PC Alpha 18 feedback and balancing thread

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If AF settings make a big difference, then it is a sure sign that you are running out of VRAM, because AF sampling gets very slow if accessing textures from system RAM. The best solution for that is setting Texture Quality to Half or lower. Reducing screen resolution would also lower VRAM use.
Edit:

Slow AF could also be older GPUs not running it very fast.
Yeah, gonna need to get a definition of "slow" on this one Faatal. MSI Radeon RX 580 Gaming X, 8GB VRAM. Total system usage on VRAM never really goes much above 6GB, so something's going on; turning off AF means the difference between 25 FPS and 60+. If you're considering the RX 580 as old, alright, but given they're still manufactured and sold retail, that probably shouldn't be the case.

 
Just a question for TFP team:Are you actually using microsplats correctly?

Watching this video

That video shows a feature for blending objects that we don't even use.

Micro Splat has a ton of options, most of which we don't use. We do have some custom splat lookups that we added (underground) and we do use 24 textures, which is quite a lot. I consider it not done and hopefully it will get better as time permits.

 
Yeah, gonna need to get a definition of "slow" on this one Faatal. MSI Radeon RX 580 Gaming X, 8GB VRAM. Total system usage on VRAM never really goes much above 6GB, so something's going on; turning off AF means the difference between 25 FPS and 60+. If you're considering the RX 580 as old, alright, but given they're still manufactured and sold retail, that probably shouldn't be the case.
Slow is relative. There are no hard and fast numbers. If a setting makes your game run slow, then turn it down. AF does not make much difference in most games, but from some reading I just did, it does make a difference in some games, if that is where the bottleneck is. Terrain pixels are doing about a dozen texture reads, so AF can have a much larger effect there than say a wall pixel that does a a few texture reads.

 
That video shows a feature for blending objects that we don't even use.
Micro Splat has a ton of options, most of which we don't use. We do have some custom splat lookups that we added (underground) and we do use 24 textures, which is quite a lot. I consider it not done and hopefully it will get better as time permits.
Thanks for answering with more information and not taking this stuff personally. You're a class act.

Any chance of an allowance for custom biomes or being able to change terrain that overrides the splat mat if you, for instance put forest terrain in the desert?

 
Is there a chance that the sand and clay could also have a bundle option? I'm speaking from a self-fish point, but my group does use a a lot of clay and being able to bundle it up would help. Same for the sand, we live the desert biome and being able to bundle up that sand helps all with saving inventory space.

 
The only feedback is audible. Nothing visual. All they have to do is slap a particle effect on the buff and it's good to go. I know there are a couple mods that have added it, myself and moongaming are the two most recent but I'm sure there's more. Check out the Mods section until TFP fix it worst case.

 
If i had to choose between distant-terrains microsplat and biomes(+many more useful features) - i would choose biomes(+many more useful features).

When you make decisions there - you weigh them, at least...

Is it really worth the lack of diversity of biomes and normal farming?

 
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since splat maps are obviously causing performance drops, and you dont wanna remove them. cant you make them optional in the video settings, so that players with weaker computers can disable them?

 
@Madmole

Gun distant sound.

What happen to the sound of distant gun shots that was in A17?

Now its just the generic sound of the weapons regardless of distance heard from. The distant gun shot sound affects in A17 was amazing and helped a lot with immersion........ :(

 
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Slow is relative. There are no hard and fast numbers. If a setting makes your game run slow, then turn it down. AF does not make much difference in most games, but from some reading I just did, it does make a difference in some games, if that is where the bottleneck is. Terrain pixels are doing about a dozen texture reads, so AF can have a much larger effect there than say a wall pixel that does a a few texture reads.
Gotcha, thanks. I need to do some more testing and I've been a bit lax on it, but I've noticed much worse performance since A18.1 final dropped (not currently on Experimental) when it comes to distant terrain. Been too busy actually playing to figure it out, so I mostly just angle the camera to avoid the frame drop.

 
Its not completely wasted, you got what you wanted. We're not making crossover generic bonuses, we had that in 17 and that promotes leveling/min maxing vs looting/just playing because player will want to max out every attribute then.
The current system also promotes min/maxing imo, the important perks are mostly in Str and Fort, so Many people get those decently high early, str to 7 for miner 69'er/motherload, and shotgun is awesome in a18.2, fort is all about heavy armor, healing factor, and the Machine gun skill. The other perk lines IMO don't really offer anything i'd personally consider a must have. I like knives, but I can't really bother with agi, for just knives, as str/fort (a bit less than str though) has too many useful perks so I just go sledge or clubs.

