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*** Vendetta 1.8.48
- "Very high" resolution textures now available for the very bumpy "bone" asteroids. These textures are only enabled by default on videocards with 256MB or more video ram.
- New "Renormalize Normalmaps" option allows better visual quality in bumpmaps, especially the new high-detail textures, but at a trade-off of increased load times (unless all textures are pre-loaded).
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We still have some more quality work to do on this, particularly re-normalizing the bumpmaps for people on GeForce 6 / Radeon 1300 or better cards (Pixel Shader 3.x).
For anyone who wants to see the new textures, you need to set Video -> Texture Resolution to "Very High". I then recommend visiting Itan J11 (Latos M7 is decent too, but a bit dark). Be advised that Itan J11 can exhaust even a 256MB card on these settings, but it's quite pretty.
- "Very high" resolution textures now available for the very bumpy "bone" asteroids. These textures are only enabled by default on videocards with 256MB or more video ram.
- New "Renormalize Normalmaps" option allows better visual quality in bumpmaps, especially the new high-detail textures, but at a trade-off of increased load times (unless all textures are pre-loaded).
----------------------------------
We still have some more quality work to do on this, particularly re-normalizing the bumpmaps for people on GeForce 6 / Radeon 1300 or better cards (Pixel Shader 3.x).
For anyone who wants to see the new textures, you need to set Video -> Texture Resolution to "Very High". I then recommend visiting Itan J11 (Latos M7 is decent too, but a bit dark). Be advised that Itan J11 can exhaust even a 256MB card on these settings, but it's quite pretty.
Note, this is about a 21MB patch. I will try to update the installer copies soon (perhaps today), but I want to double check on some other Updater-related work before I do so.. obviously I'd prefer to have the latest, most robust updater included with the install archive.
As an additional heads-up, this may push some cards a bit harder than VO has previously. With my Nvidia 6800GT 256MB at home, in Itani J11, I have to turn anti-aliasing down to 2x. If I leave it up at 4x, I go from 160fps to 5fps.
On my GeForce 5900 Ultra 256mb at the office, I have to disable both AA and turn filtering from "Anisotropic" down to "Linear" in order to maintain framerate.
Yoda said on his GeForce 6200, he had to turn backgrounds detail down a notch to get a good framerate.
Itan J11, if you fly around and see the station close-up and all the various asteroids, uses a bit more than 256MB of video ram.. it's kind of a worst-case. Both my card at home and the office thrash a little bit in this sector, when swapping out textures, but it all looks very pretty. PCI-Express people may not notice the texture thrashing as much, but it may still be happening.
Enabling Texture Compression would possibly make it doable even on a 128MB card. Possibly. (We only compress diffuse maps and other things, not normal maps.. they would show bad artifacts. But, it may be enough to make it all fit in 128MB).
Eventually we may look into more complex normal-map compression systems (like the newer 3Dc stuff, and whatnot), but for now it's uncompressed for best fidelity. On the upside, if you use the normal "High" texture settings.. memory use will not change at all.
As things move forward, I plan to make much greater use of these bumpy high-detail asteroids, particularly in the upcoming "Newbie sectors" and the like. I will be careful how I use them, however, having seen the memory usage of J11.
When we get the re-normalizing shader in there (maybe Weds? We're having a problem with ATI cards), it should look even better. For now though, I recommend just enabling "Renormalize on load time", "Very High" and going to Itani J11 to look around.
Latos M7 is not a very good demonstration, as the lighting is rather poor.
On my GeForce 5900 Ultra 256mb at the office, I have to disable both AA and turn filtering from "Anisotropic" down to "Linear" in order to maintain framerate.
Yoda said on his GeForce 6200, he had to turn backgrounds detail down a notch to get a good framerate.
Itan J11, if you fly around and see the station close-up and all the various asteroids, uses a bit more than 256MB of video ram.. it's kind of a worst-case. Both my card at home and the office thrash a little bit in this sector, when swapping out textures, but it all looks very pretty. PCI-Express people may not notice the texture thrashing as much, but it may still be happening.
Enabling Texture Compression would possibly make it doable even on a 128MB card. Possibly. (We only compress diffuse maps and other things, not normal maps.. they would show bad artifacts. But, it may be enough to make it all fit in 128MB).
Eventually we may look into more complex normal-map compression systems (like the newer 3Dc stuff, and whatnot), but for now it's uncompressed for best fidelity. On the upside, if you use the normal "High" texture settings.. memory use will not change at all.
As things move forward, I plan to make much greater use of these bumpy high-detail asteroids, particularly in the upcoming "Newbie sectors" and the like. I will be careful how I use them, however, having seen the memory usage of J11.
When we get the re-normalizing shader in there (maybe Weds? We're having a problem with ATI cards), it should look even better. For now though, I recommend just enabling "Renormalize on load time", "Very High" and going to Itani J11 to look around.
Latos M7 is not a very good demonstration, as the lighting is rather poor.
The "Renormalize textures" option is funky on all but very high texture quality settings, heres a screeny with it set to high -->
[edit]
Heres what you should see -->
[edit]
Heres what you should see -->
Yeah. I have a i GB GeForce 9600. I think I'm good if I ever decide to resubscribe, when my allowance balance isn't less than zero.
Yeah. Uh, so why the graphical updates? Is this in preperation for asteriod redistribution or what?
Yeah. Uh, so why the graphical updates? Is this in preperation for asteriod redistribution or what?
Running on a ATI Radeon 9800 Pro w/128MB, had a noticeable hic-up in the first sector with very high 'bone' roid textures, seconds later it was fine. I did not turn on Renormalize. I turned back to high textures for a performance boost, looks like I'll be in the market for a new PC soonish.
