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IDProjectCategoryView StatusLast Update
0001897Spring engineGeneralpublic2010-05-01 18:12
Reporterdfreeman 
Assigned TojK 
PrioritynormalSeverityminorReproducibilityhave not tried
StatusresolvedResolutionfixed 
Product Version0.81.2.1 
Target VersionFixed in Version0.82.0 
Summary0001897: Units and buildings disappear on low detail
DescriptionUsing Core2 Duo, 64 bit, ATI, Linux, compile from source.

I have all the graphics settings at minimum, including the "unit LOD distance", which I presume means limit of detail or something like this. (The acronym isn't defined in the UI so it shouldn't be used.) This is set to 100, the minimum the settings UI will allow.

The main problem is that, at least under BA 7.12, a large number of items simply disappear when they are supposed to switch to low detail views. This seems to include all of the Arm T2 units.

Since I can't live with a half empty battlefield, I have set the unit icon distance to minimum too. With this equal to the unit LOD distance I shouldn't ever see a low detail view, and yet there is still a band of distances where units are rendered low detail (or disappear). So I guess these two quantities are in different units or use different methods of calculation.
TagsNo tags attached.
Checked infolog.txt for Errors
Attached Files

-Relationships
duplicate of 0001762resolvedjK Far-Textures are sometimes totally empty images 
related to 0001899resolvedjK Far-Textures all have the same team color 
+Relationships

-Notes

~0004840

hoijui (reporter)

Last edited: 2010-04-23 11:40

as far-textures are implemented right now, they are allowed to consume a maximum of 4 MB GFX RAM (1024*1024 pixels * 4 bytes). this is sufficient for 128 types of units & features. so if you have Core and Arm in your game, 20 types of features on the map, and each faction has 54 unit types in use already, the next type will have an empty representation as far-texture.

~0004841

dfreeman (reporter)

Is there a way to find out how much GFX RAM I have free? I think I have 256 MB total, and considering this is a laptop I don't think that's considered a lot any more. AFAIK this is not shared memory, it is separate and belongs to the onboard ATI.

I would prefer the limit to scale with the amount of RAM that I have, maybe as a percentage of what's left over after all the essential stuff is allocated. How dynamic is the allocation of GFX RAM? Does it do much swapping?

In any case, simply not rendering a unit is not a good solution. You could instead reduce the number of views of all units, or reduce their resolution. Another possibility is that if the far-texture is missing then it should render an icon instead. I don't like that very much but it sounds like an easy workaround for now.

~0004843

hoijui (reporter)

i have a free room here, i would like it to be filled with young, beautiful, friendly, nice virgin women. and if i am fed up with one, a new one should be brought in.
I am sure there are enough of them on this planet.

~0004844

zerver (reporter)

If one of those women happens to be a far-texture, I would ditch the bitch.

Set unit draw distance to max, and the problem is gone :)

~0004847

dfreeman (reporter)

So what you're saying is I shouldn't use features that are broken.. nice feedback coming from a dev!

I already stopped using this feature, because it truly is broken. That's why my unit icon distance is short.

I hate hard-coded limits. Are you sure 4MB is appropriate?

~0004849

zerver (reporter)

No, the only thing I'm sure about is that the far-texture system is complex and has many defects. It's not worth all the work because the end result is poor anyway. Far textures are fucking ugly!

~0004850

hoijui (reporter)

what i wanted to say was, unless you make sure i get these women here, stfu and stop bitching around as if we were your coding slaves while telling us our work is easy to do right.
instead of stfu, you could also code it yourself, of course.

and do not even try to convince me that you did not mean it this way, cause nobody is interested in what you mean, it is only our perception that counts.

if you have a non-integrated GFX card with 256MB un-shared RAM, then far-textures are indeed totally useless.

suYb (start using your brain)

~0004851

zerver (reporter)

Like Hoi said, if far textures are really important to you, feel free to fix it yourself and submit a patch. Make sure it is configurable not to waste graphics memory for those who don't want to use this feature.

~0004853

dfreeman (reporter)

"stfu and stop bitching around" / "nobody is interested in what you mean"

If you think I am bitching then your perception is broken, and that's out of my control.

Hoijui, I don't know what motivates you to work on Spring, but I hope you will continue and I hope you get something out of it. I also hope you will take feedback in the positive spirit in which it is offered.
+Notes

-Issue History
Date Modified Username Field Change
2010-04-23 04:32 dfreeman New Issue
2010-04-23 08:14 hoijui Relationship added duplicate of 0001762
2010-04-23 08:14 hoijui Status new => confirmed
2010-04-23 10:10 hoijui Note Added: 0004840
2010-04-23 11:40 hoijui Note Edited: 0004840
2010-04-23 13:36 dfreeman Note Added: 0004841
2010-04-23 15:52 hoijui Note Added: 0004843
2010-04-23 17:30 zerver Note Added: 0004844
2010-04-24 06:46 dfreeman Note Added: 0004847
2010-04-24 18:21 zerver Note Added: 0004849
2010-04-25 09:07 hoijui Note Added: 0004850
2010-04-25 12:58 zerver Note Added: 0004851
2010-04-25 12:59 zerver Relationship added related to 0001899
2010-04-25 19:13 dfreeman Note Added: 0004853
2010-05-01 18:12 jK Status confirmed => resolved
2010-05-01 18:12 jK Fixed in Version => 0.82
2010-05-01 18:12 jK Resolution open => fixed
2010-05-01 18:12 jK Assigned To => jK
+Issue History