WIP: Natural Diversity

[embx61]

Yes I will try New Flora first.

That some things not spawn depending on load order is possible.

Both mods are probably using the same files to edit. But it should not contribute to the lag problems either way unless there is a serious code flaw.

But the code is pretty straight forward in the spawning file.

Moving camera over trees is calculating all the vertices poly's of all the trees visible in the screen.
The more you zoom out the more is visible so the more the game have to draw all those poly's

I could see a slight drop in FPS while zooming out but that is understandable. I think even Vanilla FPS drops a bit on zoom out.

At the end of year 2 on zoom out 10x speed the FPS was hovering 42/45 FPS but there where 20million vertices and about 11 million poly's according to Debug.

Game plays as a modder is nice, but I don't have (take) the time to do it.
I do a fairly fast test in a test map and if it works I consider it ready. The rest is up to the play testers.
But even if we test on our systems it is possible it not work right on another system while it was working on ours.

That is why the big companies have BETA test sessions for their games. Lots of players can sign up and test the game and as a thank you they receive some goodies.

Later today I will load some mods one by one to test.

I probably do Flora first and then Maritimes Pine.

[RedKetchup]

2000 ? thats good. all my little new house have 1300-1500

[tanypredator]

I'm not sure if that is even possible... But what if the game is just "confused" by several mods, calling to one file? So as it tries to spawn NF (which was still activated), but that was blocked by NatDiv, and that caused lag? But that doesn't explain brads3's case.

[brads3]

TANY,i think you are on to somethig there.i did try to disable 2 mods that the nat div should be overriding.the speed did pick up some.not a lot but some.i think there is several things causing the lags. what got me was when i tried it by itself and it looked slower than when i play with all my mods. i decided to try vanilla just to see how fast they were with no mods.i did try several tests.

intel I3-2100 cpu 310ghz 6 gig ram.intel graphics. it is an accer that has been refurbished and built up.i bought it from a computer guy who built it.if there is more info that could, help please ask,i can try to find it.

[Abandoned]

New test results.  First, my laptop is also Acer.  I did 2 more test maps.  I started to disable a few mods but then decide to leave alone with New Flora still disabled but most other mods the same ones.  I used regular vanilla valley instead of plains map and built the same buildings on each test map.  First I did a large map (my gosh, all that room to build) there was a very slight slow down when moving the camera over map and trees and when it rained, very slight difference.  The second test I changed only the map size to small and there was no speed difference or lag at all, not even when it rained. 

The problem may be the combination of mods.  I have used New Flora many times with no problem whatsoever.   I used NMT and The North with other mods added with no problem or slow down at all.  This NatDiv & NF was the first time I used more than one starting spawner mod, I like variety and to pick and choose combos.

The only other thought I had was the possibility of latest game update causing compatibility problems with mods from older mod kits.

[Bartender]

Thanks for running so many tests everyone! You're all being a huge help . I'm not quick enough to respond to all the individual messages before the discussion moves on, so here's a summary of what I've gathered from the last pages:

- One source of the problem seems to simply be the polycount. Many new resources get added, this causes lags for some people.
- In winter the lags are less bad than in summer. This makes sense, since most of the natural resources lose parts of their mesh (leaves, flowers) in winter, and thus less polygons are displayed.
- There may be a compatibility problem with some older mods. If there is any, then this is either due to the game code, or because those mods have been made with a different version of the modkit.
- Another possibility is that the new behaviours (swaying of leaves and flowers) are causing problems. Constantly updating the position of the mesh probably requires more effort than just displaying a static mesh.

I'm currently working on a 'performance' version, where I will focus mainly on reducing the 'weight' of the mod in ways that don't require too much work. If that turns out to not be enough (or not effective because the problem comes from somewhere else), we'll see if there are any other possible courses of action.

[elemental]

Does turning shadows off make any difference? I've noticed that something about the lighting has changed with the latest beta. There is moire on surfaces that never used to have any. During some parts of the year the shadows flickering along a surface almost look like a strobe light - and that's on speed one. It never used to be like that. Luke might have fiddled with some rendering settings or something.

[embx61]

@Bartender

I loaded tanny's new flora and took a look in the mod list at the yellow conflicting files.

I probably missed it but want to be sure.

Do you and tany shared some sources? I see in her mod Natural NatDiv stuff in animations.
They are yellow so that means that the one higher in the modlist will get loaded.

I loaded a complete empty large map with just Vanilla.

I zoomed all out on the place were the bannies start from.
Paused the game and wrote down the numbers.

Objects: 5528
Triangles: 293909
Vertices: 1245168
Batches: 387
FPS: 60

NATDIV Loaded, same as above, location were the bannies start from, zoom all the way out, pause the game.

Objects: 18692
Triangles: 6491505
Vertices: 11576562
Batches: 997
FPS: 60.

So it is clear that Nat Div loads a lot extra Poly's at the start of the game (About 22x more as Vanilla) not implying that this is the cause of the problems some players have as I still get 60 FPS

Now going to enable Flora and see what happens.

