So, what are you working on right now?

[thebigh]

I'm absolutely going to do a few more detail passes before I release it. This is probably only about 60% done, and it's definitely still too clean-looking

[jaxa]

29 minutes ago, thebigh said:

For the second screenshot I increased the gamma just so you can see what's going on- I'm really trying to avoid that milky grey look you get with high gamma and ambient.

I always crank up gamma. Maybe I'll stop once I get a proper OLED/microLED display.

[chakkman]

1 hour ago, jaxa said:

I always crank up gamma. 

And I always wondered why I have to set gamma so low in-game, with a monitor with a near perfect gamma.

In most games, I don't have to do that. 9 out of 10 display absolutely perfect, and I don't have to change anything.

Edited June 13, 2023 by chakkman

[grodenglaive]

getting close, I think (hope).

[demagogue]

On 4/8/2023 at 7:18 AM, HMart said:

John Carmack the main idTech 4 developer once said, "best way to mesure performance is not FPS numbers but frame timing" and I agree, we tend to mesure game performance by counting higher and higher fps's but you can have a very responsive and playable game at 30fps, if the frame timing is constant and a very lagging game if not, even if the fps numbers are 60 or higher.

 

I was just reading a post over on TTLG about Thirith's experience playing Sable when he realized the game played significantly more smoothly, and the movement control was less wonky, at 30 fps than 60 fps, and then I see your post explaining just that.

Edit: I should have double checked the date. I didn't realize when I clicked the thread that it didn't take me to the latest page but evidently to the last point I had read up to, which was more than 2 months ago. Sorry about that. Well it's still an interesting thing to point out anyway.

[HMart]

7 hours ago, demagogue said:

 

I was just reading a post over on TTLG about Thirith's experience playing Sable when he realized the game played significantly more smoothly, and the movement control was less wonky, at 30 fps than 60 fps, and then I see your post explaining just that.

Edit: I should have double checked the date. I didn't realize when I clicked the thread that it didn't take me to the latest page but evidently to the last point I had read up to, which was more than 2 months ago. Sorry about that. Well it's still an interesting thing to point out anyway.

Not only that but IMO today with Nvidia AI frame generation (or any equivalent tech that AMD may eventually come up with), frame rate numbers lost all their meaning (at lest with frame generation turned on), with DLSS3 FG you can have a "60" fps game that can feel like a or less than a 30 fps game ( on input lag and if that is the base frame rate from where DLSS AI is working from).

High frame rate numbers are a good way to sell GPU's ...

Edited June 15, 2023 by HMart

[jaxa]

54 minutes ago, HMart said:

Not only that but IMO today with Nvidia AI frame generation (or any equivalent tech that AMD may eventually come up with), frame rate numbers lost all their meaning (at lest with frame generation turned on), with DLSS3 FG you can have a "60" fps game that can feel like a or less than a 30 fps game ( on input lag and if that is the base frame rate from where DLSS AI is working from).

High frame rate numbers are a good way to sell GPU's ...

I heard frame generation works better when there are already a lot of frames, covering for the input lag issue. So it will probably be one of the tricks used to hit 500-1000 FPS.

[AluminumHaste]

3 hours ago, HMart said:

Not only that but IMO today with Nvidia AI frame generation (or any equivalent tech that AMD may eventually come up with), frame rate numbers lost all their meaning (at lest with frame generation turned on), with DLSS3 FG you can have a "60" fps game that can feel like a or less than a 30 fps game ( on input lag and if that is the base frame rate from where DLSS AI is working from).

High frame rate numbers are a good way to sell GPU's ...

 

Well, as someone who has a 240hz freesync monitor and the requisite hardware, I want even more frames. Not only that, but the higher you go in frame rates, the less effect that uneven frame times will have on your experience.

When you have 16.6ms between frames at 60fps, having those frames show up on your screen in a timely window is really important.

But, when there's only 4.16 ms between each frame on your screen, well it starts to matter less.

And now that we have 500hz displays we're talking 2 ms between each frame being generated and thrown on screen, so if it's slightly late, you might get a gap of 3 ms? That's not noticeable anymore.

All of this matters only if you have the requisite hardware to push those frame rates of course.

