Mulitiple Capes, Performance and LoD
By
AzureSkyCiel,
Posted on: 2010-10-06 07:15 in Suggestions and Ideas
The ammount of times I've suggested that, just maybe, all the superflous mobs and capes and caped superflous mobs might just have an impact on the lag...
I mean, the bridge tops are full of engineers. What do engineers all have? You guessed it; capes.
Minions have capes. The LTs have capes. The bosses have capes.
If what BaBs said is 100% correct, then the valley of lag is probably a metric crapton worse off in part due to all the capes.
I'd love to run a test by replacing just the Cimerorans with, say, any other mob. Just 5th Column. Carnies, Nems, I dont care. Just to see what the result was. No other changes, just the mob type.
I think I'd be willing to wager it'd make a difference...
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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Actually, according to castle, it's not just the capes, the powers the mobs all use are also intensive on the systems, and I think part of the problem might be that this is an engine rooted case, another might just be: "how do you make a cape more simplistic?"
Though, I wouldn't be opposed to something that makes these things easier on systems, just asking how and mentioning that in the example give, there may be more to it than just the cape.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.
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The complexity of a cape is that it's physics enable, turning it into a static item or even just giving it a simple animation should drop the performance hit it causes.
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Originally Posted by AzureSkyCiel
"how do you make a cape more simplistic?"
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The valley lag has nothing to do with capes or graphics at all. Capes are handled client-side, as are all of the graphics in the game, so anything they can lag is your computer or your connection on your end. The ITF hill lag does not exhibit framerate slowdown (not on my showfps) or connection slowdown (not on my netgraph). What it exhibits is server-side lag, meaning the server machine itself is slowing down and processing things slower with more pauses.|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
The ammount of times I've suggested that, just maybe, all the superflous mobs and capes and caped superflous mobs might just have an impact on the lag...
I mean, the bridge tops are full of engineers. What do engineers all have? You guessed it; capes. Minions have capes. The LTs have capes. The bosses have capes. If what BaBs said is 100% correct, then the valley of lag is probably a metric crapton worse off in part due to all the capes. I'd love to run a test by replacing just the Cimerorans with, say, any other mob. Just 5th Column. Carnies, Nems, I dont care. Just to see what the result was. No other changes, just the mob type. I think I'd be willing to wager it'd make a difference... |
The only graphical aspect of anything in the game that's server-controlled is ragdolls, and I've seen more ragdolls in the same spot than that without any server-side lag. What Castle pointed to as the culprit was the one thing that is ALWAYS handled by the server, which is the powers system. Cimerorans, apparently, have some of the most processor-intensive powers in the game, no doubt because of Phalanx Phighting and whatever AI drives them, and large groups of them drive the complexity of those calculations up exponentially (figuratively speaking).
The only way to fix ITF hill lag is either to make Cimeroran powers simpler or to include fewer of them, neither of which seems to be an option.
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As far as capes go, I'd like to see multiple cape rigs available for characters, but it's a request that's highly unlikely to happen. Maybe one day when everything else is so damn costly thanks to Super Ultra Mode that capes pale in comparison. We'll have to wait and see.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Funny, I always thought after those tests done with /netgraph when it was released showed a spike in RECV packets.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
The valley lag has nothing to do with capes or graphics at all. Capes are handled client-side, as are all of the graphics in the game, so anything they can lag is your computer or your connection on your end. The ITF hill lag does not exhibit framerate slowdown (not on my showfps) or connection slowdown (not on my netgraph). What it exhibits is server-side lag, meaning the server machine itself is slowing down and processing things slower with more pauses.
The only graphical aspect of anything in the game that's server-controlled is ragdolls, and I've seen more ragdolls in the same spot than that without any server-side lag. What Castle pointed to as the culprit was the one thing that is ALWAYS handled by the server, which is the powers system. Cimerorans, apparently, have some of the most processor-intensive powers in the game, no doubt because of Phalanx Phighting and whatever AI drives them, and large groups of them drive the complexity of those calculations up exponentially (figuratively speaking). The only way to fix ITF hill lag is either to make Cimeroran powers simpler or to include fewer of them, neither of which seems to be an option. --- As far as capes go, I'd like to see multiple cape rigs available for characters, but it's a request that's highly unlikely to happen. Maybe one day when everything else is so damn costly thanks to Super Ultra Mode that capes pale in comparison. We'll have to wait and see. |
Has anyone honestly cleared the area to test if the lag disappears?
For what it's worth I've noticed a lot less lag on recent ITFs than I recall when it was first introduced. I've been running this game on a PC that hasn't changed in a couple of years so the only thing that could have really changed was improvements in the game software.
