How do people get 125 FPS with Advanced Lighting in Beta2?

#21 One can use the $terrain::wireframe = true to turn ON wireframe mode for the terrain. Then set the LOD to different numbers and fly about your map. You will notice the LOD is actually doing quite a bit of good.

What i misunderstood at first, because of my own assumptions, was the LOD actual switch the full cell(I think this is what the term is), not a circumference "X" distance from the player. Full chunks of the distance terrain switch to lower LOD. I have tested and notice a difference between 0 up, but im not sure where the actual cap is, but it is higher then 16.

So once you understand how the LOD is working, you can start thinking of how to design an 'optimized' terrain. So far i found setting a view distance that is about the size of one 'cell' is quite optimal. Of course the larger your square size the faster your terrain will render. And the render distance of the detail layer changes your performance also. Texture size do not seem to matter (same with size of the detail layer). I can not truly tell if number of terrain textures makes any difference (anyone have observations on this part?).

One key thing to remember is if the player see any small part of the terrain, that full 'cell' is being rendered.

#22 i should not replay to asshat answers that tell me what i should and should not do...

@caylo ive played with the screenerror number and it is much much improved over beta 1 where it didnt actually work.

also LOD is quite destructive visually when using smaller square terrains oddly enough, so 1m terrains look worse under LoD than the 2m terrains, oh well, ive no doubt theres still more work to be done, i'll just wait and see, if each beta gets the same improvement we'll hqve awesomely fast and big terrains :)

#23 I hope you did not take my input on the subject as being "asshat"!

I honestly was only trying to share my discoveries on the subject of terrain LOD, and even explain how you do not need to take my word for it, but could also discover for yourself that LOD is working, and explain how i personally proofed to myself that LOD is working- just in case you wanted to test my assumption for yourself.

I mention that 'I myself' at first thought LOD was still busted as it was in beta 1; it was not working correctly, it was easy to see it was not working in beta 1. But after recovering from my own personal erroneous expectation that LOD should be working by distance from player, I was happy to take note that it is working fine, because LOD is calculated by "cell", not the way i was thinking it was.

I continue to mention that 'optimized' terrain, as i have found is easy to achieve by setting view distance to about the same as the size of the terrain "cell", I seem to recover a boost in FPS at this setting. I mention that larger your square size, naturally the faster the terrain perform.

I conclude my terrain LOD and optimization discoveries by mentioning that I have tested render distance of the detail layer texture, texture size do not seem to matter much and I mention that I can not find any reason that number of terrain textures on the terrain should make much FPS impact, this last part i ask fellow T3D beta members if they have noticed that it DO in fact make a difference the number of texture layers ON the terrain (I have tested upto 60 unique textures with detail layers and the FPS is solid and smooth as ever!).

I point out as a closing statement that when the player viewport have any ONE part of a terrain CELL that full terrain CELL is being rendered.

I did not mention that i have tested 128x128 up to 1024x1024 hightmaps at square size from 1 to 32(at power of 2 increments after square size 1 so it went 1/2/4/8/16/32 ). I did not mention that i had just that very hour of day finished my 3 days of extensive terrain and LOD testing to see what this new terrain system can handle, and how best to make it work for me. I was excited to share my findings with my fellow GG community members who probably do not have the same amount of time that i do, to extensively test the new terrain system.

I typed out my report exactly the same way I talk to every member of my very loved and loving family, and made sure it is the the exact same manor and language that I submit research papers, so this time at my very best efforts i am sure to NOT hurt any one of my fellow Torque community members feelings, by being an accidental jerk.

If you actually feel I am being an "asshat", then it is painfully obvious to me that i truly can not communicate properly with anyone on the GG forums, im not as all helpfull as i am attempting to be, and at this point in time forward I will keep my obsessive compulsive love of knowledge and learning and sharing what i have discovered, all totally to myself. I will no longer bother you, or anyone else who feelings i seem to be continually insulting.

I am finished with this sophomoric self defense of explaining myself as clearly as possible, sometimes repetitively, in a manner that even my 6 year old nephew seems to comprehend without resulting him to insult attempts at me. I guess the people i am often found to surround myself with are some type of supper genius that understand me as plainly as i think i am being, without believing my communication is some form of personal attack, or childish outlashing. I dont care what you reply to this because I am done with this 'great' community and will not further frequent this void of intellectual inquest. Perhaps it is all a simple misunderstanding, but im getting truly sick of how often i seem to be the subject of misunderstanding across the various forums subjects.

See you, have a great day and may everything work out exactly as it should for my fellow GarageGames 'friends?'.

#24 You are helpfull and your observations are surely of use for many others that just started or will start diving into performance testing with the terrain now and especially after 1.0

#25

Quote: it is painfully obvious to me that i truly can not communicate properly with anyone on the GG forums

It appears that you have found a bug.

Quote: I am done with this 'great' community and will not further frequent this void of intellectual inquest

No offense meant but I don't think blaming everybody else is the best way to correct the problem. maybe? Just a theory... I don't know everything... I am not going to tell you what to do... I am not going to suggest I have a better education than you and that means I am smarter than you... I am not going to suggest that because of my family and other personal relations that I am worthy of your respect and admiration... or that because of the time and work I may have put into this or that project that it makes me some kind of expert that can get away with condescension toward others... I may have totally misunderstood what you are getting at... communication on the internet, lacking as it does cues, tones and expressions etc., common to face-to-face interactions, can be very problematic... if you feel none of this applies to you feel free to ignore it and move on... I will say no more except to say I appreciate the effort you have put into making T3D a better game engine. Thanks

#26 @Caylo: I got the impression he was calling Picasso an "asshat," not you. ;)

#27 I actually find it hilarious how some people continually find insult and misunderstand what Caylo says, but then I'm also of the opinion that most people are incapable of thinking and understanding on their own. I'm not sure who the intended "asshat" was but it probably applies to everyone here in one thread or another.

