special effects button to increase performance

Ideas for improving Starport:GE

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tekkamanblade
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special effects button to increase performance

Post by tekkamanblade » Sun Jan 11, 2009 3:41 am

PREAMBLE
since space lasers cannot damage npcs, does starport really need to draw the bullets or even do the firing calculations at all? i was thinking about that and the thrusters and explosions turning on and off all the time when i realized something.

the calculations determining whether or not i have the power to spare drawing background motion, thrusters, and other "special effects" actually takes up even more precious processing power!

IDEA
so my idea is a button in options menu that turns those animations (and the calculations to determine whether or not to draw them) on or off once and for all.

HOW IT WORKS
if you have the button turned off, you never see "special effects" including the fancy explosions, thrusters, background movement, and lasers firing on npcs. in addition, no background calculations are left running to determine whether or not the effects should be turned on or off every 5 seconds.

as for leaving it on... should you see the special effects no mater what, eliminating all need for the special effects toggler background calculations entirely? OR should it work exactly as it does now, turning them off if it feels you need the frames. i guess a third option on the button could be "as now" and eliminate our need to make that choice, but i'd personally prefer to have off mean off and on mean on and just ditch the togglers all together.

CONCLUSION
i only mention it because i NEED to squeeze out every single frame per second i can spare. currently if i get in visual range of an npc attacking my laser wall my frame rate goes to zero and starport locks up.

i know that toonces isn't the only one to blame here, and im not even thinking that. my shitty network and computer are my real problem, but i figured maybe enough of you had similar shitty systems. (either that or super bad donkey systems that mysteriously turn off crucial thrusters/explosions anyway preventing you from accurately determining whether your last nuke hit or not.)

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toast
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Post by toast » Sun Jan 11, 2009 4:11 am

I like this idea, although i am surprised at one point.


I frequently notice that i loose the explosions and exhaust trails when i am playing. I always assumed it was a glitch. you make it sound like it is a coded part of the game to reduce lag.


Is it? or is it just a glitch?

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tekkamanblade
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Post by tekkamanblade » Sun Jan 11, 2009 4:32 am

its intentional NOT a glitch, and actually isn't such a bad thing. i just feel that it should apply to a wider range of effects (like lasers firing on npcs and potentially unneeded coding in the background that you never see or realize is there).

toonces gets bitched at more than you'd guess, lots of posts get locked and deleted from forums before we can check back in. plus there's the in-game /idea /bug and 3 or 4 support emails full of crybaby crap he has to deal with daily.

he already knows about our various performance issues, and ptt is really trying hard to help us solve them. this idea just helps them know how we need to be helped, since they are too busy between their real lives and attempting to muster calm and polite responses to trash talk from idiots like me to actually play their own game and come up with great ideas like this.

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ArdRhys4
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Post by ArdRhys4 » Sun Jan 11, 2009 4:42 am

This idea makes sense.

/agree

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toast
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Post by toast » Sun Jan 11, 2009 5:11 am

i like this idea too. I never realized that certain effects were shut off intentionally...i always thought it was a glitch with my computer.


It certainly works, and i think that a button would be nice. Although, if a computer is lagging with the effects turned on, they should still automatically turn off, to keep players from gaining advantage from their lag.

Haldos
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Post by Haldos » Sun Jan 11, 2009 5:34 am

I'd like to be able to turn those effects off all the time, for performance.

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KG
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Post by KG » Thu Jan 15, 2009 5:46 am

This shouldn't even be necessary...games that have hundreds of lasers firing in three dimensions have been around for years (anyone ever play FreeSpace 2? 1999 now...). If your FPS drops too low to play just because you wandered too close to some 2D lasers, there's something wrong with the program, especially since it didn't used to do this to many people.

KG

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milo
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Post by milo » Thu Jan 15, 2009 6:40 am

but how do you know that laser bullets are actually drawn when noone is in a system but a hostile npc?

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tekkamanblade
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Post by tekkamanblade » Fri Jan 16, 2009 11:45 pm

lol milo. when you AND an npc are in system they fire. no one is asking about trees falling in the woods here. i thought i said that pretty clearly, but w/e.

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ArdRhys4
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Post by ArdRhys4 » Sat Jan 17, 2009 1:33 am

Jejeje...

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Post by Catfish » Sat Jan 17, 2009 2:04 am

toast wrote:i like this idea too. I never realized that certain effects were shut off intentionally...i always thought it was a glitch with my computer.


It certainly works, and i think that a button would be nice. Although, if a computer is lagging with the effects turned on, they should still automatically turn off, to keep players from gaining advantage from their lag.
CaffeinatedCoder wrote:If you're lagging graphically (IE it takes you longer to update your screen) its also taking you longer to send packets. IE more lag. We stop drawing thrusters and other things in the hopes to speed up your framerate and lower your lag.

Its not really a bug, more of a feature :)
viewtopic.php?p=176397&highlight=#176397

/pwnt

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toast
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Post by toast » Sat Jan 17, 2009 2:06 am

/slap catfish for remembering silly things.


nice catch though.

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Post by Catfish » Sat Jan 17, 2009 2:11 am

toast wrote:/slap catfish for remembering silly things.
its really all i do anymore :roll:

i like the idea btw

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