[embx61]

Messed around with New Flora loaded as well.
Crashed the first time when reloading but on my other save map it worked.

No real changes I notice so far.
It runs okay on my system and can zoom in/out without any real hickups.
On 10x speed all zoomed out I still get over 30FPS.

In the winter poly's drop quite a bit and as Bartender explained earlier is because lots of mesh parts have disappeared in the winter by design.

Some stuff of Flora does not seem to work (Flora loaded underneath NatDiv) it recognizes the food groups like veggies/fruits but if I select a huge area to collect flax the areas are not showing any red squares so flax/cerials are not there.
But as they probably make use of some of the same files this was to be expected.

I don't know what to say to some of those who have problems with lag with Flora and NatDiv Loaded.,
I don't see a difference in a half hour play session with all kinds of zoom over the map, playing with 1x to 10x speed (Besides some parts like flax are not working) in FPS.

[tanypredator]

I've never noticed before that deers prefer to use bridges 

[QueryEverything]

@embx61 I wonder - are you loading in this order (disregard Necora's mods, this is my standard load order).
In this instance the new sticks/logs that Bartender put in may not show, I'm not sure.
When I was playing the other week when it was came out, I played on a small map, 10x speed in debug mode and was just laying buildings out and watching how the food was being processed (so, building for the chain, rather than the game play - it makes sense to me).

I wasn't watching whether or not there were logs, and to be honest, with my eyes not great the last 3 weeks now, I can't tell much difference between some things, so not the person to ask if they are there. 

So - try this load order, and see what happens, if you will.  I'd be interested to see if it's the same as mine. 
I will try & load today with this exact same setting whilst I have hubby home, see if he can see the logs/sticks etc.
If anyone can post a screenshot please (i'm not being a smartarse about this, I'm genuine) about what I'm looking for, that would be superb, means I can try and focus him on what he needs to look for - he's never played before, and has no idea.  Haha!!

Thank you

Oh & @tanypredator aren't they sweet when they do that!! 
I love it too when they walk the yellow line around the hunters radius, it's hilarious!! 

[embx61]

@QueryEverything

You have the older version of NatDiv.

It should say version 1.1 and in description "This is the second installment".

I was not really testing game play but some players reported that New Flora and NatDiv together brought lag.

I did not experience that though although some stuff was not working because probably conflict or loadorder.

[QueryEverything]

@embx61 it's an old screenshot, but the correct load order   I've got the correct mods loaded, just can't take a new screenshot of the load order at the moment.    I need to update my FAQ files

The load order is correct, to have both New Flora & NatDiv items show, rather than the other way - where New Flora doesn't show.

[Bartender]

Messed around with New Flora loaded as well.
Crashed the first time when reloading but on my other save map it worked.

No real changes I notice so far.
It runs okay on my system and can zoom in/out without any real hickups.
On 10x speed all zoomed out I still get over 30FPS.

In the winter poly's drop quite a bit and as Bartender explained earlier is because lots of mesh parts have disappeared in the winter by design.

Some stuff of Flora does not seem to work (Flora loaded underneath NatDiv) it recognizes the food groups like veggies/fruits but if I select a huge area to collect flax the areas are not showing any red squares so flax/cerials are not there.
But as they probably make use of some of the same files this was to be expected.

I don't know what to say to some of those who have problems with lag with Flora and NatDiv Loaded.,
I don't see a difference in a half hour play session with all kinds of zoom over the map, playing with 1x to 10x speed (Besides some parts like flax are not working) in FPS.

Thanks= you for the testing @embx61 ! I would say that all these tests together make it very likely for the amount of polygons to be the only issue. That's good, because it's something we can fix .

I've never noticed before that deers prefer to use bridges 

I've never seen that either , perhaps it's because of the reeds that this becomes the easiest path across for them.. It does happen often in nature actually that animals use bridges to cross rivers, sometimes they even manage to occupy new living areas because a bridge gets built.

[embx61]

I agree @Bartender

If it was code wise, or just conflicting files of different mods all systems should suffer lag.

22x more polygons then Vanilla at map start is quite a lot added from the start and older systems (Mostly laptops with integrated Video Carts) are not up to it.
Even 1.5 Gigabyte CC not have that much at map start. I think most of the size from CC comes from the tons of textures they use as FBX's and the rsc. files are rather small.

I would try first to get rid of the spawning stones in the water just to see if that helps before cutting down on the grass.
As we agreed, it is not the poly count per grass tile, but the amount spawned on the map.
Players with older systems should play a small to medium map and not a big map as that brings the poly count down a lot of the bat.

Can always make the rocks in water decorative and let the players place them themselves if they want too.

If all else fails then go with a Light version where less grasses are spawned on the map but make up for it with the yield they give.

As you probably know In the Netherlands they made several bridges over highways to connect the natural habitats on both sides of the highways.