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Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Test Builds => Topic started by: taylor on April 02, 2004, 12:21:49 am

Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: taylor on April 02, 2004, 12:21:49 am
Please test this build: 20040401-win32.zip (http://icculus.org/~taylor/fso/testing/20040401-win32.zip)

This build has fixes for three problems that need testing:

1. reduction in memory usage, level load time - Please verify that you don't get any crashes on level loads and no (new) large stutters when in mission

2. transparent ship/weapon texture fix - It shouldn't use interface graphics for ship textures now so please make sure that anything that was transparent isn't now

3. movie loading - The movie playing code will now ignore the file extension and cycle through support formats to find one that it can load.  Also, movies no longer have to be in the main directory to be found and played.
Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: Drew on April 02, 2004, 12:47:00 am
kewl
*goes of to test*

15-25 second load times: hell yeah
i got almost no performance hiccups past 10 seconds into the mission. On older builds when somthing likea  missle was shot, id get a %50 fps drop for a second or 2.

I got solid +100 FPS on my FSO goodie test mission, including skybox, all the Lightspeeds recent art, and Karmas high poly fenris. NO slowdowns looking at the highres planets or trails either, those  used to kill FPS on older builds. And that one minit section of time after FSO shut down where my system practically locked up wasnt there either.


rock on tayor :D
Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: jdjtcagle on April 02, 2004, 12:47:35 am
So, I know MVE wont work on the movies, will it??
And where can we find these other movie formats??
Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: taylor on April 02, 2004, 12:59:34 am
jdjtcagle:  No MVE still and because of the legal issues probably never (possible - yes, going to happen - never).  Though it can be easily added to, the currently supported movie formats are AVI and MPG.  If you don't have the converted FS2 movies (you can do a search on the forum to try and find download locations but I think they've been removed) then just rename any AVI or MPG that you have (ie. some-kOOl-movie.avi -> intro.avi) and it will play.  Not as good as the real FS2 movies but good for testing.  I'm using the original "Tripping the Rift" short as my intro which is rather fun ;)
Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: jdjtcagle on April 02, 2004, 12:59:56 am
Mine goes to the Pre_load screen and then shuts off without any warnings

Holy **** now none of my builds work!!!:confused:
Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: taylor on April 02, 2004, 01:12:51 am
jdjtcagle: If you put in a test intro movie then take it out and try again.  If that fixed it then I'd like to know what kind of movie it was (codecs, play length, etc.).
Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: jdjtcagle on April 02, 2004, 01:21:28 am
nothing, I have no kind of movie at all but none of my builds work now
It says when I click on registry tab that an error has eccured.:confused:
Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: Drew on April 02, 2004, 01:54:38 am
turn of the "use flags when running direclty button"?
Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: ChronoReverse on April 02, 2004, 02:13:23 am
Hmmm, did you by any chance turn off the audio pre-caching?


In any case.

The good.  Loading time is MUCH shorter now.  Rather incredible considering I have all the goodies turned on.

Memory usage is also down by 100MB.


The not-so-good.  The stutters for the texture load is still there.

The bad.  Every time a new line is spoken, it seems to stutter now.  I'll try more missions later to see if this was just a fluke.



Overall I like it since fast loading times == good.

BTW can I put the avis in the /movies folder now?
Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: taylor on April 02, 2004, 02:44:17 am
No audio related changes, only to preloads of starfield bitmaps.  Previously it was loading all starfield bitmaps (bg nebula, suns, planets) and now those preloads are restricted to what the mission is actually going to use.  Also the briefing bitmaps weren't closed out while in a mission so that was just wasting memory that could be better used by something else.  If you keep getting sound problems please let me know and I'll look in to it.

Are the stutters worse though?  They will hopefully be reduced but definitely not gone.  Much more work still needs to be done to get better stutter reduction.  I have more ideas that should give a massive reduction in load times and probably reductions to stutter but there is no way they'll get into 3.6.

Movies should go in /data/movies but can be anywhere in /data or even on a CD/DVD.
Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: ChronoReverse on April 02, 2004, 02:51:07 am
The stutters are no worse.  Exactly the same in fact.  But i've only tested the first mission, so I can't say what happens in the other missions.  In any case, still a great improvement in load time and the mission didn't crash :)
Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: Bobboau on April 02, 2004, 08:27:19 am
none of my changes from my last two builds are in this, I haven't commited anything in like two weeks
Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: Singh on April 02, 2004, 08:30:53 am
I just tried this build - excellent performance improvement, I must say. I get FPS of >14 where I used to get just 4. :D
Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: kasperl on April 02, 2004, 08:32:51 am
Quote
Originally posted by Bobboau
none of my changes from my last two builds are in this, I haven't commited anything in like two weeks


isn't that going to cause major merging issues?
Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: Bobboau on April 02, 2004, 08:34:59 am
posably
Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: Lightspeed on April 02, 2004, 08:50:14 am
Compile it with Bob's new changes please?