Obviously the Devs could always continue to improve the lag situations no matter what causes them. But at least as far as the ITF goes for me they have made that one canyon mission much more "non-annoying" than it used to be. *shrugs*
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Fair enough, but even then one of my points still stands;|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
The valley lag has nothing to do with capes or graphics at all. Capes are handled client-side, as are all of the graphics in the game, so anything they can lag is your computer or your connection on your end. The ITF hill lag does not exhibit framerate slowdown (not on my showfps) or connection slowdown (not on my netgraph). What it exhibits is server-side lag, meaning the server machine itself is slowing down and processing things slower with more pauses.
The only graphical aspect of anything in the game that's server-controlled is ragdolls, and I've seen more ragdolls in the same spot than that without any server-side lag. What Castle pointed to as the culprit was the one thing that is ALWAYS handled by the server, which is the powers system. Cimerorans, apparently, have some of the most processor-intensive powers in the game, no doubt because of Phalanx Phighting and whatever AI drives them, and large groups of them drive the complexity of those calculations up exponentially (figuratively speaking). The only way to fix ITF hill lag is either to make Cimeroran powers simpler or to include fewer of them, neither of which seems to be an option. --- As far as capes go, I'd like to see multiple cape rigs available for characters, but it's a request that's highly unlikely to happen. Maybe one day when everything else is so damn costly thanks to Super Ultra Mode that capes pale in comparison. We'll have to wait and see. |
Get rid of the Engineers on the bridge that ALL have powers running in close tandem that next to no one ever kills.
If that's not slowing that bit down something rotten I don't know what is. That and the four ambushes that trigger at once, rather than in a steadier manner.
In fact, thinking about it, a tonne of the lag comes in during the ambush stage, which coincidently is often when the group (at least when I've been on them) has been under the Engineers bridge. Crap load of engineers stood by with powers running on auto? Suddenly throwing four more large mobs with powers into the mixer?
I'd love to know what the test results for removing those two elements would be. Because I'd bet top dollar on that having a good result.
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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Last time I did an ITF, I left my netgraph running all the way through that mission. My connection did not budge at all. Ping remained constant and I lost no packets, at least no more than I usually do. My connection with the server was as solid as I've seen it, and it was the server that must have been chugging on its end.|
Originally Posted by Bringer_NA
Funny, I always thought after those tests done with /netgraph when it was released showed a spike in RECV packets.
Has anyone honestly cleared the area to test if the lag disappears? |
Castle talked about them retooling things, so the lag is probably less than it was at ITF launch, but it still exists, and it still looks like it's server-side-only.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Aren't the engineers an objective?|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Fair enough, but even then one of my points still stands;
Get rid of the Engineers on the bridge that ALL have powers running in close tandem that next to no one ever kills. If that's not slowing that bit down something rotten I don't know what is. That and the four ambushes that trigger at once, rather than in a steadier manner. In fact, thinking about it, a tonne of the lag comes in during the ambush stage, which coincidently is often when the group (at least when I've been on them) has been under the Engineers bridge. Crap load of engineers stood by with powers running on auto? Suddenly throwing four more large mobs with powers into the mixer? I'd love to know what the test results for removing those two elements would be. Because I'd bet top dollar on that having a good result. |
Either way, based on what Castle has talked about in the past, it seems like the most processor-intensive powers are the ones with a lot of conditionals, such as the Phalanx Phighting and other constant ally buggs that ALL Cimerorans have. It seems like each Cimeroran will constantly run checks on all Cimerorans around him, meaning that for, say, eight people clumped together, you get something like 8x8 logical checks for just one power, and I suspect they have several like these. The Engineers undoubtedly contribute to this with their "aura rocking," but it's Cimerorans in general that produce lag, not specific soldiers. It's the fact that there are just so damn many of them on that hill that lags the server, as I understand it.
I don't think they can do much more to alleviate the lag without redesigning the encounter or redesigning Cimerorans in general. Personally, I would not be unsatisfied with the latter.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I was pondering the issue of multiple capes/coat tails. I know that this subject has been covered plenty of times before, but still, I want to try and approach it from a (possibly) new angle.
The reason we can't have more than 1 physics enabled objects on our toons is largely a performance issue. BABs actually posted some compelling numbers supporting this.
- 100 NPCs - 0 capes = 48% loss in frame rate
- 100 NPCs - 1 cape = 75% loss in frame rate
- 100 NPCs - 3 capes = 92% loss in frame rate
So yes, there is a reason that we don't want players loading themselves down with multiple cape systems.CoX employs a LoD system much like other games whereby objects that are further away are rendered with a simpler polygon model and lower res textures. I'm wondering whether this can be applied to capes/coat tails too; A low LoD cape with very simple animations. If this is already in place then is it possible to make it even less performance intensive? A slider in the graphics options would allow players to adjust the LoD on capes separately to suit their setup.
I, and I suspect many others, would love to use coat tails with wings or capes with coat tails. Would an adjustment to the LoD settings help acheive this? At the very least it would help smooth out the canyon map on ITF.
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