Help Needed - Advanced Mappers

[Zero]

I am not ready for this release yet but forced to put it out there because I'm having a problem with frames per second. I deleted a bunch of particles, sounds, obstacles in the way and the map is much more open. I know that water material can drag down a map quite a bit in the frames per second department. But for a map like "Venus" is covered in water. Yes that map draws some usage to but not near enough as the map I'm working on now. I'm currently waiting on LuckystrikeRx for help but it appears he/she don't get on as much.
So I ask for help of any Mappers out there who can take a look at "Hostile" V6.5 and diagnose what the problem could be.

Is there some kind of advanced variables that I can change to improve the frames per second?

Is it that there is too much clipping?

The problems that I find when frames drop the most.
A.) Looking near water/waterfall.
B.) Looking down center bridge over a distance to the other team side of the map.

For B.) How is this possible that the frames drop when on the map, "Venus" It is much more open?

Thanks for any help/advice in advance.

If you're looking for the original map thread to download updates. It's listed below:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=854

[Zero]

Things I tried to experiment with.
A.) Delete all water, optimize geometry, full calculation, save and play test. (Slight increase in frames per second.)
B.) Delete all particles, optimize geometry, full calculation, save and play test.

Surprisingly. None of these really helped significantly.

[Unnamed]

Venus has just 25k triangles. Your map has nearly 10 times more triangles (you can check this values in the lower right corner in editing mode).

Near the waterfall you can see almost the whole area of one team and a part of the area of the other team. That seems to be the problem here. Waterfall refraction can only be turned off client side, but instead alpha material with a waterfall texture could be used here.

I noticed that there are some grates and you have used geometry. You could use mapmodels instead, it would slightly reduce the world triangle count.

[Zero]

Thanks Unnamed for the help and quick response. Is there a waterfall texture? I never noticed.

I want to try to optimize the frames per second in any way possible. And I'll do what I can to do so if I have the know how.

Gonna take a quick nap and wake up to remove some of them geometric grates and some fencing if you think that'd help.
What texture do you recommend for a waterfall texture?

[shirepirate]

any particle effects (smoke, fire, etc) & large detail in fov are going to be the biggest hogs. if you have a large map with lots of detail you're going to need occlusion, something large or several large things in the way that prevent you from seeing what is behind. after that water & envmaps, keeping them individual will help (use a larger but moderately sized envmap instead of several, and instead of having 8 different pools of water at multiple height levels make it 3 and keep them moderately sized, or try to keep them on the same vertical plane and connect them).

[Zero]

[Zero]

Well I made a big sacrifice that I didn't want to but got rid of the central bridge. Definitely sped things up a bit in that area. Least now the bots go in different tunnels lol. Now still having problems with water. Hmm.. I'd really hate to have to remove it unless try what Unnamed said with texture and alpha.

[qreeves]

When working with water, it is advised to keep the surface plane all on one level as this speeds up the rendering of it. If water is broken into multiple levels on the z-axis, it has to do multiple render passes for the reflection. Look for "rp:<number>" within the stats shown at the bottom right of the screen, this tells you how many "reflection planes" there are. Other good numbers to keep an eye on "wtr:<number>" tells you how many triangles are currently are in the world, and "evt:<number>" is how many triangles are being rendered.

[Zero]

Thanks Quin, Shirepirate and Unnamed for the info. This stuff would been nice to know back in cube 1 if it was available. Just always thought it was the excessive material and particles. Never knew about the rest.

I started to delete a bunch then I end up replacing with back up. I spent a lot of time on this map and hate to take away from it. I know the WTR needs to come down from 228 k. Some maps have 113 / 118 k. But their EVT is anywhere from 1 to 3. Mines the same but can shoot up to 8 or 9. Due to a lot of triangles in a single area I guess.

There are some geometry I don't care to get rid of so lowering some isn't a problem. This map was started because I wanted a waterfall. The RP is anywhere from 1 to 3 when moving around. Guess I just have to find a balance in what is important. Just don't wanna give up the two waterfalls. >.< This is depressing and tiring at the moment. I'll know to keep my eyes on the stats in the next map. I'll make some decision later this evening. Tired for now and don't want to make stupid decisions to wake up like "What have I done!?" =P

[bonifarz]

[Zero]

I saw Envmap's in some maps but never added them. Didn't know their function till now Doesn't sound like a advantage entity unless used right and used very little.

I'll work on the map again tonight. Thanks for looking into that water texture. I'll check it out also with your sm64 and Unnamed's map.

The development version is looking really nice with all the new menu's. There's a lot to love in the new editing features but my favorite so far is the prefab's preview and the texture color preview. Love the hurt material. Maybe it's just me but it looks better overall then the stable. And the gameplay hud's or interface is awesome. The team puts in work that's for sure.

[Dziq]

Yeah I can't live without boni's new menuses, every mapper around here should have copy of these menus ;p

BTW problem with water surface is that when you look at water surface, occluded polys are taken into calculations too.. thats why water is so performance hog now.

[Zero]

[bonifarz]

It's okay, I even use "boni" for the /playername, so lazy typers don't have to guess their own short forms for my nickname.

[restcoser]

I always like to use a short form for names, except i dont call assassin ass... </offtopic>

[Zero]