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woo!
double-woo!
What's wrong with the roids?
In between helping here and there and everywhere, I'm still sprucing up graphics (currently tinkering with asteroids)
I'm hoping it's nothing that will hurt performance much!
I'm hoping it's nothing that will hurt performance much!
I dun really mind if we get slighly smoother asteroids, which is what I expect he's talking about. Either that, or new textures for the non-smooth asteroids would be my guess. We can always turn down distance detail a little bit more.
I'm not changing the models at all, just adding specularity to some of the tangent-space asteroids.
(these: http://images.vendetta-online.com/screenshots/dump0021.jpg )
It'll only effect people who have shader support, it'll have no impact at all on older cards (won't be loaded or visible).
Since they all use the same texture, I can add specularity without a major texture-memory hit. So, worth doing to add a little extra pizzaz with hardly any work. It will use a little more memory, but again, only for those with shader support.
The object-space bumpmapped asteroids (the well-known bumpy ones.. these: http://images.vendetta-online.com/screenshots/asteroids.jpg ) I'm not changing, I'm just re-exporting the JPEGs at a lower compression level. It'll add maybe an extra meg to the download, but will get rid of the JPEG artifacts which are apparent if you get close to those 'roids. It generally makes them look better, too. The JPEG artifacts have always bothered me, you can't see them in our online screenshots (I made sure of that, heh) but you can if you get close.. big blocky patches. I really like those asteroids, and intend to start using them a lot more when I begin remaking some sectors by hand, so I want them to look their best. This won't impact anyone's performance at all, it'll just look better with a slight increase in download time.
Someday I'd like to release an "Optional" texture pack for people with 256MB or greater videocards. The native-resolution 2048x1024 textures on those bumpy asteroids really look nice. Pretty insanely detailed.
Anyway.. just little piddly stuff here and there, that I can do quickly to spruce things up. The "Real" changes still have to wait until the client is Production-ready.
(these: http://images.vendetta-online.com/screenshots/dump0021.jpg )
It'll only effect people who have shader support, it'll have no impact at all on older cards (won't be loaded or visible).
Since they all use the same texture, I can add specularity without a major texture-memory hit. So, worth doing to add a little extra pizzaz with hardly any work. It will use a little more memory, but again, only for those with shader support.
The object-space bumpmapped asteroids (the well-known bumpy ones.. these: http://images.vendetta-online.com/screenshots/asteroids.jpg ) I'm not changing, I'm just re-exporting the JPEGs at a lower compression level. It'll add maybe an extra meg to the download, but will get rid of the JPEG artifacts which are apparent if you get close to those 'roids. It generally makes them look better, too. The JPEG artifacts have always bothered me, you can't see them in our online screenshots (I made sure of that, heh) but you can if you get close.. big blocky patches. I really like those asteroids, and intend to start using them a lot more when I begin remaking some sectors by hand, so I want them to look their best. This won't impact anyone's performance at all, it'll just look better with a slight increase in download time.
Someday I'd like to release an "Optional" texture pack for people with 256MB or greater videocards. The native-resolution 2048x1024 textures on those bumpy asteroids really look nice. Pretty insanely detailed.
Anyway.. just little piddly stuff here and there, that I can do quickly to spruce things up. The "Real" changes still have to wait until the client is Production-ready.
Sounds good. Thanks for clarifying that!
Can't wait to see those changes in game, but... how about getting bumpmapping on Iceyo!s to work on Linux? :P
Well, the problem there.. if I remember correctly (it was awhile ago), was we had trouble linking in nvidia's Linux "cg" shader library (which was the simple way of getting shaders going).. because the library had threading issues and freaked out over our sound thread. The alternative, at the time, was to have special-case shaders written only for the linux port, which adds that much more annoyance to the general port-maintenance process. So, at the time, we decided to pass.
Things may have cleared up by now. The library might have been improved, the shader situation in general might be simpler. I'm not sure. I have to ask Ray to even find out what the current status of all that is. If it's something simple, we'll try and add it in there. If it's more involved.. there's a lot of pretty high-priority stuff cooking right now.
Things may have cleared up by now. The library might have been improved, the shader situation in general might be simpler. I'm not sure. I have to ask Ray to even find out what the current status of all that is. If it's something simple, we'll try and add it in there. If it's more involved.. there's a lot of pretty high-priority stuff cooking right now.