 
Checked and tested a bit:
Cement mixer seems to be LOD bad shaping, but I need to test it more.

Canned food piles seems to be the Occluder.

LOD seems fine. Needs even further testing to confirm.

Also, the bread toaster has the exact same problem as the food piles.

Both show inconsistent results with the LOD, so it appears to be an occlusion problem.

Also, when you plant a bunch of trees in a line, say, 30-50, and you close the game and you start again they dissapear in sections (a bunch of them dissapear depending on how you look at them and then reappear if you look in the right angle). This one is the occluder and fairly easy to reproduce.

It is unknown at the moment if loging back in increases the occluder problems in those specific items (piles,toaster, ceiling lamps?) .

Edit: all of this in Low settings.
I found a fix for this, Set Tree quality to high or better, and they'll stop appearing right when your 2 blocks away from it, it'll show up from a fairly large distance... Why its Tree Quality that effects this though is beyond me. But it does work to help reduce the pop-up.

 
I found a fix for this, Set Tree quality to high or better, and they'll stop appearing right when your 2 blocks away from it, it'll show up from a fairly large distance... Why its Tree Quality that effects this though is beyond me. But it does work to help reduce the pop-up.
Yeah Tree quality affects all LOD settings on blocks but also on zombies. I am not sure they can set this specifically for trees or not, but there are a lot of objects that have very poorly set LODs and even on high settings appear to pop in when you are really close (like the food piles, the new utility carts, tilt trucks etc).

 
I found a fix for this, Set Tree quality to high or better, and they'll stop appearing right when your 2 blocks away from it, it'll show up from a fairly large distance... Why its Tree Quality that effects this though is beyond me. But it does work to help reduce the pop-up.
Nope. I know exactly what you are talking about. This is not it. Not when aproaching, they dissapear when twisting the head in the same axis independent of the distance (within reason). Some times I could not reproduce. It's the occluder.

Also, confirmed it is LOD for small food piles (big ones not affected) , also for toasters, exit signs (the red light sign),open sign (light) industrial coffee maker (not the normal one) and some other items I will be reporting soon.

They need to have at least some placeholder to avoid the popping and dissapearing.

EDIT: It's called "Commercial coffee maker", not "Industrial coffee maker".

 
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Day 42 horde for 18.2

didnt last all night yet. I thought I would by this game stage. No demolishers as of yet either.

 
10% slow on the knife perk is so low, if you are encumbered or you enrage the zombie (which is 99% of the cases early game) you are zombie meat.

I've tried stealth sledgehammer builds more efficient than deadly knives.

Also the current perk system makes no sense at all. It promotes certain builds and completely destroys others. It's easier to be a builder with strength even though you need bloody intelligence and wrenches are located on another perk tree as well. The perk system needs to be completel revamped:

-Strength tree is for melee weapons ONLY : clubs,knives,sledges,knuckles,tyrannosaurus go HERE

-Agility tree is for spear/bow/stealth builds ONLY (bows,arrows,spears,silent runner etc go HERE)

-Firearms build literally anything that shoots bullets or explodes (exception are the BOWS because they are not in the same group) pistols,magnums,smgs,Ak47,m60,grenades etc

-General perks tree like scavenger,pack mule,running speed,temperature survival and hunting go HERE

-Intelligence tree aka how to BUILD BASES goes here meaning intelligence governs: wrenching ,forging, workbenches,farming turrets, cement literally anything which is used to tower defense should go here

/rage on

The perk system is totally broken, period. You need to group things together. Grouping stamina regen with mining or wrenching with looting or farming with machine guns makes NO SENSE.

/Rage off

 
If i had to choose between distant-terrains microsplat and biomes(+many more useful features) - i would choose biomes(+many more useful features).
When you make decisions there - you weigh them, at least...

Is it really worth the lack of diversity of biomes and normal farming?
I have to agree with this... I'd rather have the biome diversity than microsplats.

- - - Updated - - -

since splat maps are obviously causing performance drops, and you dont wanna remove them. cant you make them optional in the video settings, so that players with weaker computers can disable them?
This also makes sense to me.

 
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