Interesting stats, and what I would expect, I'm under no illusion as to what the game stats are supposedly telling us. As a rough rule of thumb if I try to keep the scenery load under 80% there are not usually any problems, I have more problems with buildings boosting the load rate than with Billboard Trees.
Lets now confuse the issue by real time usage on a route.
Note this was done in 49922.
30 minute AI session using tracking Camera on my route Route as in mine, I have SpeedTree version and non Speedtree Versions
With Speed Trees: Averaged 52fps. With stutter.
With billboard Trees: Averaged 89fps virtually no stutter.
SP1 HF4 frame rates are about 10% lower than 49922 on both my systems here.
The Grumbles.....
One of the reasons I reverted to bill board trees is the SpeedTrees available on the DLS and of the correct type are mostly far too big for my route. The other is that pre HF4 I get better frame rates and no stutter using billboards. With SpeedTrees I got loads of errors in jetlog.txt to do with shaders and such, more than likely the cause of the stutter.
Pofigs trees would be a better size apart from the sparkle effect but as I'm producing a route where everything is on the DLS I opted for something that works and fits.
The peculiar lighting effects in SP1 on SpeedTrees was also very off putting, those that once looked OK now look unrealistic depending on the viewing angle / time of Day. Also the Billboards do not disappear in SP1 as seems to happen with SpeedTrees on occasions.
Interestingly though on a quick check it looks as if the lighting issue has been sorted in HF4 and jetlog is not reporting the errors any longer.
I actually have the Unreal SpeedTree editor, however it's not permitted to use it for anything other than Unreal otherwise I would have sorted out some Trees of appropriate size and varied appearance that don't need clicking on each one to shrink the flipping things, even then some are still from the land of the giants. Yes I'm aware one can tweak the config, however if others are going to use the route that's not a solution. When you are attempting to produce a realistic protypical route you need items that look the part and of approximately the right size and colouring and that don't leap around even with the wind on minimum setting or cause stuttering in addition to that we are stuck with due to the overstretched game engine.
When I got TRS2010 and opened my route in it, I could hardly believe the havoc which had been wrought. It wasn't simply that my hard work had been, without asking, ruined. Even if I needed to see trees swaying about like dervishes in a 70 mph wind. Why should a Birch be replaced by an American Boxwood in the heart of the UK? Anyway I have banished the evil weeds from my routes and here is the proof 
