the annoying issue of slow FPS when approaching or viewing an airfield. Everything is buzzin along great but slows to a dang crawl whenever you even LOOK at an airfield.
Pretty much most of the slowdown is caused by the aircraft sitting on the ground - the increased level of detail needed in order to render them sucks up performance. Logically the fix is to clear those planes out, and the supplied tweak (thanks, Sugita!) modifies a few CFS3 files such that airfields will not have spawned aircraft.

Now there's more than one way to skin the cat on this problem - the method used here is to edit the default airfield files themselves and to eliminate the positions reserved for any parked aircraft.

Another way to do it, is to edit the XDP file for each aircraft in your collection and to set the "Allowspawn" setting to "0" (this is done the same way as some things like the MAXFPS tweak - open the XDP file with notepad, edit, save). This method is more of a bummer because it's not uncommon to have gobs of add-on aircraft and who wants to edit 65 or 100 different XDP files. BUT for some planes, like fictional ones (GeeBees, etc) it's handy because then they won't spawn in missions, which is always kinda odd to see.

Anyway, back to this tweak, and the file for it which can be found in the downloads section:

http://com-central.net/index.php?name=Downloads&c=75

As stated, there is no readme or author or instructions and I hope it's okay just to post the link in the manner it was given to me (Sugita, if you know the creator, I'd like to contact them about permission to wrap it as a self-installing file). But here's what to do with it:

0) If you like, make a backup of your "facilities" folder in the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Combat Flight Simulator 3 directory.

1) Download the ZIP from the link above. Open the ZIP, inside are two more ZIP files.

2) Open the "airfields_no_parked_planes.zip" file within the ZIP

3.a) Extract the contents of "airfields_no_parked_planes.zip" to the main CFS3 folder, which is usually:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Combat Flight Simulator 3
...and because the correct pathname is included in the ZIP, they will automatically extract to the \facilities folder.

3.b) (Or extract them to a test folder and copy them to the CFS3\facilities folder manually)

4) Either way, allow it to overwrite the original files - by the way, the ORIGINAL files are in that OTHER ZIP file included, so keep it handy just in case.

Now - what's it do? Obviously it strips any parked planes from the airfields. So things maybe might look a little empty....but it's WARTIME and maybe those planes are just out on a mission like they oughta be :D!!!! And again, for dogfighting multiplayer stuff, this isn't terribly important...full-on realism buffs can make their own call here. Frankly, to me, I didn't notice they were gone unless I looked for 'em.

How effective is this tweak?

To test this out, a more specific and simpler test was set up:

Set up a "Freeflight", same parameters as the dogfight test but at 2500 ft.
Spawn, set full zoom out, TAC set to "Airfields"
Maneuver your aircraft 2 miles North of the airbase at Toulon, 80% throttle, descend to 500ft. altitude.
Turn South and fly straight toward base at 500 ft.
Set TAC to 1 Mile (CTRL-SHIFT-T a coupla times)
When the airbase appears on the edge of the TAC display, Begin FRAPS logging (1 mile out)
Stop FRAPS logging when tower disappears under nose

Flyby test, STOCK airfields and planes all over:
Frames: 218 - Time: 13343ms - Avg: 16.338 - Min: 14 - Max: 24

Flyby test, with "No Parked Planes" Tweak:
Frames: 272 - Time: 13187ms - Avg: 20.626 - Min: 19 - Max: 25

Obviously there's where a lot of the performance hit in the previous tests have been coming from...this is VERY exciting and when the full-scale 90-second dogfight test was performed again, the numbers come out to:

Full flight retest

Previous Baseline:
Frames: 2351 - Time: 95531ms - Avg: 24.609 - Min: 17 - Max: 32

"No Parked Planes" Tweak:
Frames: 2329 - Time: 90656ms - Avg: 25.690 - Min: 20 - Max: 32

HOOOHOOO!! Best numbers yet plus a really annoying problem solved! BIG THUMBS UP from the test mule machine!
:rocker: :-D :rocker:

[JG300-Stoopy]

Multiplayer connection Settings

Speaking of Multiplayer, now that it's running really well if you've taken advantage of the info above, here's reminder info on hosting more players in a room than default settings allow. Not really a performance tweak or anyting, but this project is slanted towards multiplayer and is one of those easy little details that's easy to forget to share.

The default CFS3 settings assume a 56K modem connection, so broadband users are limited to 4 players unless this setting is changed. Go to "Multiplayer Options" and change the connection type to either DSL, CABLE or T1. T1 allows a maximum of 16 players, but you can dial it back from there - I use a T1 setting but dialed back to 10 players in the hosting options when starting a room.

Drawbacks: If set higher than your system is really capable of, players in your rooms will eventually complain of lag. SO make sure you have the CPU overhead to do this, and don't go nutzo with it.

[JG300-Stoopy]

Multiplayer: MAX_FPS Revisited - "FramerateCap"

More on this gem of a tweak from FOE_Pappy:

This is basically a continuation of the above subject, but putting it into practice to set Multiplayer FPS restrictions: CFS3 Multiplayer mode does not recognize the regular MAXFPS tweak. There is a different file in a different whole area to set the limit just for multiplayer. This is important because if you don't, you loose the benefits of freeing up CPU usage when playing online.

