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Increasing the MFD/HUD refresh rate on the F/A-18

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virtuali:
A tip to discuss a feature that probably wasn't noticed by everyone:

Everybody knows that the F/A-18 has a very smooth moving instrumentation and HUD. But, not everyone knows that is LIMITING ITSELF! It's actually capable of even smoother fps, but the default setting is a little bit conservative, in order not to have the airplane instrumentation risking to impact the scenery fps on lower-end machines.

BUT, there's a setting that allows you to control the refresh rate of the glass instrumentation (the 3 MFD's and the HUD), and if your machine is capable enough and if you are flying in an area were the fps is good, like over the sea, were the F/A-18 is supposed to operate mostly, you can enjoy even smoother instrumentation. Once you try the HUD at 60 fps, you'll not want to use anything else...

To access this setting, do the following:

- Go to the Top page, by pressing "MENU" from any page

- Select "BIT" (Built-in-Test, it's a key on the top)

- Select "GDI+ (on the low-right)

A screen with several options will appear, the most interesting is the "Refresh Rate" slider. By default, is set to 3, this can be checked by looking at the "REF3" soft-key option.

Pressing the "REF3" key, will change the refresh rate from 1 to 5. If you set it to 5, the refresh rate of the instruments will not be limited anymore, allowing to get an 1:1 refresh with the screen fps.

With the refresh rate set at 5, if your PC is able to fly at, let's say 60 fps on a certain area, the most important instruments, which are the HSI and the HUD (the F/A-18 has adaptive refresh rates for every instrument and for every different page of the MFD), will refresh at 60 hz too!

Razgriz:
I knew it seemed a bit jerky, thanks!

virtuali:
As I've said, you are not supposed to use it where your frame rate is low already.

Doing this, you are only worsening the situation because, it's obviously not a miracle fps enhancer. If your PC is already struggling to draw the scenery, increasing the refresh rate of the instruments will make things worse.

THAT'S why is NOT the default setting.

BUT, if you have horsepower to spare, and the scenery is not taking too much machine cycles, is possible to afford increasing the slider, and enjoy the instrumentation even smoother than already it is. I'd say it makes sense to use it when your fps are higher than 40-50 at least, which should be relatively easy to reach over sparse areas and over the ocean.

wilycoyote4:
Tried it, nice, thanks, the technology of the VC continues to amaze me.  Yes, there is a fps loss but under certain conditions it is great to be at 5, or 4 for that matter.

Razgriz:

--- Quote from: virtuali on October 23, 2008, 10:43:32 pm ---As I've said, you are not supposed to use it where your frame rate is low already.

Doing this, you are only worsening the situation because, it's obviously not a miracle fps enhancer. If your PC is already struggling to draw the scenery, increasing the refresh rate of the instruments will make things worse.

THAT'S why is NOT the default setting.

BUT, if you have horsepower to spare, and the scenery is not taking too much machine cycles, is possible to afford increasing the slider, and enjoy the instrumentation even smoother than already it is. I'd say it makes sense to use it when your fps are higher than 40-50 at least, which should be relatively easy to reach over sparse areas and over the ocean.

--- End quote ---

I have 30FPS at NYC with it.

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