Black Mage: performance problems (and fog)

[duzenko]

Wait for the next beta that should have some elemental game class tweaks

[stgatilov]

16 hours ago, STRUNK said:

r_showsmp seems to spit out FFFFFF
I also see: Exceeded index frame limit (4096 kb), resizing...
New byffer size: 33285 kb
And: 16.0 to 24 milliseconds for asingle "R_AddSingleModel" job from list JOBLIST_RENDERED_FRONTEND on thread x
I set the jobs_numThreads to 8
Using 2 or 8 threads doesn't seem to hav an effect on GPU load.
Most part of the game the fps is above 60, in the lava cave it's between 4 and 12

If you really want to see what's the problem, then you should download Tracy viewer and run it.
Then run TDM and get to the problematic location.
When you are there, open game console and execute "com_enableTracing 1", then in Tracy click Connect button.
Switch back to TDM and wait for a few seconds, then switch to Tracy and click Stop.
Now you can inspect the timeline, and there is an option to save trace --- this way you can lend it to us for inspection.

 

[STRUNK]

Tracy doesn't seem to run as is, and the user manual describes a setup that I don't understand unfortunately.

[duzenko]

6 hours ago, STRUNK said:

Tracy doesn't seem to run as is, and the user manual describes a setup that I don't understand unfortunately.

TLDR; your cpu is too slow for darkmod elementals on rough terrain

[STRUNK]

@duzenko
Could be. My graphics card is quite good (GTX 1660) but my workstation/pc is quite old and a bit strange having 2 quadcore xeon processors (x5570).

I made a simple room with 20 blue and 20 red elementals as a test, and my fps dropped to 20+.
Also tested with 20 elementals total and it was still 60+

When I kill only the 5 elementals in the lava cave my fps goes from 4+ to 20+, but when I "killmonsters" (in the lave cave) my fps gets 60+

 

[nbohr1more]

@JackFarmer

Our internal profiling shows that the lava cave is using patch geometry for path-finding. This is a known performance pitfall.

Would you be willing to look into making the cave patch geometry non-solid and then creating simplified brushes for the Fire Elementals to path-find over?

[STRUNK]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/815315205483397142/925842904621154395/2021-12-29_20-07-31.mp4

This should be a video showing the jobs_Numthreads at work with 40 elementals, and what it shows in the console .. and that the jobs don't get printed in the console when I killmonsters ..
I don't know if it's of any singnificance at all but . well .. here it is anyway : )

Edited December 29, 2021 by STRUNK

[STRUNK]

@nbohr1more
Sounds like something that might be (part of) the/my pc's problem.
What I don't get is why killing the elementals in the cave gives me "decent" (20+) fps, when it was 4+ before killing them,
but when I "killmonsters", that are not in that location(?), fps shoots up to 60+ again?
 

Edited December 29, 2021 by STRUNK

[Gadavre]

On 12/28/2021 at 12:45 PM, STRUNK said:

could you try entering killmonsters in the lava cave?

@STRUNK

You're right... The developer of mission did something wrong with the models.

I entered the command "killmonsters" in the console and FPS went up to 60 !!!!!!!!!!!

 

P.S. It would be good to come up with a variable. which could lower the quality of the models. it's not fun to play without models )

 

Edited December 29, 2021 by Gadavre

[STRUNK]

@Gadavre
I don't know what is wrong. It seems we both have some outdated hardware and other players don't have significant fps drop in these lava caves.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/815315205483397142/925855134414667786/2021-12-29_20-56-07.mp4
Here a video showing the fps drop, and rise after killmonsters.

 

Edited December 29, 2021 by STRUNK

[STRUNK]

@Gadavre

It might solve something

 

Edited December 29, 2021 by STRUNK

[JackFarmer]

3 hours ago, nbohr1more said:

@JackFarmer

 creating simplified brushes for the Fire Elementals to path-find over?

Sorry, I do not follow, what do you mean by that?

The patches in question are fully covered by MC. Should that not prevent any pathfinding?

[nbohr1more]

1 hour ago, JackFarmer said:

Sorry, I do not follow, what do you mean by that?

The patches in question are fully covered by MC. Should that not prevent any pathfinding?

If the patches are still solid, the engine will still evaluate their vertices to see whether collision needs to be applied. If you have MC where it needs to be you should be able to set the patches to non-solid and thus improve performance in the cave.

[duzenko]

@JackFarmerWhat is your worst fps in the elemental cave and what is your CPU and settings?

[Dragofer]

15 hours ago, nbohr1more said:

@JackFarmer

Our internal profiling shows that the lava cave is using patch geometry for path-finding. This is a known performance pitfall.

