Two Surprising Things

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 20 Aug 2006, 07:16

... these are probably 100% obvious things to Everybody Else, but they weren't to me, so I thought I'd share:

1. The main reason why Spring lags so hard with shadows on is because of the grass, and to a lesser extent, the trees. Really! Try turning them off. I was kind've surprised by the results. I didn't think that the grass was generating shadows... er... aha! They're RECIEVING SHADOWS! That's it...

2. Explosions that are multiples of 8 are, I think, optimized for the quadtree algorithm used to determine hits. I may be wrong- maybe it's really just powers of 4 or 2. But when I took every explosion and made them multiples of 8, I noticed a smoothing of gameplay at higher levels of destructo-matic mania in NanoBlobs. I may be just smoking something here, though, as I did this in conjuntion with the tree/grass thing, and didn't do a pure test. Maybe it's just the framerate increase by getting rid of the grass...

Zoombie · Post by **Zoombie** » 20 Aug 2006, 07:22

Really?

I did not know that about the grass OR the tree's!

Thats really interesting...

I will try that out. Thanks Argh.

Buggi · Post by **Buggi** » 20 Aug 2006, 09:23

I have a powerhouse machine and I still play with shadows and grass off. No need for them at all. And my tree LOD is down too... I'm in it for the gameplay, not the frillies.

Das Bruce · Post by **Das Bruce** » 20 Aug 2006, 09:43

Cake isn't as fun without icing.

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 20 Aug 2006, 11:05

I like icing. I'm just kind've amazed that grass is what causes the lag with shadows on... I guess it makes sense, though- all of those independent objects, having to be run through the shadow-mill...

Snipawolf · Post by **Snipawolf** » 20 Aug 2006, 15:39

it's almost surprising! I can't understand this at all! We have shadows on grass!? How advanced IS Spring! I turn around and find something I like more than in other games every damn day!

Fanger · Post by **Fanger** » 20 Aug 2006, 17:39

explosions multiples of 8? you mean the default damage..?

hrmph · Post by **hrmph** » 20 Aug 2006, 18:32

Buggi wrote:I have a powerhouse machine and I still play with shadows and grass off. No need for them at all. And my tree LOD is down too... I'm in it for the gameplay, not the frillies.

Same here, I have a really nice system but I prefer to eliminate as much lag as possible. Gameplay ftw :D

Masse · Post by **Masse** » 20 Aug 2006, 20:04

i removed the grass as soon i could do that :)

Caydr · Post by **Caydr** » 20 Aug 2006, 22:06

Yeah that makes a lot of sense. There should be an option to disable tree and (ESPECIALLY) grass shadows.

In general I leave reflections on, since they're teh pretty, but shadows are real FPS killers. Games like Oblivion have grass and tree shadows disabled by default, I'm surprised nobody's thought to add the option to Spring yet.

I always do stuff in multiples of 8 for some reason, so I'm golden ^^

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 20 Aug 2006, 22:41

@Fanger: No, I mean areaofeffect. Damage, it doesn't matter, because that's straight subtraction. Try it, you will be surprised- the difference is small, but it's there.

Spring RTS Engine

Two Surprising Things

Two Surprising Things