Hard Light Productions Forums

Community Projects => The FreeSpace Upgrade Project => Topic started by: WMCoolmon on August 25, 2008, 07:26:04 pm

Title: Asteroids and Warnings
Post by: WMCoolmon on August 25, 2008, 07:26:04 pm
These are both two huge bugs for me.

Using the current set of MediaVPs, I can't play missions that have asteroids. I don't know what the exact problem is, but gimmicking around with the graphical settings gives me minimal improvement. I have to remove the VP entirely in order to play any mission that has combat taking place with an asteroid field in view. Even the asteroid field in the distance in Derelict gives me trouble.

Warnings cause a lot of issues in debug builds. I'm sure I've spent a lot of time clicking through them and most of the time it's related to missing media, null MOI, or (the one I see every single time), too many beam sections.

It's been this way for months, and most of the warnings should be minor fixes. As I said, I don't know what's causing the asteroid problem, but that's pretty critical since it's the only issue that keeps me from playing them in all missions (And the asteroids aren't a part of MV_AdvancedEffects, so I'd have to get rid of other enhancements too in the process of disabling them. Granted, I could pull them out from the VP myself, but that's too technical for most users.)

System specs:
AMD Athlon 64 3000+
1 GB DDR400 RAM
GeForce 7600GT
7200 RPM SATA HDD.

Usual settings:
All the graphical enhancements w/ shaders, no AA 16x AF.
Title: Re: Asteroids and Warnings
Post by: Mars on August 25, 2008, 07:41:27 pm
Same problem with asteroids: they bring me down to 16fps in some places (second mission main campaign)

AMD Athlon X2 4050e
2GB DDR800 RAM
GeForce 8600GTS
7200 RPM SATA HD

All graphical enhancements with shaders, no AA, no AF
Title: Re: Asteroids and Warnings
Post by: Topgun on August 25, 2008, 07:52:55 pm
the only problems I get are null moi and too many sections, like what wmc said.
Title: Re: Asteroids and Warnings
Post by: Galemp on August 26, 2008, 08:44:15 am
Galemp here. We have new asteroids for you. According to VasudanAdmiral

Quote
Anyway, I've tested them all out and can't find any evidence of slowdowns, ghosting or size problems (ie, spawned asteroids being bigger than the parent), so I think we should be able to just plonk these straight in.

As for the debug warnings, we'll look into it. I'm trying to nudge the team towards a release so we can drop those Beta and Zeta issues.
Title: Re: Asteroids and Warnings
Post by: WMCoolmon on August 26, 2008, 01:06:43 pm
That'd be awesome. :)
Title: Re: Asteroids and Warnings
Post by: Dark RevenantX on August 26, 2008, 09:24:55 pm
Lol, am I the only one who can play this game smoothly in an asteroid field?
Title: Re: Asteroids and Warnings
Post by: Droid803 on August 26, 2008, 09:34:17 pm
Define smoothly.
I can usually manage 30 FPS looking at a semi-dense asteroid field.
Solid masses of asteroid still bring me down to ~15 though.
(Open ones are usually fine).
Title: Re: Asteroids and Warnings
Post by: blowfish on August 26, 2008, 09:48:10 pm
I'm trying to nudge the team towards a release so we can drop those Beta and Zeta issues.

But ... but ... but ... think of poor DaBrain :(  Unless someone else can organize this one :nervous:




Actually, I'd be as happy as anyone to see a gamma release.  I just don't want to put too much pressure on one person to do it...
Title: Re: Asteroids and Warnings
Post by: Dark RevenantX on August 28, 2008, 07:48:28 pm
Define smoothly.
I can usually manage 30 FPS looking at a semi-dense asteroid field.
Solid masses of asteroid still bring me down to ~15 though.
(Open ones are usually fine).

256 asteroids in a test mission brings me to 15 fps.
This mission has four stars, by the way.
I was running fraps (rendering a movie).
All the graphics enhancement flags (including normals) were on.
The resolution was 1600x1200.
AF was at x16 and AA was at x16.
Title: Re: Asteroids and Warnings
Post by: Aardwolf on September 01, 2008, 08:40:23 pm
The problem with asteroids, as far as I can tell, is that they do not decrease in detail as they increase in distance (they don't have LODs or do not use them properly). If the fix doesn't take that into account, it doesn't work.
Title: Re: Asteroids and Warnings
Post by: Vasudan Admiral on September 02, 2008, 08:06:24 am
There are now 9 separate (and different :p ) asteroid models. Big, medium and small for each of the colours defined in FRED. (something that got broken when the first batch of new rocks was introduced) There is only one large texture between the three sizes in each colour group (ie, brown, blue and orangey redish) and the asteroid models all have 3 lods each.

As far as I can tell, this should solve the efficiency issues. :)
Title: Re: Asteroids and Warnings
Post by: Wobble73 on September 02, 2008, 08:18:37 am
There are now 9 separate (and different :p ) asteroid models. Big, medium and small for each of the colours defined in FRED. (something that got broken when the first batch of new rocks was introduced) There is only one large texture between the three sizes in each colour group (ie, brown, blue and orangey redish) and the asteroid models all have 3 lods each.

As far as I can tell, this should solve the efficiency issues. :)

There was an asteroid fix in either BTRL or WCSPrologue ( can't remember which   :confused: ). It's in VP format so all I did was drop that VP in my MediaVPs folder, works for me, still slows a little but not nearly as much.

Worth a shot?  :nervous:
Title: Re: Asteroids and Warnings
Post by: Vasudan Admiral on September 02, 2008, 09:12:01 am
Worth a shot for what? The new roids that will be in the next MVP will be fine, but if you mean as a tempoary stopgap for people until then,.... well yeah I suppose so?
Title: Re: Asteroids and Warnings
Post by: Wobble73 on September 02, 2008, 10:33:34 am
Worth a shot for what? The new roids that will be in the next MVP will be fine, but if you mean as a tempoary stopgap for people until then,.... well yeah I suppose so?

Yeah, a temporary stopgap until 3.6.10 is official!
Title: Re: Asteroids and Warnings
Post by: WMCoolmon on September 13, 2008, 03:57:11 am
Does anyone have the asteroid fix uploaded somewhere?