2) To set MULTIPLAYER frame rate limits:

You have to edit and add a little bit more to a file that is in a different folder - this is in your CFS3 Applications folder, which is located in:

C:\Documents and Settings\{your user name}\Application Data\Microsoft\Combat Flight Simulator 3.0

Locate the file called multiplayer.xml. Just like before, right-click on it, and copy/paste it to make a backup just like you did the other file. Then right-click the original file again and select "Open" or "open With...." and open it with Notepad.

-----------------------------------------------------
TIP: Don't see the file? Probably because you haven't yet hosted a Multiplayer game yet. It won't show up until you do. There is a similar default file in the CFS3 "default" folder (under C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Combat Flight Simulator 3) that seems to have effect if you edit it. But once you host a room, go check the NEW file that is created in the area described up above, and make sure it has this setting entered!
-----------------------------------------------------

This time, you have to add a whole entry which is FramerateCap="30" (or whatever number) as follows:

<Multiplayer>
<Configuration FramerateCap="30" GunServiceAddr="cfs3match.zone.msn.com"
GunServicePort="2300" Username="Whoever" Password="" Name="The Pigsty" Description="lets have fun" MaxPlayers="10" Publish="1"/>
</Multiplayer>

Make it look like this (except for the "Stoopy" stuff )



Save it, exit, and start CFS3 to test.

That should do ya.....go slow and don't make any typos, an extra or missing quote mark or misspelling will hose you - heck, cut and paste from here if it helps. Remember, if something isn't working right, you can go DELETE the files and just RENAME the backups you made, delete of the "Copy of " part and you're OK.

Bottom line: NO MORE FREEZEUPS...better rooms hosted, with less lag...S~ Pappy!!!!

[JG300-Stoopy]

Multiplayer: Windowed Mode test & MAX_FPS Revisited

Credit for this one goes to FOE_Pappy, a pillar of the CFS3 MP community, and this is A GREAT tweak.

This particular tweak addresses the issue of CPU performance specifically for Multiplayer. CFS3 pretty much claims all the CPU time it can, and this is not particularly good if you are hosting a game. Side effects can include lag, maddening "freezes" for the host and game quality overall can suffer. WHY? Well...going WAYYYY back up this whole list, the VERY FIRST tweak that was done, the MAX_FPS setting, has absolutely NO EFFECT on Multiplayer!

You don't necessarily have to do this "Windowed" trick but it's good info....you could instead just skip down to the section on MAX_FPS in Multiplayer and plug in the number you are already using for QC / Standalone mode....but there's no guarantee that will help unless you see your CPU usage.

Here's the whole salami....the following shows how to run CFS3 in "windowed" mode so you can assess how much CPU overhead is being eaten up.....this is important because anyone experiencing those momentary 1-4 second (or more) "freezes" should be able to eliminate them entirely by bringing your CPU load down to less than 100%. If you are running at 100% CPU load, especially in single-player, than CFS3 multiplayer is more than likely gonna give you this problem.....because the additional overhead needed for the comm packets and player handling, especially if you are hosting, has the system working overtime at that point. Which means it has to do some housekeeping and spool out to virtual memory occasionally, which is....yup, you got it.....the freeze-ups!

Basically it's pretty simple: Find your CFS3 icon (mine is on a desktop folder), and copy it, paste it, and rename it accordingly. Look below and you'll see one CFS3 icon and one for WINDOWED mode:



Now to make it actually run in windowed mode, just add the option -windowed in the target field in program properties - right-click the icon, select properties, enter the added text, hit OK:



Here's what it will look like when you run it - kinda funky but the great thing is now you can run some other tools like Task Manager alongside it....



...and the tool to use is Task Manager, specifically the CPU Usage histogram. In Windows XP you can invoke Task Manager by pressing CTRL-ALT-DELETE.....then select the "Performance" tab to see your CPU usage:



Relocate the task manager window down to the bottom so you can watch the graph as you fly. Here, you'll notice that CPU usage is PEGGED at 100% all the time (the jaggies are from switching back and forth as I got set up)....you gotta fly for a while to get consistent results. THIS IS BAD!!!!!



Now look at the difference below in CPU usage....THIS is much better. Notice that CFS3 hardly ever creeps into the 100% zone now - when it does, it's the explosions and smoke which seem to drag the
system down, and those only happen occasionally. But the overall average is far better. All it took to do this was to limited the frame rates in the regular game AND in multiplayer to 30 and 28 FPS respectively. Info on how to do this is immediately below ( you have to edit a seperate XML file for multiplayer frame rate limits). The thing to know about CFS3 is, it will run off with ALL your resources PLUS it will let the video card run away with itself unless you tell it not to.

With everything set up to run at lower CPU usage, once you go back to running in full screen, MP is TOTALLY smooth, no hangs or freezes ever. And the other benefit is, if you host games, the people who enter your rooms will also notice a big difference, because your system now has much more CPU time to process the game packets coming and going from everyone.

As a matter of fact, it's a good idea to try an MP session, or even hosting a game, while running in windowed mode. You'll see that as people come into your room, your CPU load goes up. A room full of about 10 people eventually drive my system up to 100% load, your mileage will vary, but only then does any lag become noticeable. Try it and see - makes a big difference.