Would you be willing to look into making the cave patch geometry non-solid and then creating simplified brushes for the Fire Elementals to path-find over?

If the cave patches are made non-solid they'll become nonsolid to the player too and brushes will not be able to believably mimic their contours. Also, there is in fact already extremely simple monsterclipping in the map above the patches, but parts of the monsterclip floor come within 32 units of the patches so at those points the patch surface would be used for collisions instead of the brushes:

That said, @JackFarmer can massively reduce the patches' tri counts by enabling "Fixed subdivisions" in the Patch Inspector (Shift + S) and setting this to i.e. 4x4, instead of letting DR automatically set the number of subdivisions. They should also not all be in the same func_static entity:

The ingame appearance is almost identical:

[JackFarmer]

@stgatilov@nbohr1more@Gadavre@Zerg Rush@datiswous@Dragofer @duzenko @STRUNK

Try this (note: still unoffical, but already named "version 2"):

https://we.tl/t-7UVGIqIFx1

1. The ceiling geometry  is now non solid
2. Increased height of MC brush covering the lava lake significantly to avoid conflicting pathfinding between MC brush and ground patches
3. The ground patches are now four separate entities
4. Eanabled fixed subdivision for each ground patch.

 

With these changes, the only critical spot I had in this area jumped from 30 to 60 fps.

 

@datiswousWould you mind checking the cave area for possible problems with player movement?

 

Edited December 30, 2021 by JackFarmer

[stgatilov]

@JackFarmer, I have just committed an optimization of collision model construction for patches (5859).

I suggest you wait a few days, and dmap your next version with upcoming beta210-03.
Note that you should delete .cm file before doing so (to be sure it is rebuilt).

[JackFarmer]

5 minutes ago, stgatilov said:

@JackFarmer, I have just committed an optimization of collision model construction for patches (5859).

I suggest you wait a few days, and dmap your next version with upcoming beta210-03.
Note that you should delete .cm file before doing so (to be sure it is rebuilt).

Noted and thank you.

[STRUNK]

@JackFarmer
Very good news Jack!
I tested the unofficial version 2 for FPS in the lava cave, and now I get 75+ there, where it was 5+ in the org. version

 

Edited December 30, 2021 by STRUNK

[Gadavre]

6 hours ago, JackFarmer said:

Try this (note: still unoffical, but already named "version 2"):

https://we.tl/t-7UVGIqIFx1

Much better (48-60 fps).

Before that I had 20-35 fps.

But I want to repeat my idea. The best solution is to give the player graphical tweaks that improve performance. After all, future mission developers will probably use resource-intensive technology... Do we players have to write about performance degradation every time? Give us a tool to manage graphics in missions and we will solve the performance issue ourselves

Edited December 30, 2021 by Gadavre

[JackFarmer]

5 minutes ago, Gadavre said:

Much better (48-60 fps).

Before that I had 20-35 fps.

But I want to repeat my idea. The best solution is to give the player gameplay tweaks that improve performance. After all, future mission developers will probably use resource-intensive technology... Do we players have to write about performance degradation every time? Give us a tool to manage graphics in missions and we will solve the performance issue ourselves

You are not taking this into a good direction.

Edited December 30, 2021 by JackFarmer

[Gadavre]

Just now, JackFarmer said:

You are not taking this into a good direction

Thank уоu for new version. !!!

[datiswous]

7 hours ago, JackFarmer said:

Would you mind checking the cave area for possible problems with player movement?

I didn't encountered any problem. Tested with 2.10 beta #9731

fps is also improved, but wasn't a problem for me.

Edited December 30, 2021 by datiswous

[Zerg Rush]

9 hours ago, JackFarmer said:

@stgatilov@nbohr1more@Gadavre@Zerg Rush@datiswous@Dragofer @duzenko @STRUNK

Try this (note: still unoffical, but already named "version 2"):

https://we.tl/t-7UVGIqIFx1

 

Thanks, flawless with this version, whole game smooth with very good FPS  (~50 with my humble sys specs)

[stgatilov]

20 hours ago, JackFarmer said:

Try this (note: still unoffical, but already named "version 2"):

Previously processing interactions on func_static_1032 took about 2500 us, now it takes about 60 us. I think the problem with this particular piece of geometry no longer exists.

I used latest version with updated .cm file. I did not spot other performance differences.

On my settings FPS was pretty much the same in two versions, probably because the particular part of frontend is not a bottleneck on my hardware. But for someone with weaker CPU (e.g. 2 cores) or disabled Frontend Acceleration FPS should definitely increase.