Neat :)
I hope my X1600 pro can run this.
I hope my X1600 pro can run this.
No noticeable performance hit on a GeForce 8800 GTS 512. And, really, that's all that matters here.
Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the textures of the xith tunnels were updated. Still pretty blocky inside. :-/
Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the textures of the xith tunnels were updated. Still pretty blocky inside. :-/
Yoda: whoa, weird. So that's what he meant by "It looks like a topographical map". We'll look into it.
ingoguy: Yes, the increased resolution is for the asteroid redistribution, as well as the new "Newbie" sectors (which come as part of the FF/faction stuff, as well as other needs). Basically, I'm trying to get the most out of the art assets we already have, since we don't have the time/money/people to make new ones. Since we had these lying around, it was no big deal to add. Then, I build Newbie sectors that make use of them, along with some of our other "better" assets.. like the Constellation, and place the sectors in areas with really interesting backgrounds.. to "put our best foot forward" with newbies. Basically I want to impress people the moment they launch from the docking bay for the first time. Our game really has some pretty nifty scenery, but it tends to be hidden away from new people.
Aside from that, I'll be using these asteroids a lot more often in the universe, when they're re-distributed. Since they're pretty, and I like them. (How little they were used before was always a bone of contention between Waylon and myself, when he made the current distribution).
Anyway, I'd appreciate more feedback from people with 256MB cards in Itan J11. Fly around and look at everything up close (station, asteroids, big split-in-half asteroid, etc) to get everything loaded, and see how it runs. I think we may need to enable texture compression on 256MB cards by default, otherwise we risk texture thrashing. But we'll leave it off for 512MB people.
ingoguy: Yes, the increased resolution is for the asteroid redistribution, as well as the new "Newbie" sectors (which come as part of the FF/faction stuff, as well as other needs). Basically, I'm trying to get the most out of the art assets we already have, since we don't have the time/money/people to make new ones. Since we had these lying around, it was no big deal to add. Then, I build Newbie sectors that make use of them, along with some of our other "better" assets.. like the Constellation, and place the sectors in areas with really interesting backgrounds.. to "put our best foot forward" with newbies. Basically I want to impress people the moment they launch from the docking bay for the first time. Our game really has some pretty nifty scenery, but it tends to be hidden away from new people.
Aside from that, I'll be using these asteroids a lot more often in the universe, when they're re-distributed. Since they're pretty, and I like them. (How little they were used before was always a bone of contention between Waylon and myself, when he made the current distribution).
Anyway, I'd appreciate more feedback from people with 256MB cards in Itan J11. Fly around and look at everything up close (station, asteroids, big split-in-half asteroid, etc) to get everything loaded, and see how it runs. I think we may need to enable texture compression on 256MB cards by default, otherwise we risk texture thrashing. But we'll leave it off for 512MB people.
Well It looks great and runs awesome on the HD3870 512megs
And it runs just as well on my 1600pro with 512 but since the pc sucks it crashes 3 minutes later.
And it runs just as well on my 1600pro with 512 but since the pc sucks it crashes 3 minutes later.
I can reproduce the bug Yoda is experiencing.
Ah... Well, if that's the case, then update the screenshots section to include the new roids! It would help that much more.
I am :). I spent quite a bit of time last night, shooting screenshots.
I know it was just convenient ..but it's kind of weird that the roids that already looked best get an upgrade. It just makes the rest stick out more.
The ice roids could probably use some love instead. Even at highest settings they still look like just a bunch of triangles with a funky pattern.
I wonder how it'd look like if all normal ice roids were replaced with pieces of those large ice clusters .. with maybe some white versions of those bone roids in between.
The ice roids could probably use some love instead. Even at highest settings they still look like just a bunch of triangles with a funky pattern.
I wonder how it'd look like if all normal ice roids were replaced with pieces of those large ice clusters .. with maybe some white versions of those bone roids in between.
Good! Good on you!
How long was it since the last update, again?
I have NEVER seen it updated.
EVER.
How long was it since the last update, again?
I have NEVER seen it updated.
EVER.
ingo: huh? What, the screenshots? They were updated Feb of 2007, it says so at the top of the page:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/h/screenshots.html
spuck: yes, and that would use a lot more time. This is about doing the most with the assets I have, not wishing I had different assets. Ice updates might happen as we start redoing the universe, but definitely not in the next week before I redo newbie sectors.
http://www.vendetta-online.com/h/screenshots.html
spuck: yes, and that would use a lot more time. This is about doing the most with the assets I have, not wishing I had different assets. Ice updates might happen as we start redoing the universe, but definitely not in the next week before I redo newbie sectors.
Actually, though they do need work, the ice 'roids are my favorite and impressed me the most when I started. Soon processing power will be enough maybe we can get realtime reflections off them! It's just the smoothing on them that needs work, really. Maybe give the impression of depth within the surface. Maybe put cavemen in there.
Ice asteroids look pretty bad, just a few more polys can't hurt :P
I totally agree with improving ice shaders, and we've kicked around a few options over the years.. including the heavyweight possibility of making them truly transparent and refractive (very slow!). Anyway, I just don't have time for it right now. But you will be seeing more work in that direction, and more types of ice 'roids before long. They're about the only type of asteroid that are fast enough to make to even be on my list.
Because the test server didn't allow me to log on last night, I was only able to examine the roids in Latos F1. I have a Radeon X1600 with 256MB RAM. Close up and moving around the asteroids with everything turned up to max I was getting framerates around 50fps, and that seemed to be pretty representative of what I would be getting with any of the new roids on the screen. With none of them on my screen, the framerate basically doubled. I'll see if I can make my way to Itan sometime soon to try it out in your preferred sector.