[Lightspeed]

Err...

okay

let's sum it up:

Bobs Builds

I tried playing the last days and had certain... err.. problems

1) The game seems to hang from time to time as if it was loading stuff - but stuff that should technically have been loaded before. Example: I watch some cruisers. Framerate is at 40, I start turning away from them and the game shudders and locks up for nearly a second, dropping down to 2.1 FPS, then speeds up and is at 80 FPS. If I turn back it does the same thing again.

2) When textures come into the screen they sometimes are only white rectangles. (this also applies to beamglows and trails appearing). The white rectangles vanish after about 1/10 second and show the normal texture. This applies to background images, explosions, beams, and sometimes laser shots.

3) The framerate drops to horrendous values in some situations (which it shouldn) - to about 4 FPS to be precise. It stutters and locks around and jumps wildly between 4.1, 6.8, 12.7, etc.

4) Any time an ANI (shockwave, explosion, etc) gets played it locks up for a bit and then stutters back to normal speed. I have exlcuded any of the new effects as I ran it with retail data and had the same thing happening.

---

Now, I tested around and tried various things. I dont know if its code based or something wrong with my system, but SOMETHING seems to be killing off my performance (wayyy more than it should). It seems to happening with any of Bob's latest builds. As I tried and removed stuff back to literally retail level, and still didnt get any noticeable speedup, I reverted to the 3.6 exe. Now, there everything seems to be in fine order. My framerates are (literally) TEN times larger, and none of the above is happening.

This is why I came to the conclusion, that anything with the new features has to be messed up. Either decals, or env mapping. As i was not using ANY decals when I tested, it seems to have something to do with env mapping. It also isn't the alpha-env mapping, as I've disabled it to test - same thing. (see screenies below).

This here, is a comparison of the 3.6 and fs2_open_Bobboau_7-5-04 exes. As you can see the situation is exactly the same (same mission, same everything), but the framerates are different by a multiplier of 10.

3.6 RELEASE:


NEW BUILD:


As you can see i'm rather depressed, and feel this shouldnt be happening. If you have any ideas what this could possibly be, please help me. It might be a problem of the code, might also be a problem of my data (I've checked about everything though and that didnt help either). All I know is, somethings wrong. No way that the new features would cause a THAT severe slowdown, right?

And no, my system is not specifically low spec, as I've got a 2.4 GHz machine with 512 MB RAM, and a Radeon 9800.

[Turambar]

I have a similar machine with a somewhat less L337 gfx card and i have similar issues.  WTF Bob?!?

[phreak]

try playing my new one

[mrduckman]

I had the same thing. But I've checked only on the first mission. When I was pointing to the Psamtik the FPS dropped dramatically to 5.

[Bobboau]

did this start with environment mapping and never got better?
I'm thinking it might be decals as there is some particularly hairy code in there.

[RandomTiger]

Lightspeed, please run your tests again with this flag on:

-d3d_bad_tsys

[Lightspeed]

WHAT the heck does that flag do - its a difference like night & day?

Here's the results:

Bobs Builds - WITH FLAG

1) The game seems to hang from time to time as if it was loading stuff - but stuff that should technically have been loaded before. Example: I watch some cruisers. Framerate is at 40, I start turning away from them and the game shudders and locks up for nearly a second, dropping down to 2.1 FPS, then speeds up and is at 80 FPS. If I turn back it does the same thing again. STILL HAPPENING - The drops are less intense though

2) When textures come into the screen they sometimes are only white rectangles. (this also applies to beamglows and trails appearing). The white rectangles vanish after about 1/10 second and show the normal texture. This applies to background images, explosions, beams, and sometimes laser shots. STILL HAPPENING

3) The framerate drops to horrendous values in some situations (which it shouldn) - to about 4 FPS to be precise. It stutters and locks around and jumps wildly between 4.1, 6.8, 12.7, etc. RESOLVED - The framerate is still worse enough, but never falls to such low values anymore.

