Strange FPS cap

posted on April 9th, 2016, 11:44 am

Hey guys,

thank you for this fantastic mod, I just discovered it in 2016 and it could as well be a newly released game.

But aside from some DirectX 8 issues I got a really strange problem, that's a bit annoying for me:

@1920x1080 resolution
When I have VSync enabled through the Nvidia control panel, the frames per second cap at 60, but they are constantly flickering between 60 and 59, and the game is really choppy, ships are almost jumping around and rubberbanding all over the place.

When I make VSync "Force off" the FPS cap at 100 (???). The choppiness is much better, but I think I could still do better on my high-end system. And also it feels like I'm running the game at 50Hz, even though I don't have a 50Hz mode.
^
This is at all resolutions except the 4k resolution below.

Now comes the truly strange part: If I set the resolution to 3840 x 2160, the frame cap goes away and I get more than 120fps. Normally you would expect to get lesser FPS, they higher the resolution. That makes me believe it's an artificial cap which maybe could be removed. (EDIT: Sadly I cannot play the game at 4k cause I can't read the text any more, otherwise my problem would be solved by using the 4k resolution)

I've already set the GPU mode to "maximum performance", disabled all energy saving settings, VSync options etc.
Sadly I cannot control FleetOps through "Nvidia Inspector" and set a frame cap there, probably because it's DX8? Changing stuff in Inspector doesn't do anything in the game.

All help would be appreciated, how to I get rid of the frame cap?

My PC:
Core I7 2600k@4.3Ghz, GTX 970, 16GB Ram, Windows 7 64bit.

posted on April 10th, 2016, 3:52 pm

well, keep in mind this game engine was released in 2001. If anything, compatibility modes are what you need more than removing old limits.

it sounds like due to some coding issues, you are getting much lower actual FPS than what is listed. In a game of Fleet Ops' detail level, anything above 45-60fps will be completely unnoticeable. I believe your best bet is to lower settings like Vsync and possibly set an FPS cap at the graphics card level (depending on how detailed your driver settings are).

Your objective shouldn't be to get 100-120 fps with this game, simply to get 30-60 true fps and have it be stable.

posted on April 10th, 2016, 5:08 pm

well, keep in mind this game engine was released in 2001. If anything, compatibility modes are what you need more than removing old limits.

Thanks for your answer. Of course you're right, and I'm quite thankful the game is running fine after so many years. I just thought there might be an easy way to remove the limit, like modifying a config file for example.

it sounds like due to some coding issues, you are getting much lower actual FPS than what is listed. In a game of Fleet Ops' detail level, anything above 45-60fps will be completely unnoticeable. I believe your best bet is to lower settings like Vsync and possibly set an FPS cap at the graphics card level (depending on how detailed your driver settings are).

Your objective shouldn't be to get 100-120 fps with this game, simply to get 30-60 true fps and have it be stable.

I get stable 100 fps, no matter how many AI players, even with hundreds of objects in the scene. Even in 4k resolution.
I noticed something funny though, the frame cap starts about 60 seconds into the game, at the beginning I get about 280 fps. After a minute or so it just locks to the 100 and never changes (except for loading some stuff).

I also think I expressed my problem in the wrong way: my goal is not to get 200fps ("Ey look at my machine I can run Minecraft at 4000fps!!"), it feels like these 100 frames per second are vertical synced to a wrong refresh rate (50Hz). I assume the mode is just wrong.

Sadly changing anything on the driver level has little to no effect:
Nvidia Inspector -> no effect at all, no matter what setting
Nvidia Control Panel -> VSync on = the 59/60fps flickering, VSync off = 100fps lock / cap / limit

All ideas and thoughts are welcome!