PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

  • A18 Stable is Out!

    Votes: 2 66.7%
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    Votes: 1 33.3%

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Well I figured out how to reproduce the texture streaming bug, took 1 minute to figure it out. that was easy so it should be an easy find and fix for TFP.
20191017155749-1.jpg
duplic.jpg
20191017160528-1.jpg

EDIT: Not a repro, turns out whatever I did some how changed all my graphic settings to low...very weird first time that ever happen. Had to delete options out of registry to fix. Could not get above 25 fps after i broke the settings. now I'm back up to 50-60.
I fixed it.

See my post here:

https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?129724-Graphics-are-poo-since-last-update/page2

 
The problem is with 1 vram the game is not playable in 640x480 with minimum everything pc as per TFP minimum requirements.. I have 2.70 CPU, gtx 660 and 8 Ram and the game does 800x600 30-60 fps normally. Minimum means 640x480 60fps on a 1 Vram system/ everything like TFP minimum list, which right now is just not the case.

Faatal please can you look at this underworld textures? they render always in a square around the player and never occlude ( I noticed by moving in and out of a building fast in God mode ).

This is my original post. While it is a previous experimental version and the performance improved a bit since then, this problem still applies. The problem is that AF is aplying to those underground cubes in real time , wasting fps.

If you can somehow delete them the game would go from 0 to 100 in no time.
60 FPS is not stated anywhere. 30 FPS is generally considered playable and has been used on many arcade, console and PC games over the years.

The underground geometry has been like that since A16, 15..., sometime before I was hired. Supposedly to stop underground light bleed. Possibly they could be reduced in height, but it would need testing to see if there are light issues, since shadows only cast so far.

How it is textured, that has changed in A18 with the new shaders. It could use more research into performance. AF is not the issue, since AF is disabled if you have &lt;= 3 GB VRAM.

 
We're removing crafting of purples.
Isn't that a little bit of an overreaction?

I love A18 so far but I had no reason at all to craft q5 items in the previous builds. I would either be lacking the parts or already got a q5-q6 item from a quest or loot by the time I got high enough level to get a perk to lvl 5.

Crafting finally felt useful in this build as an addition to looting/questing. You still need to loot/buy/quest to get enough parts to craft.

At 14 parts needed to craft a q6 item, it still takes 5 items to scrap before you can build 1 new one.

From a "balance" point of view, I don't understand why crafting purples has to go away again.

I would even dare to suggest that the scrapping for parts and the parts required to craft something need to be re-balanced.

For example: Scrap gives 1 part per quality level and craft cost 3 parts per quality level.

In that case, crafting a q6 item would require the scrapping of 18 q1's or 3 q6's. Either way, there is a lot of looting/questing/buying involved (or a lot of luck). The end result is that after several days ingame with active looting/questing, we would be able to craft a single q6 item with random stats which could be worse than that q4-5 item we already have.

I spent way longer on this post than I care to admit. Hopefully it can spark some thoughts on how to keep q6 crafting in the game in a balanced way as a useful addition to looting/questing.

 
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@Fatal I can confirm what another person mentioned about cpu load on idle server. I rent a server from Bluefang. Every new game version, I wipe the server & reload which only takes 5 minutes. On A17, after map generation, no players on the server....cpu load was 1-3%. With A18, every experimental version post map generation, no players, cpu load anywhere from 5-10%. If there’s anything else I can supply, let me know. The server runs just fine, no problems, just surprised the load is that high.
If you can post the log. It might show something.

 
Faatal - I know you have plenty to work on but I am still seeing some interesting behavior regarding graphics, just tested it on this new build and still getting it.

In short, while FPS is good, and I am running at pretty high graphics settings, I can tell my system is working a LOT harder when I am outdoors vs a POI. My first indicator was that after a minute or so outside, the cooling fans in my machine speed up (making a lot more noise), but when I go into a POI they will slow back down after a moment and stay, until I go outside again. The other strange twist is that it only slows down in remain POIs, not underground, not in player built spaces and I have tried turning on and off distant terrain and AF which has made no difference as far as I can tell.

Do you have a suggestion as to what logs or data I can collect for you to research this behavior?
Hard to say. In POIs occlusion is hiding a lot of renderers, while outdoors there is a lot more being drawn, so more work for the GPU.