4) Any time an ANI (shockwave, explosion, etc) gets played it locks up for a bit and then stutters back to normal speed. I have exlcuded any of the new effects as I ran it with retail data and had the same thing happening. RESOLVED - This seems to be gone

---

3.6 RELEASE:


NEW BUILD with flag:

Varies between 27-55 FPS. All-in-all it feels slower, but I think that's mainly due to the hanging problem (see 1)

-----

Its still bad enough, but A LOT better than it was before.

[RandomTiger]

That flag changes between the two texture systems in D3D.
Interesting stuff thanks.

[Lightspeed]

Well, the 'bad' one is about five times better as it seems.

[RandomTiger]

I've updated my sig with a new exe that has a fix attempt.
Please (at least at first) run it *without* -d3d_bad_tsys.
And tell me how it does.

[Bobboau]

you know the white square thing might be relaited to environment mapping, I have it set a texture directly with D3D_setTexture(), or it might be related to the state block code, but I find that less likely.

[JarC]

Ah this is good news to wake up with.... not this 'bug' I mean, but the fact that it is a bug afterall, I already had this attirbuted to my low-end machine...glad to see others have it too...

[Lightspeed]

Originally posted by RandomTiger
I've updated my sig with a new exe that has a fix attempt.
Please (at least at first) run it *without* -d3d_bad_tsys.
And tell me how it does.

I cant. It doesnt seem to recognize any of bob's command lines.

[RandomTiger]

That build is a plain 3.6 release with some bug fixes.
I would be great of you could give it a test though.

[Lightspeed]

That wouldn't have any comparable results as the system drain is completely different. I could test it but that wouldn't show if at all/ how good/ the situation has been fixed.

I did some more testing with the 7-5 build and -d3d_bad_tsys turned on. Well, point three...

"The framerate drops to horrendous values in some situations (which it shouldn) - to about 4 FPS to be precise. It stutters and locks around and jumps wildly between 4.1, 6.8, 12.7, etc. RESOLVED - The framerate is still worse enough, but never falls to such low values anymore."

has now officially proven wrong. It DOES drop to such low values - but stays there only for seconds, and stutters around till speeding up again. It happens almost never though, whereas without the flag -d3d_bad_tsys it happened every time.

Well, there's definately some rather nasty things going on somewhere and those will have to be eliminated.

[RandomTiger]

7-5 build? I take it thats Bob's build?

If you can help me test for bugs on that build then I can get them fixed up. Then Bob can update and it will be easier for him to fix his.

[Lightspeed]

Okay - i'll see what I can do.

In the meantime. Here's a somewhat unusual test on Bob's 7-5 build. I recorded the FPS to a logfile every second, and put it into some 1337 excel tables.

y-scale = FPS, x-scale = seconds (the shortest hangers didnt even get recorded)

Red diagram = no flag
Yellow diagram = -d3d_bad_tsys

Click

The two curves are not synched (they're just in the same diagram so you can compare overall shapes), but I think you can see the problem.

I've also noticed, that I can magically slow down my game to the 4 FPS crawl. All I have to do is play without the flag and switch to external camera mode (, on the keypad) - my FPS instantly drop to 4 and stay there, no matter if/what there's (anything) in the background.

[Lightspeed]

More testing with bobs builds!

The white blobs are almost definately due to texture loading. There seem to be some bad flaws in the way beams and suns are stored. Whenever a 1024² sun enters my screen (a lot of other action going on) it starts as the white rectangle and slows down the FPS to about 5 - then the sun image appears and the FPS go back up to where they were before. If I turn away from the sun it stutters again (as it leaves the screen). As soon as it re-enters the screen it stutters again. The same seems to happen for some effect graphics and ANIs.

However, it does NOT happen with 2048² planets, or 1024² background images. Haven't seen it on any ship textures yet, either.

So, it seems to load and unload textures wildly, which it shouldnt.

[Bobboau]

arn't some of the alpha blended textures loaded diferently that the normal ones?

or you know what, tell me if this happens in any build before 6-3-04

[Bobboau]

try this build for framerate problems
http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/fs2_open_Bobboau_6-10-04.zip