[Commander Zane]

I have the .TGA of the 512 x 512 shockwave from the normal effects.vp but I don't know how to overwrite the enormus shockwave effect from the advanced effects.vp.

[Mars]

Try putting it in your data/effects folder of your media vps

[Wanderer]

AFAIK the cause of the slowdowns is not the single tga that is used for the actual shockwave texture but the immense glow-texture animation that is used with it. That is using a separate (new) tga map for the main texture wont help you a bit with the memory consumption of the glow animation (eff, 1024x1024, 159 frames, compared to single 1024x1024 tga image)

[Kaine]

well can we sort out what the fix is and get a download for it? i've been chasing this for ages, and i know plenty of other people are too.

[Ravage]

Here here...  It would be nice to have a patch that would turn off the superhighend shockwaves and default to the standard mid range ones in the mediavps.  The only reason I want to use the adveffects is for the nebulae, explosion textures and planets.

Is it as simple as deleting them from the adveffects.vp file?

[Huggybaby]

This is a timely topic!

I've been using the medium size shockwave tga, and it does improve performance...I drop to 50fps rather than 10fps. Now I see I'm only partially on the right path.

I tried converting the tga to a dds, but performance remained at 50fps, so my next question was how to configure the following properly:



But it seems there's more to it than that. I've fixed the beamglows using DaBrain's set, so if I could tweak this one last bit, everything would be great.

<edit> OK, soon I'll have a new adv_effects file, hold on....

[Commander Zane]

Try putting it in your data/effects folder of your media vps

I remember seeing something about literally overwriting the shockwaves to change them. I'd probably trust that more than simply putting it on a folder...(If I knew how to make anything work to begin with...)

[Turey]

Try putting it in your data/effects folder of your media vps

I remember seeing something about literally overwriting the shockwaves to change them. I'd probably trust that more than simply putting it on a folder...(If I knew how to make anything work to begin with...)

That requires knowing how to make .vp files.

This way is easier, and works just as well.

[Huggybaby]

I have the new vp ready. If it works I'll upload it for everyone's enjoyment.

<edit> Hmm, interesting. Just replacing the Shockwave3D.tga seems to be just as beneficial as removing the animations. Guess you guys will have to test to see...uploading...

[Commander Zane]

Try putting it in your data/effects folder of your media vps

I remember seeing something about literally overwriting the shockwaves to change them. I'd probably trust that more than simply putting it on a folder...(If I knew how to make anything work to begin with...)

That requires knowing how to make .vp files.

This way is easier, and works just as well.

Trust, me NOTHING I try to do that requires putting x file in y folder a thousand times works on my part.

[Huggybaby]

OK, HERE'S THE TEST:

Two things to try, they both seem to work the same, but I need more observations----

BASELINE TEST) You should be using the big shockwaves. That means mv_adveffects.vp is in your "C:\Games\FreeSpace2\mediavps" folder. Check your FPS slowdowns during big explosions.

TEST 1) Leave mv_adveffects.vp in place. Unzip this Shockwave3d.tga file into your "C:\Games\FreeSpace2\mediavps\data\effects\" folder. Test again, you should see improvement as the smaller file overides the larger one.

TEST 2) Remove the Shockwave3d.tga file. Remove the mv_adveffects.vp file. (Store them safely elsewhere please). Unzip THIS FILE into "C:\Games\FreeSpace2\mediavps" and test again. This file has had the shockwave animations removed as well, as suggested by Wanderer.


(And for me, the biggest help was using DaBrain's optimized beamglows. Here are DaBrain's optimized beam glows 7zipped into a vp file. The original post is HERE.

Extract the file and put it in your "C:\Games\FreeSpace2\mediavps" folder and it will really help beam slowdown problems if you have them.)

I'm running with all my Graphics Features turned on.

[Commander Zane]

I've already tried that, that's why I'm asking about an overwrite file.

[Turey]

I've already tried that, that's why I'm asking about an overwrite file.

 

Fine. Use VPView to unpack everything in mv_adveffects.vp to their respective folder. Move mv_adveffects.vp to a new folder. overwrite the files you don't like.


Happy? 

[DaBrain]

This is a timely topic!

I've been using the medium size shockwave tga, and it does improve performance...I drop to 50fps rather than 10fps. Now I see I'm only partially on the right path.

I tried converting the tga to a dds, but performance remained at 50fps, so my next question was how to configure the following properly:



But it seems there's more to it than that. I've fixed the beamglows using DaBrain's set, so if I could tweak this one last bit, everything would be great.

<edit> OK, soon I'll have a new adv_effects file, hold on....

Forget about it. Converting the TGA to DDS won't have any noticable effect.
The beamglows already exsist in DDS form. They'll be in the adveffects VP of the next Media VP version. Actually they already are in the tester version, along with a lot of other performance optimizations. In fact I reworked the whole model/texure system. That's the reason why it took me so long.

[Wobble73]

So DaBrain, any news on when the Mediavps 3.6.9 will be released???

[DaBrain]

So DaBrain, any news on when the Mediavps 3.6.9 will be released???

The testers found a lot of bugs. 95% model/texture problems. Anyway, I'm trying to ge the second test version done this weekend.

This could also be the final version depending on how well I did the fixing... I doubt it will be bug-free though.
It's a bit much for one person to handle... that's why I've been thinking about a new system for the development.

[karajorma]

I've already tried that, that's why I'm asking about an overwrite file.

If putting that file in that folder didn't work you have bigger problems that won't be resolved by adding files to the VPs.

In addition no one will help you if you later have problems with VP files you've arsed about with. There are just too many ways you can screw that up.

[Commander Zane]

It's the ONLY thing I've added on to the game.

[Agentbolt]

The .tga file in my data/effects folder made no difference.  I'm still not sure about that fix since I had to create an effect folder to stick it into, I may have something effed up with my install to begin with. 

The different VP with the animations turned off worked BEAUTIFULLY, however.  Brought me from ~6 FPS during an explosion to never dropping below 60.  Well done. 

[Huggybaby]

Awesome, thanks for the good report. I'm glad that file helped someone!

There is more than one "data\effects" folder possible.

"C:\Games\FreeSpace2\mediavps\data\effects\" is the exact path you should have used for the tga file. The effects folder is missing because it usually is empty, so most of the installs have it removed. It's perfectly OK to create it. Be sure to spell it with an "e" instead of an "a".