 
Ya know, I made a 4k map with Nirtogen's map generator with no mountains / smooth terrain and I really realized that the jagged / huge mountains were the bane of my fps. I know I'm on a low-end computer, but perhaps that's something to look at for performance gains for everyone else. With no huge/jagged mountains, my FPS rarely dips below 40 at the lowest -- I was even running distant terrain on and on a higher resolution. Note that smooth mountains actually weren't that taxing, but the jagged / bumpy ones were.

 
nobody asked you to participate in the experimental. Leave it to people with at least a small amount of patience and care about the game. You can come back once stable is out.
First: Chill.

Some players simply don't know what "Experimental" truly means or they may have forgotten they had been on that branch for whatever reason. Nothing to get worked up over.

In experimental you're all guinea pigs. If we have to break all your items or savegames to fix a thing... we fix it anyway.

I'd consider the reports and feedback we've gotten so far extremely useful so it's all good.

 
faatal,
just a curiosity question; nVidias recent 16xx series seems to use 4GB for 1650 then 6GB for 1660. Is 4 or 6 gigabytes enough or is that only a short term upgrade & should really go for an 8GB card?

Edit: tbh I was looking at possibly getting a 4GB 1650. Specs show it only needs 75 Watts and no dedicated 6V connector so I wouldn't have to also upgrade my power supply...
I have 1050 and then I upgrade to 1650, the performance difference is twice for me on same base computer, when I upgrade. Hope that help.

 
Don't believe faatal. He just coded the game. My post count is way higher than his. I'm your ticket to the truth. Those baby blues of his are designed to take you down strange paths and invite you into windowless carpeted vans.
Go gather those land mines while you have your window of immunity. Don't waste those precious moments.
LOL and more LOL.

Here is a secret tip for all you pro players out there. The 9V battery in the land mine could be dead, so touch your tongue to the mine. If you don't get a shock, then feel free to pick it up. If you feel a shock, then don't mess with it. If you you died trying this, then blame Roland, since he made me think of land mines.

 
Hey MM,
After a quick run in the latest experimental, The 'arrow passing through head hitbox' is still a very real issue.

As I mentioned earlier, its not multiplayer latency as I am in singleplayer. I felt as though it could perhaps be the hitbox not keeping up with the animation, but I did not notice any dramatic movement of the heads in my test that could make this happen.

It's not an isolated incident, as it only took a very small amount of fights to notice it happening.

Whilst I am very understanding of the fact that arrows may fly anywhere within the external limits of the crosshair lines, this is not what I am talking about. I can actually see the arrow pass directly through the head of the target, and it can happens numerous times even at very close range where the entire crosshair is completely within the boundary of their head.

In the test I just did, It happened on the biker, the guy with the hoodie on, and also the farmer. It's definitely not limited to these zeds, these are just the few that I had it happen to in my short test. I imagine if I continued to play I would probably have it happen at some time or other to most (if not all) of them. I'm happy to continue 'for science' if you feel this is required, I can also get some shadowplay recordings and slow them right down in premiere to show this.

**gotta add, LOVING A18 though**
It could just be the raycast length is too short on the arrows, so fast closing motion between arrow and target cause the arrow to step through it. The spear had that problem a few months ago.

 
@Faatal I had no problems in the previous experimental ultra game at 60 fps

W10

Ram 16

i5 6th generation

GTX 1060 3 GB

in this alpha tube very ugly graphics any help?

View attachment 29857
It is fixed and will be in the next release.

For now you can type this in the console (F1 key):

gfx st budget 2500

 
Quick question.

How do I put 7dtd in windowed fullscreen? OS is Windows10.

I'm not having any FPS troubles. They dropped a bit on A18. From an average of about 70 - 90 to about 50 - 70. Still good FPS, but if I'm able to get some FPS back I can up my settings a bit and still get the same FPS.

Thanks.

 
Quick question. How do I put 7dtd in windowed fullscreen? OS is Windows10.

I'm not having any FPS troubles. They dropped a bit on A18. From an average of about 70 - 90 to about 50 - 70. Still good FPS, but if I'm able to get some FPS back I can up my settings a bit and still get the same FPS.

Thanks.
Turn Fullscreen OFF in the options, then when you have a window press F4 to make it borderless.

 
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