[Nuke]

did you try -pcx2dds, it uses vid memory better if your card supports compressed textures (which it should if it has 32+ megs on it).

[DaBrain]

I don't think this is honest...

It's just impossible that a person doesn't like any improvement of the SCP. There are so many things, you can't dislike them all.

Ok, that was enough OT for me today.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by TopAce
It looks like honesty does not pay off in this community at all.
Poor lad.

If he honestly believes that Freespace looks worse with high poly models or with shine maps I'll concede that it's his own (somewhat derranged) point of view and leave it at that.

At the moment it looks more like someone who is too lazy to edit the VP files complaining at people who aren't.

Anyway I think we should drop the subject until LSD posts and get back to dealing with the Original Poster's question.

[Trivial Psychic]

How about using the experimental 32-bit-to-16-bit flag, since 16-bit is the same in-memory size that the original pcx files took up, but still better image quality.

[What evar]

Alrihgt, I haven't been checking back for a while, but here's what I've done lately:

The game was running fine when I removed mipmapping and 32-bit textures, but once I upgraded to 3.6.5 (to play the Shrouding Light campaign) the game started getting a more inconsistent framerate. (As it was in 3.6 before I removed mipmapping and 32-bit textures)
I'm not using any atialiasing or 8as far as I can tell) antisotropic filtering

I do not wish to reduce the resolution to 16-bit, however I'm wondering about those "Game Speed" settings. Would "Compress pcx" help?
I'm sort of reluctant about the vertical sync, as I've noticed in other games that it does help quite a bit (visually).
The debris is something I wouldn't mind letting go, but I can't imagine that would help a lot.

Also, what exactly is Forceware?
And does preloading sound slow down or speed up the game?

Thanks a lot for all your help.

[DaBrain]

Nvidia call it's drivers 'Forceware'. Upgrading the dirver *may* help, but most drivers run FSO just fine.

Just try the newest driver.
www.nvidia.com

[Martinus]

[color=66ff00]Guys I think that the Admiral is being corrosively sarcastic and his claims should be taken with a whole salt sellar.
[/color]

[Grug]

*Couldn't be bothered making new Thread*

I think the lightning zaps on the ships need code optimization. With nothing else in a level, just a ship with little health remaining, the lightning zaps are enough to reduce my framerates by half or worse when there is a big zap.

Just thought I'd say. Someone else can mantis it...

[WMCoolmon]

You're right. I actually wanted to do this before, but labelled it 'not worth it' as I figured the performance change would be very small.

OTOH, is this a recent thing? The lightning code makes use of three g3_draw_rod calls, and I remember somebody making changes to something to draw lines in 3D before.

[taylor]

Originally posted by WMCoolmon
OTOH, is this a recent thing? The lightning code makes use of three g3_draw_rod calls, and I remember somebody making changes to something to draw lines in 3D before.

3D line drawing was only a problem in OpenGL and was fixed a long time ago.  I never changed the ligthning arc effect back to lines though since pretty much everyone agreed that the new effect looked better.  I know that I for one hated the line effect since it looked very cheap.

There should have been little to no slow down with it though (wasn't any during my initial testing) so that may be something new.

[WMCoolmon]

Hmm...I added 2 more "rod" calls because the non-line effect looked really bad up close.

That does add quite a few lines, but it doesn't seem like it should add drastic slowdown unless something odd is happening. Perhaps it's the sound, or the dynamic lighting cast by the lightning?

[taylor]

Originally posted by WMCoolmon
Hmm...I added 2 more "rod" calls because the non-line effect looked really bad up close.

True.  Inquisitor asked me to fix it but I kept putting it off and then forgot about it.  Until you made the changes anyway.

[Grug]

It happens in D3D, havn't tested in OGL yet.

They still look fugly IMO too. Maybe I'm using a later build? 22 May 2005 build.

[taylor]

Originally posted by Grug
It happens in D3D, havn't tested in OGL yet.

There's some freaky speed issues with D3D right now.  If you can try it in OGL and it doesn't have the same slowdown then it's probably related to that D3D problem (slow nebula missions too).

I agree that the effect doesn't look as good as it should but it's better than before.  At some point it will get changed, made moddable or something, but that's actually last on the priority list so nothing's going to happen there any time soon.

[WMCoolmon]

I was thinking that the code used for the lightning bolts in nebulas might help.