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Post by rob on Apr 17, 2013 13:02:09 GMT -5
Hi all,
This week was mainly client performance work, with a few balance changes:
* Use batches to speed up vehicle drawing
* Don't draw enemy icons of far-away regions
* Use static per-region enemy icon textures when zoomed way out
* Don't draw the world when zoomed way out
* Have Drill Station drop only one big prism
* Buff Predator's main gun damage and shields
* Nerf Avenger main turret overdrive (rotation rate and cooldown)
* Buff Phantom damage and shields
* Remove "external poofs" when others pick up prisms
Framerate is much improved for our machines in the office due to the work we did this week. We'd be very interested to hear the client runs on other computers. When reporting this, let us know the driver info that's printed when you first join.
You'll notice a pause when zooming out to the region level; this only happens once per session when the region-level enemy icon textures are painted. We'll look into ways to hide this pause in the future.
Tim has begun work on a new loot system for items. "Items" are things that you'll have limited storage for, unlike crystal splinters or gridshards. We are planning to roll this system in by stages. Hopefully we'll have some part of it to show off next week.
Please report bugs here. Thanks for playing!
Rob & Tim
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Post by hypevosa on Apr 17, 2013 13:25:41 GMT -5
Optimizations worked like a charm, normal tanks at a triple drill corner still were getting 25 fps for me (unheard of) and even with 2 hurricanes going into overdrive I only dropped to 15, this is on my laptop, so that's saying something.
Kudos!
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Post by amitp on Apr 17, 2013 13:25:43 GMT -5
Very nice performance increase!!!
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Post by Ood on Apr 17, 2013 14:03:42 GMT -5
Hmm, having some trouble getting the new build to come up, Chrome seems to want to keep build 45 (despite refreshing and even rebooting). Internet Exploder has build 46, but I just get a black screen with the fps stats and a green circle in the middle whenever I load.
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Post by quicklite on Apr 17, 2013 14:13:50 GMT -5
Hmm, having some trouble getting the new build to come up, Chrome seems to want to keep build 45 (despite refreshing and even rebooting). Internet Exploder has build 46, but I just get a black screen with the fps stats and a green circle in the middle whenever I load. Huh, you too? I thought I was the only one! ._. This is about IE breaking when trying to run grid, not about the build thing. Ofc, it isn't that much of a problem cuz I have chrome, but I still find it a little weird. |
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Post by Ood on Apr 17, 2013 14:14:45 GMT -5
Huh, you too? I thought I was the only one! ._. This is about IE breaking when trying to run grid, not about the build thing. Ofc, it isn't that much of a problem cuz I have chrome, but I still find it a little weird. Chrome is working for you though? |
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Post by quicklite on Apr 17, 2013 14:18:58 GMT -5
Yep, works like a charm. Well, most of the time anyway, but the laggy breaks are my shoddy internet's fault, not grid's fault. On good internet days, my connection with chrome is just fine. I just brought it up because I was wondering if a) I was doing something wrong with IE to get it to not work and b) other people who use IE might find the initial breakage annoying at best and alienating at worst, possibly turning people away from the game.
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Post by Ood on Apr 17, 2013 20:48:49 GMT -5
Rob: As requested, I checked out performance on my home (and slow) machine. This new build has seemingly helped significantly. I get an idle fps of 15-16 and a combat fps of 12-13. Before (I don't know exactly, but...) it was about 12-13 idle and 7-8 combat. This is all on 'low quality' mind you, but the game is much easier for me to play on this computer now (build 46) than previously (build 45). If you want further computer specs, let me know, driver mode is Software, here's a SS or two for the heck of it:   fps on ss are a bit low due to the way mac insta-saves a ss. |
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Post by quicklite on Apr 18, 2013 7:04:45 GMT -5
From another thread: After reading this, I did some testing and can completely confirm that this is legit, and that missles are unavoidable. I don't have any recording software, but I can tell you what I did so that you guys can replicate. 1) Find a medium triangular fortress (the one with the rocket turrets) 2) destroy all but 2 rocket turrets and destroy everything else. Avengers/hornets work best for this due to their ability to focus fire. 3) Once this is done, quickly switch to hornet. Move backwards into the range of the turrets so that they can shoot you, but you can't shoot them. 4) Stay just inside the range of the turrets and begin to slowly circle them. They should be able to constantly shoot missles at you due to the slowness of your circling, but since you are circling, none of the missles are supposedly hitting you 5) Watch as your hornet slowly loses life, despite being under the illusion that nothing should be hitting it. I'm not sure if this is a bug or just whoever is in charge of the visuals (I think that's rob?) being a little cheap, but a fix might be nice ^^. After some more experimentation, I found out that the rocket bug only applies to the rocket turrets for the medium triangle fortress. The rockets fired by rocket minions spawned by beta processors appear to work fine. Ik that those are the only two rocket minions (I think), but I just figured I should say anyway  . Though I can't help but be surprised that out of two codes that theoretically do the same thing, one works and one does not. |
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Post by tarbomb on Apr 19, 2013 0:33:08 GMT -5
Graphical glitch (new): enemies and player tanks can disappear sometimes, as do non-city tiles. This isn't a lag thing - everything was smooth and waiting didn't solve the problem. Refreshing fixes everything.   Changing tanks made the player visible again but enemies were still invisible:  Not all enemies seem to be affected.   (invisible GCT with visible minions) All healthbars are visible.  All tiles not belonging to a city are black.  Tooltips and land reclamation inside cities still work.   Friendlies show up fine.   And the interface is fine too.  Maybe it's the work of the Ghost of Skuld!  |
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Post by rob on Apr 19, 2013 7:35:09 GMT -5
Tarbomb,
Some of this is obvously the creep panes not displaying. We draw them all at once, together. Thanks for the report.
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Post by amitp on Apr 19, 2013 11:06:13 GMT -5
Ood, your hardware information shows "Software Hw_disabled=userDisabled" which is supposed to mean "HW acceleration setting checkbox in Settings UI is not checked so HW acceleration fail and SW rendering is used for Stage3D."
Would you try right clicking on the game, go into Settings, and see whether “Enable hardware acceleration” is checked?
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Post by hypevosa on Apr 19, 2013 11:18:17 GMT -5
I noticed I'm getting hit sometimes when my shields are very low, even if they are not yet gone.
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Post by Ood on Apr 19, 2013 12:38:21 GMT -5
Ood, your hardware information shows "Software Hw_disabled=userDisabled" which is supposed to mean "HW acceleration setting checkbox in Settings UI is not checked so HW acceleration fail and SW rendering is used for Stage3D." Would you try right clicking on the game, go into Settings, and see whether “Enable hardware acceleration” is checked? I will try when I get back to that computer, what will that do/change for me? |
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Post by amitp on Apr 19, 2013 17:32:48 GMT -5
Ood: basically, if I understand it right, your Flash settings tell Grid12 not to use the GPU. So the graphics are being emulated on the CPU, which makes it run much slower. If this is the case, you should be able to click the checkbox, then reload the Grid12.com page, and it should run faster.  |
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. Though I can't help but be surprised that out of two codes that theoretically do the same thing, one works and one does not.
