Talon Game

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Version 1.2 released; new game mode, new map, misc improvements

#1 2018-09-26 22:41:31

Hypersonic
Member
Registered: 2014-02-24
Posts: 37

Ram usage

While messing with visibility in the Killing Fields mission I ran into hard crashes (when visibleDistance is over 3000) likely due to memory allocation overruns when I tilt the view toward the horizon producing a ton of polygons. In Task Manager Talon.exe is only using about 120MB even though I have 32GB of RAM. Are there memory usage settings we can tweak? Some example settings in Quake3 that I use:
com_hunkMegs 512
com_zoneMegs 512
com_soundMegs 128

Not a big deal though, 3000m visibleDistance isn't bad.

Last edited by Hypersonic (2018-09-26 22:53:42)

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#2 2018-09-27 05:25:02

Scott
Refractory Studios
Registered: 2012-08-07
Posts: 463
Website

Re: Ram usage

Thanks for pointing that out. You're right, it seems Torque uses a fixed buffer for some of the terrain render work, among other things; and it blows out the buffer rendering the terrain beyond 3000 world-units.

Nothing you can tweak yet, the buffer size was hard-coded. But I added a limit to the terrain draw distance based on the buffer size, so it should hopefully avoid crashing now, and I made the buffer size configurable via a pref variable. So in the next release you can increase the buffer size and push the draw distance out further.

But at a square size of 12, which is what Killing Fields is now, the terrain block is only 3072 units across, so you start to see the heightmap repeat beyond that; and there appear to be some bugs rendering the terrain shading once the heightmap starts repeating.

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#3 2018-09-27 20:22:16

Hypersonic
Member
Registered: 2014-02-24
Posts: 37

Re: Ram usage

Sounds great! I was thinking, maybe a 3D map mode could consist of a camera view from high above with no fog. So Terrain block size is squareSize * 256?

EDIT: just verified using 2 markers "-1536 -1536 100" & "1536 1536 100". Could tell that the markers were at where 4 tiles meet, each tile sharing the same geometry/texture/lightmap.

The interior shadows are present on the repeat blocks as well even though the interiors are not, I remember this being so in Tribes1 as well.

Last edited by Hypersonic (2018-09-27 21:54:18)

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#4 2018-09-28 00:55:16

Scott
Refractory Studios
Registered: 2012-08-07
Posts: 463
Website

Re: Ram usage

Yeah, the heightmap data is 256x256.

I hate how the baked interior shadows on the terrain repeat. I'm planning to make it an option to not cast interior shadows on the terrain, and just build the interiors for outdoor maps on a large interior geometry slab that extends around the structures far enough to encompass the building shadows. Should allow for building out a play space larger than a single terrain block.

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#5 2018-09-28 02:49:56

Hypersonic
Member
Registered: 2014-02-24
Posts: 37

Re: Ram usage

Ya that makes sense, I think Descent3 was also a 256x256 greyscale height map.

I remember some interiors had the terrain inside them in Tribes, which was kind of cool actually (with proper shading on the terrain.) A big slap might prevent this.

Couldn't there be two lightmaps, one with and one without interiors? Even if it the lightmap is baked in with the texture, couldn't there be 2 baked in versions? If that's too much trouble, the way it is now isn't that bad really. I always just thought of it as kind of interesting actually, never really bothered me.

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#6 2018-09-29 00:45:10

Scott
Refractory Studios
Registered: 2012-08-07
Posts: 463
Website

Re: Ram usage

Two lightmap versions would allow the terrain to repeat w/o the interior ghost shadows, but I want a quick solution that allows me to place structures on the terrain farther apart than the terrain block size. I'd implement it as a per-interior-instance property though.

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#7 2018-09-29 05:46:39

Hypersonic
Member
Registered: 2014-02-24
Posts: 37

Re: Ram usage

It would be interesting to have interiors unique to each repeated tile. Perhaps at least for 9 tiles (3x3). Maybe each with it's own lightmap? The per-interior-instance property does sound like a good quick solution though.

I remember Tribes1 was 3x3 repeated tiles, past that you either fell off or you just couldn't move anymore, I forgot which, but it definitely didn't render past that. Tribes2 (Torque) seemed to go on endlessly, I think I gave up trying to find out after going in one direction for about 10 tiles or so. I think if you went out of the center tile (for most gametypes) it'll start doing damage to you, and you'll drop any flag you might be carrying. It even had a visual barrier wall that only showed when you got close.

Last edited by Hypersonic (2018-09-29 16:36:09)

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