I've never had a problem with Cg on linux with threading. But, then again, I don't use your sound library. :P
> ... intend to start using them [the bone 'roids] a lot more when I begin
> remaking some sectors by hand, so I want them to look their best. This
> won't impact anyone's performance at all, it'll just look better with a
> slight increase in download time.
Are you sure it won't impact performance? Those 'roids are the only thing that can really kill my framerate. Pherona E-2 has an extremely dense field of those 'roids, and I get below 10fps there, on an Athlon64 3200+ 2GiB RAM, nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MiB video RAM. Most places I'm well over 100fps, but anywhere there's a lot of those bone 'roids, my framerate drops. Most places w/ those 'roids are OK for me, Pherona E-2's ultra-dense field is an unusual location, but those 'roids do noticably affect performance, especially in large numbers.
> remaking some sectors by hand, so I want them to look their best. This
> won't impact anyone's performance at all, it'll just look better with a
> slight increase in download time.
Are you sure it won't impact performance? Those 'roids are the only thing that can really kill my framerate. Pherona E-2 has an extremely dense field of those 'roids, and I get below 10fps there, on an Athlon64 3200+ 2GiB RAM, nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MiB video RAM. Most places I'm well over 100fps, but anywhere there's a lot of those bone 'roids, my framerate drops. Most places w/ those 'roids are OK for me, Pherona E-2's ultra-dense field is an unusual location, but those 'roids do noticably affect performance, especially in large numbers.
Rogue: heh, the problem was definitely in nvidia's library. Have you linked any threaded apps against it? Anyway, Andy can talk more about it if he wants, he dealt with it for the most part, but it was awhile ago.
Beolach: Yes, I'm absolutely certain that my changes will not impact performance whatsoever. I'm not technically changing anything, from the game engine point of view. The texture resolution is staying exactly the same, I'm just exporting lower-compression textures.. but that doesn't affect the videocard at all, it loads all the textures as "uncompressed" (unless you turn on texture compression, which is done at runtime and has nothing at all to do with this discussion). There is no way that my changing these textures can impact game performance.. at all.
As for the reports of your performance problems.. that's very strange. I also have an Athlon64 (3000+) with a 256MB 6800 GT, and I have never, ever, gotten 10fps in the game. Ever. Are you using the default LOD settings? If you've changed your Distance Level of Detail settings to the maximum (they default to 6).. for some reason.. then you may be pushing scenes with millions and millions of polygons whenever you fly into a location like that.
Just for grins, I loaded up Pherona E2, which is densely packed as you say. In both the new and old clients, I have no problems. The old client with /toggleframerate gives me about 120FPS with all the asteroids in full view. Even if I do something utterly nuts, like change the LOD settings to 20/20 instead of the default, it still only drops to 35FPS. And that's in 1600x1200. The new client looks like about the same (in 1024x768 w/4x AA), but I can't measure it due to the lack of a framerate counter. Still, nowhere near 10FPS.
Just to reiterate, the whole point of the progressive meshing system is to dynamically display a reasonable number of polygons onscreen. If one were to subvert it (and I don't know that you did, you may have some crazy driver/motherboard issue or other major problem) by setting LOD to 20/20, then one would be asking for the full scenes one would get. There isn't even any value in doing that.. it eliminates a small amount of polygon "popping", but by and large it's tough to tell the difference between a scene at 6/20 versus 20/20.. aside from the framerate.
It's also noteworthy that when we started out with the LOD system and the dot3 asteroids, setting 20/20 on the fastest computer would give you about 4fps ;). *Nothing* could run a complex asteroid field without LOD. Computers have come a long way since then.
We do have a lack of polygon-throughput consistency in our sectors right now.. almost all of them are autogenerated, so some script just decided to put a whole lot of stuff in.. say.. Pherona E-2. Hopefully I'll bring things back to being more consistent, over time. I do test any sectors I make, usually on the lowest supported machine (right now, my dad's P3 933 w/GeForce1) and try to get 25fps on the default settings. But, once people fiddle with LOD.. not much I can do.
