PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

  • A18 Stable is Out!

    Votes: 2 66.7%

  • <img alt=":)" data-src="" src="___base_url___/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" />

    Votes: 1 33.3%
  • Total voters
    3
Status
Not open for further replies.
Regarding the repair talk: I like the new repair kit being used on everything. As mentioned though, might be a bit intimidating for a new player. Maybe better documentation/tutorial on all the steps required to make a repair kit.
Click to expand...
We can probably do an extended tutorial at some point and get players crafting iron tools.

 
Roland,
My original point was simply that having very carefully prepared this launch (which it is, considering the streamer attention and the twitter attention) and talking about Must Fixes bug numbers everyday it seems weird to have such an obvious issue spoil all the fun.

Joel himself stated he and team really wanted to have this be a soft landing and he even specifically talked about steam reviews and public opinion and how first impressions matter. It seemed to me that this was a lesson they learned (possibly from A17).

Fast forward to now, and it just pains me to see a really great and overall much more polished release (compared to previous experimentals and even stable releases!) be blemished by this major performance issue.

It just seems like something to could have been prevented, since it's almost impossible to not have someone on the internal testers not be affected by it. Unless it's a very small group. Which lead to me point out that maybe a bigger internal tester group might be helpful.
Click to expand...
Lesson learned, we will test on potatoes from now on too.

 
Haven't had time to tweak settings much to see what the cause is, but so far A18 is the first Alpha to be barely playable on my system. Even in A17 I would consistently get 50+ FPS. SO far I max out at 30ish and drop to low teens at times. Movement looks very choppy as a result.

 
I don't think occlusion is the answer. I'm pretty sure the sheer number of objects pooled and the new terrain shader are what are killing FPS.
Click to expand...
don't know if this will help or not but when I turned my graphics quality from medium to high the fps just dropped to 25 and medium is on like 60-70 fps

 
I don't get it...
I created a new game 4K map on my laptop (razor) with i7/16GB 512SSD and GTX1060 and I am playing in FULL HD on ULTRA and getting 60FPS outside.

I only turned off Motion Blur and I have the NVidia GPU Anisotropic Filtering to x2.

the game is LOCAL not online.

yet my high-end gaming rig at home with GTX 1060/6BG I7/32GB 2x 512SSD struggles on High to get 10-15FPS.

is there a difference between local and online when it come to textures/graphics?
Click to expand...
Apparently there is an issue with anistropic filtering.

 
I like that you made them for everything too, saves me a couple of inventory slots, I used to always carry forged iron and/or steel on me, in addition to repair kits for weapons, just so I could repair those tools while out and about. Now I just need one stack of repair kits: sold. Is a smooth refinement imho.
Click to expand...
Yes any sane person (sorry guppy) will love where we're taking this. We're going to extend it to generators and traps too, wild goose chases for mech parts springs and other bozo repair mats for things has to go away. You'll still need wood for wood, concrete for concrete etc, but all those other traps and things can just use a repair kit.

 
I have a question:
Why are "open" cabinets even a thing in the furniture helper menu. Like, who would use those and why, can't think of a single scenario. Just seems like extra clutter in that menu.

Furthermore, why can't you just make them all have open and closed states in the first place? I tend to overtake POIs for my main base, then build BM towers from scratch. One of my fav things is making use of existing furniture, like stoves to store pots, grills etc. Fridges for food. Sinks for jars and water, etc. Right now I keep my coffee, beans and seeds in a coffeepot, is fun. But in A17 and now in A18 I get so many dud cabinets and fridges etc that I have to destroy them and replace them. Why not just have the model different when they are empty, open, and then revert to the closed model when they have stuff in them. I imagine there is some technical hurdle, but can it, should it, be overcome? I think it would make far more sense and be worth the effort.
Click to expand...
To troll the guy you raid and place a bunch of open cupboards lol. Making doors have animations would decrease framerate by adding bones and animations to every lootable.

