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tweaking...
Hello!
I have an iMac G4/800 with 512 MB RAM and a GeForce 4MX with 32 MB and I need 1440*900 screen resolution to get a grisp picture on my TFT.
I tried around a lot with the setting, video and graphics. Mainy it seems to me, that nothing makes much difference in performance except the texture resolution.
I tried to change the Scene Level of Detail and Far Scene Level of Detail sliders with frames displayed on facing different scenes. The result: it only looks better when both at 1, but runs with the same FPS, it show just more polys per second then.
Can someone explain, what that exactly is? To me it seemed that scene level of detail is ships, stations and that. And far scene level of detail are the asteroids and that stuff. Is that true, and why doesn't it make a difference? To be sure I just turned it to Scene Level 2 and Far Level to 5. It would be great if I didn't have to press Apply all the time, and the slider would be live sliders so we could better see the difference.
The other stuff like filtering and bump maps on/off etc. does not seem to make any performance differences. One thing seems to make very little difference, that's the Background Detail, I have it set to very high now.
I already set doshaders to zero in the .ini file. I think that helps a lot. Does it? And does it make a visual difference on my card?
The setting that does the biggest difference is texture resolution. When turning to high I get a moderate framerate of 10-25 FPS. This is ok, but not soo good. When looking at station it goes down to 10-12 FPS, and when in asteroids I get about 20-25 FPS, so it's ok to play.
With medium texture resolution I get a fluent gameplay all the time, but then it doesn't look good anymore. With setting to very high it's absolutely unplayable.
In earlier versions of Vendetta (v3.3.x) I could turn to 16 bit 1440*900 high textures and got a fluent gameplay all the time, (and didn't even see a difference except in the background and there strong) like with 32 bit medium textures. In the new version, that seems to be broken. It runs even slower in 16 bit. But I tried to change just texture quality to 16 and screen resolution to 32 bit in the .ini file, but it looks absolutely the same, and could run a little faster, but maybe that's only imagination.
So I ask: What can be the problem here? Is it that I have just 32 MB of VRAM? And if so, can't there anything be done? Like using compressed textures (but this will be done already, I guess), or really switch texture quality to 16 bit, so they are smaller and use less VideoRAM, best except the background. Or optimize the background more for 16 bit.
Maybe I could do that. I am a programmer and artist too (the last one more) and did an own OpenGL engine, (even a demo can be found here: http://homepage.mac.com/stuepfnick/coding/)
and lots of graphics, textures, and optimizing graphics for special, low color palettes, etc.
So if that would work, I could do it myself, if you tell me how, or give me that stuff, so I can return it. But I have no idea.
Maybe there is even a Mac bug in general, that makes framerates lower than normal?? If not, there is only the 16 bit bug? I think absolutely best would be an option: Optimize for less VideoRAM and it renders down all textures to 16 bit (less size) except the background, which stays 32 bit then. So it would run very smooth here (and at other computers with less graphics mem) and look great too!
Phew, finally got it, I hope. I hope I could help some Mac people finding the best settings and hope I can tweak it even more for even more fun!
Thanks and greetings,
Stuepfnick
PS: Vendetta looks so great, and earlier I was always happy, that it runs so smooth even on low end computers!
I have an iMac G4/800 with 512 MB RAM and a GeForce 4MX with 32 MB and I need 1440*900 screen resolution to get a grisp picture on my TFT.
I tried around a lot with the setting, video and graphics. Mainy it seems to me, that nothing makes much difference in performance except the texture resolution.
I tried to change the Scene Level of Detail and Far Scene Level of Detail sliders with frames displayed on facing different scenes. The result: it only looks better when both at 1, but runs with the same FPS, it show just more polys per second then.
Can someone explain, what that exactly is? To me it seemed that scene level of detail is ships, stations and that. And far scene level of detail are the asteroids and that stuff. Is that true, and why doesn't it make a difference? To be sure I just turned it to Scene Level 2 and Far Level to 5. It would be great if I didn't have to press Apply all the time, and the slider would be live sliders so we could better see the difference.
The other stuff like filtering and bump maps on/off etc. does not seem to make any performance differences. One thing seems to make very little difference, that's the Background Detail, I have it set to very high now.
I already set doshaders to zero in the .ini file. I think that helps a lot. Does it? And does it make a visual difference on my card?
The setting that does the biggest difference is texture resolution. When turning to high I get a moderate framerate of 10-25 FPS. This is ok, but not soo good. When looking at station it goes down to 10-12 FPS, and when in asteroids I get about 20-25 FPS, so it's ok to play.