Come back Caylo, you actually reply in a lot of situations where I keep silent because I would definitely be offending (or accidentally insulting) someone ;) And I can realize when that may be the case but still do so on occasion... Much of your "testing insight" has been beneficial even if the offended parties don't care to acknowledge it.

Now back on topic: how do I get 100+ FPS in Warrior Camp with Advanced Lighting and other "high-end" effects turned on? I bought a better computer.

But then I still dev on a laptop that only averages about 10-15 fps in Warrior Camp.

#28 What is the console command for LOD? By the way, this has been the most amusing series of posts that I have read in a while.

#29 Command console for LOD? LODs have to be built into the model with predefined detail sizes. Terrain LODs via screenerror (I think) which is under terrain object info.

#30 Thanks Steve...that's what I was looking for for terrain.

#31 @caylo i think you definately misread what i wrote, and while my comment itself eas directed towards picasso it was also more about his comment style than himself since i dont know him well enough to make comments on his personality.

as far as the issues are concerned, ive seen how the LOD has hugely improved over beta 1, i still have issues over the fact that theres things being rendered that i cannot see and that i cannot improve visual qualiy BEACUSE torque then renders stuff i cant see at a higher detail level.

#32 Bloodknight,
it is not a good idea to call somebody "asshat" and then wait the community to give you a hand on a problem.
By the way the word "asshat" does not exist in my english dictionary.

#33 you should read up on english language and comprehension

#34 Any new info on making this better? I tried adjusting everything mentioned in this thread and I'm not getting any improvements.

Dell XPS, two NVIDIA GeForce 8700m GT w/SLi
Warrior Camp over looking the water and all items.

I'm looking at max 28.2 fps in the editor and during game play I'm maxing out at 14.7... Lost and frustrating...

#35 The SLI won't get you better performance, at worst it degrades the performance actually

Interesting is that the performance drops during regular play, commonly the editor is the slower side.

What performance do you get if you disable SSAO?
Also what screen resolution do you have? I assume either something thats in a realistic range for your card (1280x1024) or you have disabled the higher features?

As for the performance if you look over water and all foliage etc: 40FPS and lower is what you have to expect with a lower mid range card at the time. I've a Core i7 920, GTX280 and get 70 - 80 FPS in that situation with everything but blur enabled at 1920x1200

#36 I only have the Post FX enabled,

Quick question... You can disable SSAO in your options, but it only makes a slight change to the sceen. Something else, possibly in script/prefs, I need to disable that I'm missing?

Running in editor mode @ 1280x1024 w/22 to 25 fps. 640x480 @ 24 to 28. I lowered the Visible Distance to 700, shadows to 100...and a bunch of other stuff and I have it looking so/so at 35 to 42 fps. Cut it by 10 fps when in play mode.

Noticed that it runs faster when I enter the mission, even with SSAO, Antialising on. Then slows down pretty quick...

Did update my card's drivers and all that good stuff...Also, noticed some errors when T3D executes and begins to gather info about the card. Maybe follow that. I'll disable/mess with my SLi too and see what that does...I do remember a thread regarding a preformance issue w/NVIDIA's 8700 and a few other models...also someone had problems with the Pentium III Duo Core. I know I had some preformance issues in 1.8.1 that I could not get resolved. Maybe related...

I'll post if I find anything,
Thanks

#37 If you only have sun light / scattersky and not that many edgy models you will likely see a lower effect from SSAO especially if you aren't close to the model.
The SSAO video GG originally posted shows this pretty well.

How much VRAM does your graphic card have (per card as SLI only have a single card VRAM too due to the dublication)? I ask because you have antialias on which is a costly operation.

Disabling the SLI / testing the different modes will potentially help.
Also check if you get feelable performance gains by reducing the shadow splits & the shadow map size

#38 Checking this stuff out Marc...

With a single card activated:
Total: 1535
Dedicated Video Memory: 256
System Video Memory: 0
Shared: 1279

After enabling SLi and reboot...video memory is the same.

A few various tests. All at 1280x1024 on warrior camp, setting in a high spot with player looking down over water/lots of stuff in view.

"Out of Box"
No SSAO, no antialias, no field of depth, Advance Lighting is On and Post FX is On...
Editor Play Mode
Single card => 14.2 max , 10.1 max
SLi => 16.3 max , 11.2 max

Advance Lighting is on with Post FX, SSAO, Antialias, field of depth
Editor Play Mode
Single card => 10.2 max , 6.8 max
SLi => 14.2 max , 10.2 max

No Post Fx, no SSAO, no antialias, no field of depth.
Editor Play Mode
Single card => 16.4 max , 14.8 max
SLi => 17.8 max , 16.2 max

No Post Fx, no SSAO, no antialias, no field of depth. Shadow softness is 0.9, shadow splits is 1, shadow distance is 200, View Distance is 700, terrain error is 0
Editor Play Mode
Single card => 24.7 max , 16.4 max
SLi => 31.2 max , 18.3 max

Switch To Basic Lighting w/the above settings:
Editor Play Mode
Single card => 42.2 max , 38.4 max
SLi => 53.1 max , 42.5 max

A positive gain w/the shadow splits turned down a few notches. I did not adjust the shadow map size. But I still think I should be in that 70+ range.

On a ground plane w/minimum settings, w/SLi and in Editor mode...I get 84 fps...

EDIT: read the above again...I guess that is about what everyone is pulling out of it... Need a better computer..."cha-ching" just bought this one!