Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => Wishlist => Topic started by: RedBull1 on December 13, 2012, 08:34:47 PM

Title: Clouds Option/slider ?
Post by: RedBull1 on December 13, 2012, 08:34:47 PM
Option to turn clouds off or even just make them less detailed or what have you so people with lower end systems like myself can still FLY, you can't fly with 6 FPS. Logged into Tank Town today and there was about 5-10 others agreeing with me it was just ridiculous to try to fly with all the clouds hitting our FPS. I know those of you with higher end systems will whine and some say it's the best feature of the game...well...quite a bit of the customer base (like myself) play on atari graphics, and might not be able to afford a system capable of flying with 60 fps with clouds etc.

In a nutshell: At least just make a slider or option to have the clouds dumb'ed down like the bump map slider, please  :pray
Title: Re: Clouds Option/slider ?
Post by: Motherland on December 13, 2012, 08:40:47 PM
There is a detail option for clouds.
Title: Re: Clouds Option/slider ?
Post by: RedBull1 on December 13, 2012, 08:47:33 PM
The Bump Map clouds button? doesn't make much of a difference. (for me at least)
Title: Re: Clouds Option/slider ?
Post by: Rino on December 13, 2012, 09:05:16 PM
See rule #4
Title: Re: Clouds Option/slider ?
Post by: hitech on December 14, 2012, 08:07:58 AM
I wish it was that simple RedBull, the issue is that the clouds also are a game play item. I.E. you turn down the clouds you can see players in them.
We have 1 machine at the office that the clouds create a big impact, and are trying to find out why.

HiTech
Title: Re: Clouds Option/slider ?
Post by: Ack-Ack on December 14, 2012, 12:17:54 PM
I wish it was that simple RedBull, the issue is that the clouds also are a game play item. I.E. you turn down the clouds you can see players in them.
We have 1 machine at the office that the clouds create a big impact, and are trying to find out why.

HiTech

It only seems to have a big impact with the cloud bumb mapping enabled, with it turned off I don't lose any FPS.

ack-ack
Title: Re: Clouds Option/slider ?
Post by: Torquila on December 14, 2012, 02:06:27 PM
HT, a basic analysis says that its just video card memory being over-run.

Try looking into a LOD solution.
Title: Re: Clouds Option/slider ?
Post by: hitech on December 14, 2012, 02:15:37 PM
HT, a basic analysis says that its just video card memory being over-run.

Try looking into a LOD solution.

Its not vid memory, in fact it is very little vid memory being used. And LOD's really don't make since with the clouds.

HiTech
Title: Re: Clouds Option/slider ?
Post by: Torquila on December 14, 2012, 02:49:58 PM
I understand what you mean HT; that LOD's dont make sense, but it has to be memory because when I run on full AA I get 50% fps, while on a notch below I don't lose any.

AA as you know is mainly memory dependent, so unless its the actual memory bandwidth limit of the card causing the issue it has to be the memory amount itself (assuming no mistakes in the implementation).
Title: Re: Clouds Option/slider ?
Post by: Karnak on December 14, 2012, 02:54:17 PM
The funny thing is that it isn't low end systems.  It is something else.  The clouds have no effect on my frame rates and my system is ancient.
Title: Re: Clouds Option/slider ?
Post by: Torquila on December 14, 2012, 03:45:50 PM
I don't suppose this has anything to do with it?(after alt-tabbing back into the game)
(http://i.imgur.com/LG7Yo.jpg)
Title: Re: Clouds Option/slider ?
Post by: MK-84 on December 14, 2012, 06:02:05 PM
When I alt tab back to AH I usually have problems, the most extreme and not uncommon at all is to have the game freeze for a very long time 5-15 seconds and sometimes it returns and then freezed quickly or I see planes warping all over before it returns to normal.

But as for the clouds I see that too but as light grey boxes without the AH "textures(?)" in your screen.  That persists usually for several seconds and is not unlike how I also see white trees and objects before they load their textures group by group. which is consistent with how the game has always worked on every pc I've used.  my current one just REALLY hates alt tabbing ;)

Title: Re: Clouds Option/slider ?
Post by: titanic3 on December 14, 2012, 06:07:07 PM
If you have Steam, add AH to your library and you can use the Steam overlay to browse the web. No more alt tabbing.
Title: Re: Clouds Option/slider ?
Post by: RedBull1 on December 14, 2012, 06:30:08 PM
I wish it was that simple RedBull, the issue is that the clouds also are a game play item. I.E. you turn down the clouds you can see players in them.
We have 1 machine at the office that the clouds create a big impact, and are trying to find out why.

HiTech
:cry
I run a 2.7Ghz dual core, 3GB of ram, win 7 64 bit, my biggest downfall with this computer is my graphics card it's an integrated G43/45. I dunno if those specs help with anything but anyway..

Im not sure it's just a cloud or two that lag me, but around Tank Town yesterday, there was a giant collection of clouds all over the center island, no way to escape them.  :confused:
Title: Re: Clouds Option/slider ?
Post by: Wraith_TMS on December 14, 2012, 06:33:30 PM
Is there a way to enable the clouds in the offline mode, perhaps a setting in one of the Arena Setup/Environment choices?  (I've downloaded the game and it doesn't have clouds enabled in the offline mode either.)

If so, maybe we can get an idea of what to expect, and if we see issues, we can report them to HTC with a DXDiag report.

Title: Re: Clouds Option/slider ?
Post by: nrshida on December 14, 2012, 06:37:06 PM
They look great, but my frame rate gets hammered too. Like trying to fight in flick book format  :cry
Title: Re: Clouds Option/slider ?
Post by: ImADot on December 14, 2012, 07:20:14 PM
Wraith, each map can have a default (built-in) cloud file. And a different cloud file can be uploaded if desired, but there is no arena setting to toggle clouds on or off. It sounds like until HTC figures out the frame-rate hit, only a couple of maps have a couple of clouds on them. NDIsles is one of them, and there are clouds over the center island. They should still show up offline, you might need to give the map a few minutes to create the clouds. Just in case offline won't work, you can create a custom arena online and choose "ndisles" as the terrain. I just did and the clouds look really nice with the bump mapping turned on.
Title: Re: Clouds Option/slider ?
Post by: Wraith_TMS on December 15, 2012, 03:19:52 PM
Wraith, each map can have a default (built-in) cloud file. And a different cloud file can be uploaded if desired, but there is no arena setting to toggle clouds on or off. It sounds like until HTC figures out the frame-rate hit, only a couple of maps have a couple of clouds on them. NDIsles is one of them, and there are clouds over the center island. They should still show up offline, you might need to give the map a few minutes to create the clouds. Just in case offline won't work, you can create a custom arena online and choose "ndisles" as the terrain. I just did and the clouds look really nice with the bump mapping turned on.

Thanks for the tip, ImAdot!   :salute  I just tried the central islands area but didn't see anything even though I gave it a few minutes.  I'll play around with a custom arena and see if that helps.