With medium texture resolution I get a fluent gameplay all the time, but then it doesn't look good anymore. With setting to very high it's absolutely unplayable.
In earlier versions of Vendetta (v3.3.x) I could turn to 16 bit 1440*900 high textures and got a fluent gameplay all the time, (and didn't even see a difference except in the background and there strong) like with 32 bit medium textures. In the new version, that seems to be broken. It runs even slower in 16 bit. But I tried to change just texture quality to 16 and screen resolution to 32 bit in the .ini file, but it looks absolutely the same, and could run a little faster, but maybe that's only imagination.
So I ask: What can be the problem here? Is it that I have just 32 MB of VRAM? And if so, can't there anything be done? Like using compressed textures (but this will be done already, I guess), or really switch texture quality to 16 bit, so they are smaller and use less VideoRAM, best except the background. Or optimize the background more for 16 bit.
Maybe I could do that. I am a programmer and artist too (the last one more) and did an own OpenGL engine, (even a demo can be found here: http://homepage.mac.com/stuepfnick/coding/)
and lots of graphics, textures, and optimizing graphics for special, low color palettes, etc.
So if that would work, I could do it myself, if you tell me how, or give me that stuff, so I can return it. But I have no idea.
Maybe there is even a Mac bug in general, that makes framerates lower than normal?? If not, there is only the 16 bit bug? I think absolutely best would be an option: Optimize for less VideoRAM and it renders down all textures to 16 bit (less size) except the background, which stays 32 bit then. So it would run very smooth here (and at other computers with less graphics mem) and look great too!
Phew, finally got it, I hope. I hope I could help some Mac people finding the best settings and hope I can tweak it even more for even more fun!
Thanks and greetings,
Stuepfnick
PS: Vendetta looks so great, and earlier I was always happy, that it runs so smooth even on low end computers!
Actually with working 16 bit again, it runs really fluent again. Not complaining anymore.. Only thing I wonder is that sometimes it gets choppy even with high frame rates. I can't really explain now.
And an issue is, that the depth buffer seems to be very inaccurate. I really wonder why and if that is everywhere. I had similar issues in my projects and what helped was to set the near clipping plane a little more away.
I hope this helps
greetings,
Stuepfnick
PS: Thanks again for the 16 bit fix!! YEEHA!
And an issue is, that the depth buffer seems to be very inaccurate. I really wonder why and if that is everywhere. I had similar issues in my projects and what helped was to set the near clipping plane a little more away.
I hope this helps
greetings,
Stuepfnick
PS: Thanks again for the 16 bit fix!! YEEHA!
Yeah, setting the nearz farther away would help artifacts but then really close things would clip away like close bots or powerups or asteroids if you skim them.
What's really happening is that since you are choosing a 16bit video mode, it is also choosing a 16bit depth buffer. Setting the video mode to 32bit will make it choose a 32bit zbuffer instead. That's just the way it's implemented because not all hardware supports 16bit color+32bit z buffer.
What's really happening is that since you are choosing a 16bit video mode, it is also choosing a 16bit depth buffer. Setting the video mode to 32bit will make it choose a 32bit zbuffer instead. That's just the way it's implemented because not all hardware supports 16bit color+32bit z buffer.
I see. Maybe an option for that is possible? Like trying farer clipping plane or 16 bit colors + 32 bith depth?
Regards,
Stuepfnick
PS: Are compressed textures already supported or not?
Regards,
Stuepfnick
PS: Are compressed textures already supported or not?
Hmm. maybe an option for z bitdepth.
Compressed textures are not yet supported. Personally I think they look kinda ugly and are not the fastest thing to generate if I try to do it on the cpu without the video card's help. Obviously it is a win if you don't have much video memory though.
Compressed textures are not yet supported. Personally I think they look kinda ugly and are not the fastest thing to generate if I try to do it on the cpu without the video card's help. Obviously it is a win if you don't have much video memory though.
It seems to me, that video memory makes the biggest performance hit, because everything that uses lower video memory makes it faster (16bit, texture and screen resolution, BG detail), all other settings make nearly no difference at all. I have a 32 MB GeForce4MX.
Yes a setting for depth buff would be fine! It really looks very ugly when flying towards a station. Maybe I can set far clipping plane or depth buff in the ini somehow?
greetings,
Stuepfnick
Yes a setting for depth buff would be fine! It really looks very ugly when flying towards a station. Maybe I can set far clipping plane or depth buff in the ini somehow?
greetings,
Stuepfnick