[MirceaKitsune]

8 minutes ago, AluminumHaste said:

Well, as someone who has a 240hz freesync monitor and the requisite hardware, I want even more frames. Not only that, but the higher you go in frame rates, the less effect that uneven frame times will have on your experience.

When you have 16.6ms between frames at 60fps, having those frames show up on your screen in a timely window is really important.

But, when there's only 4.16 ms between each frame on your screen, well it starts to matter less.

And now that we have 500hz displays we're talking 2 ms between each frame being generated and thrown on screen, so if it's slightly late, you might get a gap of 3 ms? That's not noticeable anymore.

All of this matters only if you have the requisite hardware to push those frame rates of course.

I have an 144 Hz monitor for a couple of years. My main wish is for TDM to never go bellow 120 FPS, which still happens on low settings but is still pretty good compared to the past. I use VSync as I don't see any benefit in stressing the video card for more frames than the monitor can render, problem is it's still hard to reach the monitor refresh limit constantly.

Regarding other bottlenecks like input lag or perceived performance, it would help a lot if the engine had native Wayland support on Linux rather than still going through X11, still yet to happen to my knowledge. I use the stock amdgpu driver and performance is pretty amazing all in all, latest dev snapshot did wonders and it will prolly get even better

[HMart]

I'm not anti frame rates if that was the idea i passed ;D nor I think playing at 30fps is equal to 60fps or higher, I'm just saying that in a uneven frame timing scenario, playing at constant 30fps can feel smoother (less stuttery) than at very uneven 60fps or higher and that is true, but in a equal situation, I will prefer 60fps (or more) above 30fps any day! (real frame rates not AI fake ones...)

Edited June 15, 2023 by HMart

[AluminumHaste]

 

9 hours ago, MirceaKitsune said:

I have an 144 Hz monitor for a couple of years. My main wish is for TDM to never go bellow 120 FPS, which still happens on low settings but is still pretty good compared to the past. I use VSync as I don't see any benefit in stressing the video card for more frames than the monitor can render, problem is it's still hard to reach the monitor refresh limit constantly.

Regarding other bottlenecks like input lag or perceived performance, it would help a lot if the engine had native Wayland support on Linux rather than still going through X11, still yet to happen to my knowledge. I use the stock amdgpu driver and performance is pretty amazing all in all, latest dev snapshot did wonders and it will prolly get even better

Vsync while nice that it gets rid of screen tearing, also causes so many performance problems. From stuttering (60-30-15 etc) but it's been proven that fps higher than monitor refresh rate has benefits to input lag and feel of smoothness.

Instead try this, set TDM to com_maxfps 200, then use something like https://gitlab.com/torkel104/libstrangle to cap your FPS to 144 with no vertical sync on. For example, on my computer I set TDM to 300 fps cap, and use Rivatuner to cap FPS to 238 FPS, so it's always within the freesync window and get no tearing and no input lag. So even when the game chugs down to 150-180 fps on certain maps, it still feels smooth without having to use Vsync.
Freesync/Gsync is a really nice technology.
But if I set TDM to cap at 240FPS then it doesn't do that, it will fluctuate all over the place.

I know the Linux world for gaming is fraught with poor support for features compared to Windows, but it's worth trying.

I can't tell you how many people complain about performance and stuttering etc, only to find them running 16xAA and Vsync set to on.

 

For years I was on team "60 FPS is more than enough", until I got a computer with a 120hz panel because I didn't have a choice and I've never looked back.

[datiswous]

5 hours ago, AluminumHaste said:

set TDM to com_maxfps 200, then use something like https://gitlab.com/torkel104/libstrangle to cap your FPS to 144

What is the difference between these 2 cap settings?

[AluminumHaste]

3 hours ago, datiswous said:

What is the difference between these 2 cap settings?

Okay, here's an example. When I limit FPS in game with com_maxfps 240, the frametime graph looks like this.

First off, it's not even hitting 240 fps 4.16 ms / frame, it's way over at 4.9 ms avg. This also feels bad in game as the frame times are inconsistent, though not terrible.

If I set the engine to com_maxfps 300 and use RivaTuner to limit FPS to 240 I get this.