 
We have two areas we think will help with maybe one optimization coming out today perhaps. That said if games are your main hobby, or this game is.... A beast rig would be a good investment. I pay 3500 for my pc and it will be top of the line for 3 years, thats just 3 bucks a day to smash pixels as hard as humanly possible and its worth it to me, and I can deduct it from my taxes so for me its a no brainer to have a sweet rig.
Click to expand...
You’re giving me the new pc itch so I’m gonna have to get a new one soon. The one I have now I assembled over 5 years ago when the 970s came out and almost immediately went on sale due to inaccurate claims that they were 4GB. Most of past builds have been governed by when the next DOOM comes out... so I’ll just use that as justification. Gonna try to keep it under 3k though. It sounds like you got a couple extras in that build.

 
I have noticed for pummel pete first ranks says deal 10% more damage but the the other 4 ranks don't say do 20% more dmg 30% more etc only 10% is in the first rank

 
@madmole

You made the snowcats hardy.

One jumped at me and I smashed his leg off mid-air with the sledgehammer.

He stood back up and just continued to attack me, lol.

Nearly killed me too.

 
It's just WAYY too much VRAM (relative to the actual quality of the textures). That excludes at least half (probably more) of the people who play the game from even using the intended textures without eventually or immediately slowing down to a crawl. From best I can tell, to avoid any performance penalty you need at least 8GB of VRAM. You can get by with 6GB of VRAM - but with extended playthroughs - you might eventually start thrashing and the FPS will even suffer with that - you might have to do that 'mem' command or alt-tab or something to flush it. With 4GB of VRAM - your FPS is definitely suffering as a result and how playable it will be will just depend on how much bandwidth you have in the pipe..3GB cards and below would probably always dip below 30fps frequently except when in a POI or looking at the sky or ground due to texture overload.
Click to expand...
We pool 25 copies of every object at startup. Not for long though, we're writing a dynamic object pooler so stuff loads when needed, and is unloaded when not needed. This should reduce vram a ton.

 
Hmm, not sure if this is intentional or not. So now a level 1 item has one mod slot, which is nice... but a level 2 only has one slot, what up with that?
Click to expand...
3 and 4 and 2 slots, 5 has 3, 6 has 4. Its intentional to make the higher quality items have distinct separation from the crude stuff.

 
Why does my charecter need a smaller sledgehammer....found a level 2 on first day and he swings like he is exhausted.......little slow on the swing ???
Coughs* Bigger Maps * Coughs
Click to expand...
To keep dps sane. Just start swinging then move to the target. ONce you get the timing down it works great. If you think its too slow try a club, they are great. You can also perk into flurry of blows to increase the speed some.

 
You guys made zombies get stunned for quite a lot of time, and even while standing.

So, funny story:

1. Be me

2. Build Agility/Sealth Char

3. Staby saby the last zombie from a small walking horde(while having 3HP left).

4. See zombie stuttering (like it died and is about to fall over)

5. Say PHEW! Last one, OOH LOOT BAG!!!!

5. Go to a lootbag dropped by a zombie near the zombie that you think it died

6. Zombie that I thought i died: PSYKE! FOOLED YA! *bitchslaps me once*

Idk if bug or funny story, but it sure is a funny story :D

 
I've found exactly one mining helmet, so the rng gods might have been nice, but it came with the helmet light mod already installed. That adds to the helmet light mod I found on its' own. It's good to be lucky.
Click to expand...
Only cheat menu helms are missing lights, the ones found in the game get a light equipped.

 
Thanks Jax. That's what happens when I steer the boat, happy faces :) Which is why my new avatar is perfect for this alpha. I'm happiest doing design and balance too.
Click to expand...
You forgot to say "HEY, HEY LOOK AT ME....I'M THE CAPTAIN NOW".

I'm not really trying A18exp, I'll wait for stable cause my friends can't really play and enjoy it. But I trust they will once you raise those FPS. I'll be patiently waiting over here.

 
This could very well be the case since the shaders on my hardware are very much overloaded/bottlenecked by something.
There's still people with the same graphics cards having much different experiences but that could be attributed to different filtering settings, resolution, etc etc.

Any idea's how to solve this in the short term?
Click to expand...
Faatal is adding some kind of switch that bypasses a lot of expensive instructions in the shader to see if it helps people. In the meantime, try disabling anistropic filtering.

 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top