Sorry your browser is not supported!

Since I got it - after spending my time building just one level in FPSC and finding the best methods of optimising the level - now I seem to be just about stuck with a couple of enemies.

Four that is. They eat up resources at an enourmous rate and kill the frame rates even though they may be not in view so four seems to be almost my limit. They are basic default enemies so far and dont use any pathfinding or anything like that which would be impossible with the memory consumption that would need I would think.

TGC please try and improve this for later versions.

Thank you

Yeah, I've found that bad guys are enormous processor hogs. I built this huge five level Deathmatch level (I know multiplayer isn't in the EA, a guy can dream can't he). I thought the framerate would drop to about 1 per 5 seconds. I only experieinced minor lag on the 3rd layer of the level and that was it. I put in about 6 passive bad guys (to test the damage I had set the guns on) and I experienced a crap load of lag. I thought my character was trying to run through molasses.

I now have a lot more enemies included now by hook or by crook. Basically by really clever level design whereby enemies are encountered in single or pairs only at any one time.

Strange thing is there is obviously something going on which is rather erratic as I cant see why say moving in one direction you should get an FPS of a certain figure and then when moving forward and reducing the number of polys to view FPS drops dramatically. Its like some tile areas have one FPS then others its like walking through mud then out the other side as speed picks up again. Like its some kind of weird zone thing.

I have speeded the player walk up a bit and that helps. I have also noticed that for some starnge reason gameplay is a lot smoother if you start a new game than it is when playing it the first time?

Weird.

Well I ended up splitting my level into 4 smaller levels, so it would run at normal speed.

I found that it was the number of entities that caused the problem, whether they were baddies or not. And it made no difference whether they were in view or not.

The art of increasing your game FPS is just that, an art. I write a small demo for PC Gamer yesterday and by adding a few walls, and adjust the logic of the characters I smoothed out the entire game so it never dropped below 30fps. The performance meters (press TAB) will help understand where the drain is, except for one area that is not logged and which I will be looking at for V1. It seems when you MOVE, some extra unmetered activity is sucking up FPS, and only in some situations that I cannot pin down. The general rule for great FPS is use the [ and ] square bracket keys to toggle wireframe on and off, see where lots of the scene is being rendered, and use walls and corners to block off all views to the portal that links that part of the map (the portal is the invisible hole such as a doorway, window or turning in a large room that seperates the large areaboxes that make up the entire level. Reduce the number of area boxes that must be rendered and your FPS shoots up because if the entity within the area box is thinking, and the area box is not rendered, the entity does not have to do as much thinking. Another quick tip, go into your characters and look for the appear1.fpi script name. Click to change this FPI script name to a new script found in the PEOPLE folder called appearnofloorlogic.fpi. You can use this if you KNOW that your character is not going to fall down any holes or climb any stairs.

Hi Lee,

Thanks you for that. Understood.

As it happens I am still finding ways to optimise so the level I am working on is improving all the time. I will of course take these new comments into account. Strange scenario you mention about the player change of pace but its something you are obviously aware of that happens with me - but improving even though the level gets more complicated.

By the way for those that are interested (and Lee)I am doing whats not recommended with FPSC which is why I need max optimisation. I am looking for the FPSC limits and making a level which is by and large mostly outdoors (in space). The level size is the full map area of 40 x 40 and the player has external access to areas at both extremities of the map and can see full distance across the map with view almost unrestricted in all directions. Obviously a lot of stuff in view at any one time. There are no external walls to the map (boundary walls). I can say that with a powerful system FPSC can do it and the game is still well playable. So large outdoor areas can be done successfully

I continue.