Sapphire help

[Madcowthomas]

Unable to move in Sapphire, feel so lagged out and movement is slow.

[Aaron]

Hi William,

Can you please give us some more info, such as:

1) Heightfield size (if mosaic, tile size and format)
2) Texture size (if mosaic, tile size and format)
3) Graphics card type/spec
4) Screen size
5) View distance (in the HUD)
6) Texture LOD bias (also on HUD)
7) A screen capture of the scene from Sapphire (hit 'C').

Also, can you try hitting ']' a few times to decrease the texture LOD bias?

Cheers,
Aaron.

[Madcowthomas]

Heightfield was 2048 , view distance was 2048 reduced down to about 512, my screen size here is 19 screen set to 1280 X 1024 for a 19 " Lcd from Samsung.


Imported a heighfield that created in FreeWorld 3D to BMP
http://www.rage-of-fire.com/downloads/l ... eworld.jpg

My min was 0 and max 255 for alt height.

The world looks like this in Sapphire
http://www.rage-of-fire.com/downloads/l3dt/sapphire.jpg

Is there a way to smooth the project?

Tried resizing the heightfield from 2048 to 8192 and when go to use the water feature receive a error not able to get enough ram.

Also found need to run the hieghtfield thur the Design Map the Generate the HF or recieve lines all over the project in the texture map.

[Aaron]

Hi William,

From the screenshot it looks like Sapphire was running at ~16 frames per second, which shouldn't be too laggy. Was the frame rate dropping below this level? Does the situation improve if you use the '9' key to lower the triangle count?

Had you changed any settings in Sapphire (using the 'Extensions->Sapphire->Edit settings') menu option?

Also, can you tell me the make/model of your graphics card?

The lines in the texture are caused by the use of the bitmap to store the heightfield (see here). That link also explains how to smooth the project (down at the bottom of the post).

As for the insufficient RAM message, you should use a mosaic heightfield and water map.

Cheers,
Aaron.

[Madcowthomas]

That screen shot was not running bad, what learned was when first import a bitmap that is a 8 bit it extreme lag if don't use the diffusion.

The card I run here is a Geforce 7600 GS SLI with 256 memory

Had the frame rate dropped to 0.4 on the screen.

I tried a 2048 and have great frame rate , if try a 8192 the frame rate is okay , have to use the mmorpg trick where look at the ground when want to move.

So now design in 2048 and resize to larger when done working on it sapphire.

[Madcowthomas]

Arron

Later today going take a few screen shots on the setting I'm using and the results of those settings.

But curious how this ran for you and others? Are you able to work on a 8192 map and move around freely with out the fps dropping down to 1.5 ?

What are the limits of map size you can work on? So far for me anything above a 2048 is low fps and unable to move.

[Aaron]

Hi William,

Were you using a mosaic heightfield? When I use non-mosaic maps, I can edit 8192 x 8192 in-RAM heightfields at ~20fps, with the horizon distance set all the way out to 10k vertex usits (i.e. all terrain in view). When I use mosaic heightfields I have to have a shorter view distance (~1024 vertex units), or else the frame rate drops to ~1fps. This happens because the default mosaic tile cache size is 16 tiles, which with 512x512 pixel tiles gives you 2048x2048 pixels. If you use a view distance that covers more than 2048x2048 pixels on a mosaic heightfield, L3DT will start loading from disk, and that will make things much slower.

Best regards,
Aaron.

[Madcowthomas]

Okay that makes sense, I use the mosaic tile feature with a 2048 view and still running into where the frame dropping down low.


http://www.rage-of-fire.com/downloads/l ... phire4.jpg
http://www.rage-of-fire.com/downloads/l ... phire3.jpg
http://www.rage-of-fire.com/downloads/l ... phire2.jpg


Getting the stick and go no matter what setting I'm running, drop the view all way down get better frame rates, but then wondering around for day like a chicken with no head trying to find my nest.


Well keep trying and seeing what I can come up with here

Madcow

[Aaron]

Hi William,

Until I have a fix ready, I recommend you set the view distance to 1024 vertex units or less to avoid mosaic cache thrashing. If it then becomes too difficult to see what you're editing due to the fog, you can disable the fog in the Sapphire menu.

I should have a 'fixed' dev build ready in the next few days.

Cheers,
Aaron.

[Madcowthomas]

Thanks Arron for the help on this!

Been turning off the fog , much better...

[Aaron]

Hi William,

I've uploaded the fix (v2.5.1.15, 9th of July). Please let me know if there are problems.

Best regards,
Aaron.

[Madcowthomas]

Thanks for the update Arron, give it a test drive when get home later.

Madcowthomas