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Re: TurtleIsle V1 .......... Released!

Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 12:40 pm
by Tweek
thanks

Re: TurtleIsle V1 .......... Released!

Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 8:25 pm
by Calena
I loaded the age into my smaller computer. This is a 2.00Ghz Dual Core with 2Gg Ram. It has a 1024Mb DDR3 video card. Speed-wise, it played about the same as my quad-core (that has a smaller 512 Mb GPU). There is still a slight lag, it skips and is not smooth. The big difference with the smaller computer is that even with the bigger graphics card, it doesn't load all the graphics. There's no 'water'. The boat is there and moving (in space), but the details are gone. The boat is all brown. The poorer graphics in the smaller computer is consistent with all the ages. The bigger video card makes it faster, but it still doesn't process the graphics like the quad-core with 8Gg of ram.

Both computers are playing off-line. Hope this helps.

Re: TurtleIsle V1 .......... Released!

Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 12:08 am
by JanB
When I tested earlier versions off Turtle Isle for Den Dwaler on a 2.4 Hhz Dual CPU GB PC with a 525 MB GPU, I also had considerable performance problems. Especially on the slope that leads to the door to the inner rooms. In later versions that issue was merely solved. This version runs very well for me, off-line and on - line on the DI sjard, with my quad core 2.8Ghz 8 Gb and 1024 GPU. I use W7 Enterprise 64 bits.
I think the overall score of the PC (CPU , DISK, Graphics, etc. ) matters a lot how it performes. The weakest part on the individual performances (CPU , DISK, Graphics, etc. ) might make the difference . I noticed a considerable overall performance improvement when I switched my system disk to an SDD.

Re: TurtleIsle V1 .......... Released!

Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 12:13 am
by ametist
It's a wonderful place! I especially enjoy all the blooming cactus-plants and the trees and the little boats and the journey-cloths and... :) . The music and sound makes it even more enjoyable!

It's a bit slow for me, a bit of delay when moving but no lag when turning.

Re: TurtleIsle V1 .......... Released!

Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 1:15 am
by dendwaler
Thx, its good to see, some can play it and like the environment.
I will make an update for this age, and introduce much more colliders.
you won't be able to walk freely everywhere after that, but there is one big mesh which uses the triangle mesh as collission detection.
That is the isle with the mountains itself.
i will build walking pathes with proper colliders.
lets see what difference that makes.
Its clear to me now, that you cannot build a big age without lots of testers with different configurations.
thx for the comments sofar.
i hope you will continue to give feedback.

Re: TurtleIsle V1 .......... Released!

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 4:19 am
by dendwaler
There are a few things that might give a performance boost in the (near) future.
The topografy of turtle isle is designed in a way that it depends highly of the existence of occluders.
Its pitty that occluders are not yet supported by PyPRP in version 1.6.
I hope they will be in the new development for blender 2.7, when it arrives.
in that case all the inside regions are occluded which will halve the number of vertices.
All the mountains will occlude at least 3/4 of the outside of the age.
I expect this would solve most of the problems.

Finally i found in the ages files that i coincidently copied the complete main_isle on exactly the same place.
including all the textures on it.
So i already could delete this (7000 vertices) .
I will upload a new version soon after making some more performance improvements.

Re: TurtleIsle V1 .......... Released!

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 8:22 am
by diafero
I finally had the chance to try the age on my "big" PC, and the framerate is still below 5 fps :( . That's using a Core 2 Duo, 2GiB of RAM and an NVidia GeForce 8500 GT with 512MiB of RAM and Windows 7. All other Uru ages, including Tvel, run fine. And this is an age that I'd really like to play :(

Having different objects in your Age on different Prp files will not keep them from being rendered, unless you use paging with them (like Ae'gura, or Ahra Pahts). All the prp's will be loaded and rendered unless you tell them not to.
Ae'gura does not page anything in or out (well, the Bahro screamers, but not for performance reasons ;-) ). It's just using visregions.

Re: TurtleIsle V1 .......... Released!

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 10:31 am
by Chacal
Dendwaler, I visited your Age yesterday and I enjoyed it immensely.
This is excellent work in all respects.

Parts of it remind me of Riven, like the huge metal machine in the water near the tower, and the color of the water.
I liked almost everything, especially: models, textures, lighting where it is finished, sounds, music, journey cloths (so THAT's what your avatar is!), all the little details that must have taken you weeks to get done: marshes, flowers, cacti, fountains, etc.

I liked:
Show Spoiler


I didn't like:
Show Spoiler


Like most people, I had performance problems even with my powerful gaming computer.

Graphic problems: my video driver kept crashing, sometimes every 20 seconds. This happens on a lot of fan Ages, but this was the worst case yet. The posts above give plenty of good suggestions for fixing this.

Performance problems: these happen to me very rarely.
This is most likely caused by collision detection. Like you said, you need to add simple colliders and remove collision detection from your visible geometry. This has to be done everywhere, and then add only colliders you need. For example, the turtle shell has collision detection on the outside, which is not needed.

Also you could simplify some objects. The spiral stairway (drill bit) at the start is made of hundreds of copies of the same mesh, which means thousands of unneeded vertices and faces having to be rendered, and on which collision detection is set. This slows down a computer, and makes going up and down the stairs awkward. What you need is an invisible spiral collider ramp, that does not have to follow the exact shape of the stairs. Same goes for the stairs in the library at the end.

As an example, see this collider I made for the library stairs in Aegura. I just duplicated Cyan's existing collider, but I could have removed half of the faces and no one would notice.
Show Spoiler


Also for the stairs leading up to the stage in the concert hall, you only need a simple ramp. As an example, see this collider I made for the palace courtyard in Aegura. Notice the ramps at lower left and upper right.
Show Spoiler

Re: TurtleIsle V1 .......... Released!

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 10:50 am
by Chuckles58
Dendwaler, Turtle Isle is a most excellent age! I have a higher end desktop (quad AMD Phenom II X4 965 processor, Windows 7 Ultimate, 1024 Nvida GeForce 9800 GTX+ and 8 GB of RAM). No problems with rendering at all. I have not completed my exploring, but so far am quite pleased.

Show Spoiler

I've only found one journey cloth, so obviously I still have some work ahead of me.

I look forward to your continued development of this age. I will try it out on my underpowered laptop soon.

Re: TurtleIsle V1 .......... Released!

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2011 7:06 pm
by Charura
Just a question:...When Cyan released URU/CC 2003/2004 it ran perfectly on (most) systems within the minimum system requirements:
.
800MHz Pent III or AMD Athlon
ATI Radeon 7/8/9000 families or Nvidia GeForce 256/2/3/4FX
256 RAM
.
Why are the new ages not even able to run on newer computers?
.
I'm just a noob so be easy on me<:.:>

BTW: I have found six cloths and great job on the age!!!