Beolach: Yes, I'm absolutely certain that my changes will not impact performance whatsoever. I'm not technically changing anything, from the game engine point of view. The texture resolution is staying exactly the same, I'm just exporting lower-compression textures.. but that doesn't affect the videocard at all, it loads all the textures as "uncompressed" (unless you turn on texture compression, which is done at runtime and has nothing at all to do with this discussion). There is no way that my changing these textures can impact game performance.. at all.
As for the reports of your performance problems.. that's very strange. I also have an Athlon64 (3000+) with a 256MB 6800 GT, and I have never, ever, gotten 10fps in the game. Ever. Are you using the default LOD settings? If you've changed your Distance Level of Detail settings to the maximum (they default to 6).. for some reason.. then you may be pushing scenes with millions and millions of polygons whenever you fly into a location like that.
Just for grins, I loaded up Pherona E2, which is densely packed as you say. In both the new and old clients, I have no problems. The old client with /toggleframerate gives me about 120FPS with all the asteroids in full view. Even if I do something utterly nuts, like change the LOD settings to 20/20 instead of the default, it still only drops to 35FPS. And that's in 1600x1200. The new client looks like about the same (in 1024x768 w/4x AA), but I can't measure it due to the lack of a framerate counter. Still, nowhere near 10FPS.
Just to reiterate, the whole point of the progressive meshing system is to dynamically display a reasonable number of polygons onscreen. If one were to subvert it (and I don't know that you did, you may have some crazy driver/motherboard issue or other major problem) by setting LOD to 20/20, then one would be asking for the full scenes one would get. There isn't even any value in doing that.. it eliminates a small amount of polygon "popping", but by and large it's tough to tell the difference between a scene at 6/20 versus 20/20.. aside from the framerate.
It's also noteworthy that when we started out with the LOD system and the dot3 asteroids, setting 20/20 on the fastest computer would give you about 4fps ;). *Nothing* could run a complex asteroid field without LOD. Computers have come a long way since then.
We do have a lack of polygon-throughput consistency in our sectors right now.. almost all of them are autogenerated, so some script just decided to put a whole lot of stuff in.. say.. Pherona E-2. Hopefully I'll bring things back to being more consistent, over time. I do test any sectors I make, usually on the lowest supported machine (right now, my dad's P3 933 w/GeForce1) and try to get 25fps on the default settings. But, once people fiddle with LOD.. not much I can do.
It's been a while since I was in Pherona E-2, I'll have to go back and fiddle with my settings. I'm pretty sure I had played with the LOD settings, and no matter what I set them to there was a significant framerate drop in the Pherona E-2 'roid field. And it wasn't really the lower compression textures that kinda set off a red flag in my mind, it was the "intend to start using them a lot more" that kinda made me worry a bit - most places /fps shows me at very high framerates, but whenever there's a lot of those type of 'roids close together (Pherona E-2 is kinda the "worst case" example), I see the framerate drop. Usually it's still fine, but Pherona E-2 and a couple other similar places just kill my framerate. So anyway, I'm just thinking that those 'roids are the best looking ones, but don't go putting Pherona E-2 like fields all over. Which you wouldn't have anyway, but...
How do you find out what videocard you have on a mac? It apparently makes worlds of difference, but I can't seem to find anyway to know which side of the world I'm on...
what mac do you have?
I was wondering ...
Will we get a Beta medal?
:D
(Meh! Just kidding).
Will we get a Beta medal?
:D
(Meh! Just kidding).
Just check in system profiler: applications/utilities
Apple Menu --> About This Mac --> More Info --> Graphics/Displays, and paste the contents of the window here. Example:
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX:
Chipset Model: GeForce4 MX
Type: Display
Bus: AGP
Slot: SLOT-A
VRAM (Total): 32 MB
Vendor: nVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0172
Revision ID: 0x00a5
ROM Revision: 1121
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX:
Chipset Model: GeForce4 MX
Type: Display
Bus: AGP
Slot: SLOT-A
VRAM (Total): 32 MB
Vendor: nVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0172
Revision ID: 0x00a5
ROM Revision: 1121
incarnate: just please don't add specularity to all the roids. Rocks don't tend to have a lot of specularity. If there's anything that I would feature specularity, it would be the ice roids, and maybe the xith roids because they look like they're obsidian or something. But really, nothing much else.