It's committed so if you do a build Bob, it should be in it. :)
Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: jdjtcagle on April 02, 2004, 12:07:30 pm
****, looks like I have to reinstall again :sigh:
Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: karajorma on April 02, 2004, 12:58:32 pm
You could try deleting the registry entries and then running the launcher. It should then rebuild everything. (you may need to take out the launcher.ini too but I'm not certain about that one).
Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: jdjtcagle on April 02, 2004, 01:05:32 pm
Haha... Your a guenius (SP?)
Anway, thanks!!! :)
Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: jdjtcagle on April 02, 2004, 02:18:33 pm
Wait I'm having problems again, It would only read as vannilla
So, I said screw it and reinstalled everything and downloaded this build and I'm still having problems

Nevermind, ***** slapped it and it works
Loads way!!!! faster great job:D
Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: Ferret on April 03, 2004, 05:44:51 am
This new build is certainly faster in loading times. Although I do get the same speed in game (60 Fps , 30 in nebula. That's with all gubbin's switched on)
I used to have slight jumps pertaining to sound, but they are completly destroyed.

Good jorb!
Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: jdjtcagle on April 03, 2004, 03:46:26 pm
I had huge stuttering problems in-game with this build.
I was playing the sixth Wonder with Lightspeed Nebula and when almost at the end of the mission the sound and game starts to freeze up.
EDIT:  I think it's only going to happen once, so don't worry about it:D
Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: [BoA]_Scoob on April 03, 2004, 05:11:54 pm
the Good: Mission load times have gone down.  The very last FS2 campaign mission (supernova) loaded in 10 seconds flat.  Nice work.  Memory usage has also gone down.  I think virtual memory is no longer used on my 512-mb ram machine.

the Bad: The stutters are still there.  They appear in the following situations: 1) beginning of the mission  2) first time looking at a planet in the background (the TGA ones)  3) first time looking at a new ship model, whether warping in or targeting window.
The afterburner trails are still invisible (am I the only one?).  Windows performance is still a little sluggish (though better than before) after playing SCP (trouble unloading SCP from RAM?).

Looking forward to: working Lightspeed Nebulas in FS2 campaign
Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: Bobboau on April 03, 2004, 05:15:05 pm
AB trails need a specal table entry for them, open up you'r ship[s.tbl and see if under the afterburner section of any ships to see something about AB trails, the table in the root directory over rides the one in the data directory, wich overrides the one in the VP
Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: Shaka on April 03, 2004, 05:28:45 pm
The very last FS2 campaign mission (apocalypse) loaded in 10 seconds flat. :ick:

:D
Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: [BoA]_Scoob on April 03, 2004, 05:34:02 pm
No I see nothing about AB trails under the AB section.  I see only the trails section (end of a ship's data) and an AB section with stuff like burn rate, etc...  This ships.tbl is the one from Lightspeed's weapon effects pack
Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: Bobboau on April 03, 2004, 05:41:21 pm
and he never made AB trails, so untill you get a ships table with AB trails in them, you are not going to have them in game, it's not a bug, you can do it yourself, just find the ships table from the AB trails build and find the bit in the table that describes the AB trails and copy and past it into the one you'r useing now (be sure to make a backup of the one you'r useing now) I think I only had one or two diferent trails for the diferent ships, I think I made one trail for fighters and one for bombers of each speciese.
Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: Taristin on April 04, 2004, 09:22:15 pm
This build is absolutely amazing! I have never had the game run so smoothly, not even in vanilla mode. I only have 128 Mb of RAM, and a 32 Meg Vid card, and even in Nebula missions, my FPS's were ~30!  Slight increase in loafing times, yes, but nothing too amazing.  I'm going to try qith 32-bit jpeg and targa's now.
Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: Whitelight on April 18, 2004, 05:22:51 pm
Question
Will any build after this have these changes?
Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: taylor on April 19, 2004, 12:25:44 am
Yes.  The changes had been added to CVS before this build so this build was only to make sure that it worked as I had advertised.
Title: 20040401 test build - memory footprint reduction
Post by: Whitelight on April 19, 2004, 06:18:53 pm
Cool, and thanks :D