T3D 1.2 Bug-fix - Terrain tools are extremely slow

#1 I know that the size of the terrain tool brush can affect performance, but I've not experienced any significant issues that could be attributed to the patch. Do you get any kind of build errors/warnings or unusual reports in the console after you've applied the patch and rebuilt?

#2 My load times is also extremely long and my terrain tools is also very slow and jittery, but I had my hands down in the engine so I can't say if it is due to my emitters or if it would have happened in a clean build aswell.
I got 2 terrains in my mission aswell, that might be disturbing the editors aswell. Didn't test in release mode tho! I can go do that right away and clear the mission of emitters!
Edit: My issues seems to be debug only, and it's not really an issue then is it?

#3 @Michael Hall: The slow-down is consistent with the 1.2 bug-fix application; doesn't matter what the brush sizes are. There are the usual unused/uninitialized variable and unsigned/signed warnings, no build errors.

@Lukas: I made sure to apply the 1.2 patch to a vanilla 1.1 Final, so there are no other code changes. Also, as I mentioned above, the slow-down is consistent across builds, Debug or Release.

I should perhaps add that I'm building with VS 2010 Express.

#4 So, no acknowledgement whatsoever from GG about this. Nice. =(

#5 We have not seen this problem at all, and you are the first to report it. As Michael noted, brush sizes have caused significant problems in the past (from TGE 1.3 on). But this is the first that I have seen of it in Torque 3D 1.1 with the 1.2 patch applied. 1.2 should not have affected much in terms of the terrain, but you may be seeing network latency issues introduced, etc that were untested with a large static level and core player changes.

I do not know where the problem lies, but I will report it so that it is on the list to be checked in the future.

Did you see this same issue with the full 1.2 binary version? That could help us narrow it down.

#6 Thanks for the reply, David.

Network latency issues? Shouldn't there be next to no latency when server and client are running together in the same executable? Also, I'd expect the mission editor to be mostly, if not all, client-side...?

It is a fairly large level: 2048x2048. There are some static shapes in there, but not a ton -- 40 maybe.

I don't seem to have access to the 1.2 binary version. (Not seeing a download link anywhere...)

What about the water blocks not rendering? I considered that possibly there was something not compatible in the water block settings between 1.1 and 1.2, but even brand-new water blocks fail to render.

#7 There isn't a binary version of 1.2. We simplified things with the price drop and reopening. All 1.2 licenses are full source licenses. I have no idea on the waterblocks unless it is a video driver issue. Afaik, we did not make changes to the terrain and waterblock code for 1.2 (1.1, yes). I was using water blocks as large puddled areas in Chinatown when I was playing around with simulated rainstorms on the old nvidia at work and my newer ati at home without waterblock issues.

#8 Also, it depends on the pipe you are throwing data through. If you have ever experienced shader lag, it was most likely due to the shader pipe being too small for what you were throwing through it. You will see these issues with any bounded environment. You may have an amazing network connection, but if you are bounded by typical network throughput constraints, you'll see slowdown. You'll notice this in networked engines like UDK, Source, and idTech that use this model. This will cause an upfront dev cost to fix in these engines. It will require a large backend cost to fix in engines like Unity and Shiva. In the end, the cost is about the same, but it depends on where it falls in your design schedule and how it fits into your game.

#9 I'm guessing it would have to be some driver or system issue. I've used the same waterblock in a mission transferred across several versions of T3D without issue. 1.1 updated with the 1.2 patch also performs better in general for me than stock 1.1 and the slowdown with the Terrain tools that I experience is with a large size brush (modified to be larger than the default max) while trying to use it at a large distance from the camera's position.

Is your DirectX SDK up to date?

Another possible DirectX related area to check would be see if you're using DirectX in it's Debug or Release mode. I do know that there graphical (shader) issues when using the Debug setting with Torque...

#10 Thanks for the additional info.

@David:
Quote: "There isn't a binary version of 1.2."
Quote: "Did you see this same issue with the full 1.2 binary version? That could help us narrow it down.

Um, what? If you're saying I should upgrade to a full 1.2 studio version and try that, no, don't think so. I'm not willing to drop the cash for that just on the chance that it might fix the issues. In fact, I'm not seeing any good reason to upgrade to 1.2, because all it brings to the table for me right now are problems.

Regarding networked latency... I get what you're saying, but the details really seem to be moot -- everything works fine in 1.1, everything does not work in 1.1 + 1.2 patch. Was the networking code changed?

@Michael Hall:
Drivers are current. That is a good call on the DirectX; pretty sure it's the newest SDK, but could be Debug... I'll have to double-check that.

#11 I wasn't asking you to upgrade. I was asking if you saw the same problem in the binary/demo version of 1.2?

There were some networking changes that were made in 1.2, but I can't recall them right now. And some of them could have been feature-pushes to support the FPS tutorial rather than bug fixes included with the patch.

Which is why I was wondering if you had compared the two. A debug build could definitely cause slowdown in a large variety of areas, too.

#12 Ah, the demo version! Duh, I should have thought of that. Let me see what that does...

#13 Ok, I was finally able to get the 1.2 demo downloaded. I tried the terrain tools in there and they worked fine, no slow-downs.

So if the tools are working fine in the 1.2 demo, it's probably something with my build; either DirectX (haven't had a chance to see if that's Debug or not) or something else... Would building in VS 2010 Express change anything? I know the IE plug-in doesn't build with Express...

#14 Just FYI, this terrain tool slow-down magically disappeared after bringing my project over to the new T3D 1.2 MIT version. So I'm pretty sure there was a conflict or bug in the 1.1 + 1.2 patch.