 

Right on 240 fps with only a small dip every now and then to 239/238 fps. And that is way smoother in game.
I could turn on Vsync, but even then it's not as good.

For example, in this scene, I get decent performance with VSync on, but with frametime inconsistencies.

But when I turn off Vsync and use Rivatuner to cap FPS at 240 fps.

Notice the in game FPS counter is not accurate.

[AluminumHaste]

I don't know how well this translates to Linux though, could be completely different.

[datiswous]

So the ingame max fps setting is ignored in this case, because it's handled by RivaTuner?

Edited June 16, 2023 by datiswous

[jaxa]

Frame time in milliseconds. I don't know exactly how the tool is measuring it, because it's not a naïve "1000 / FPS = X ms" which is what you want it to be close to. Bad frame timing can indicate stuttering.

[AluminumHaste]

1 hour ago, datiswous said:

So the ingame max fps setting is ignored in this case, because it's handled by RivaTuner?

Not ignored there is always an in engine frame rate cap applied in TDM, the max being 300 FPS (kind of), that's why you need to set the in-game FPS cap to something much higher, for me 300fps and then set RivaTuner to limit lower than that (i.e. 240 fps).

Rivatuner's driver measures on frame generation is started I believe, so when the frame is starting in the pipeline, measures the time difference until the next frame is starting in the pipeline or something like that. And then you can add up those frame times and avg them over a time period. The default is 1 second avg, but you can change that if you want to something lower. Set it to 0 to turn off averaging and just show each frame time, but at high frame rates it's unreadable blurry mess if they change.

 

Here's the options you can pick in RivaTuner

 

And the technical description of Frametime Calculation Point:

[Amadeus]

On 6/14/2023 at 4:01 AM, grodenglaive said:

getting close, I think (hope).

 

These are some really cool screenshots! Glad to see you've taken up DR and are working on an FM. If you'll permit me one suggestion, I think you should have some hills and elevated terrain in the yard in that second image. The yard and paths look pretty flat and could definitely use some height variation.

Edited June 19, 2023 by Amadeus

[grodenglaive]

14 hours ago, Amadeus said:

These are some really cool screenshots! Glad to see you've taken up DR and are working on an FM. If you'll permit me one suggestion, I think you should have some hills and elevated terrain in the yard in that second image. The yard and paths look pretty flat and could definitely use some height variation.

Thank you! Yes the yard is pretty flat overall, I'll see what I can do.

[Amadeus]

22 minutes ago, grodenglaive said:

Thank you! Yes the yard is pretty flat overall, I'll see what I can do.

And in terms of the long stretch of wall that surrounds the property in the second picture, I would recommend breaking that up with perhaps a stable, a guard tower, a garden shed, or maybe even something as simple as a wall-mounted fountain. Just consider something to break up that long stretch of wall, which will go far in generating visual interest

[grodenglaive]

19 hours ago, Amadeus said:

And in terms of the long stretch of wall that surrounds the property in the second picture, I would recommend breaking that up with perhaps a stable, a guard tower, a garden shed, or maybe even something as simple as a wall-mounted fountain. Just consider something to break up that long stretch of wall, which will go far in generating visual interest

A garden shed sounds good, thanks! Now that you mention it, they could use a garden too.

[AluminumHaste]

Just a heads up for people taking screenshots to show off. You can do things like increase ambient light for a bit instead of cranking gamma afterwards.

 

Try in the console

bind f11 "r_minambient 0.1; wait; screenshot; r_minambient 0"

This will cause the ambient light level to increase by a lot, which should cause less image artifacts as opposed to cranking the gamma

[Amadeus]

3 hours ago, grodenglaive said:

A garden shed sounds good, thanks! Now that you mention it, they could use a garden too.

As a hobbyist vegetable gardner myself, I always think TDM missions could use more gardens

[thebigh]

Yeah... so I have a lot of effects going on in my mission. My blue room is getting quite busy XD

 

[refl3ks]

Had to backpeddle on Vertigo after all the features added in the latest Dark Radiant release. Here is an image of the FM utilizing some of these features. 

Edited June 27, 2023 by refl3ks