New maps still unplayable for me

[Menigmand]

Just wanted to politely add my feedback that the new (.91) version has not fixed the stuttering lag problems I am experiencing on the new maps.

The new small version of Silent Eagle runs better, but I still have the hunch that the new maps are poorly optimized in some way, and that this is the cause of the problems.

Apologies if there is already a thread running about this, I could not locate it and I don't know if I am the only one still having problems with the new content.


Regards

[Jigsaw]

Thanks for providing your feedback, would be helpful if you could also provide your system specs and in-game graphics settings as well. There is another thread running on this subject however, just a few threads down in this section

[Menigmand]

From the title of that thread, I thought it was for people whose performance DID improve

My specs (from the previous reporting template):

System Specifications

* Operating System: Windows Vista 32 bit SP2
* CPU :Intel Core2 Duo 2,4 Ghz T8300 (laptop)
* Graphics Card :Integrated ATI Mobility Radeon 2600 256 Mb- works fine for previous version of PR
* Amount of RAM :2 Gb
* Sound Card: SoundMAX Integrated Digital HD Audio

BF2 Graphics Settings

* Resolution : 1650 x 1050 widescreen

* Terrain : 3
* Effects : 3
* Geometry : 3
* Texture : 2
* Lighting : 3
* Dynamic Shadows :3
* Dynamic Light :3
* Anti-Aliasing : off
* Texture Filtering: 3


1. Have you noticed a significant performance decrease from 0.87 -> 0.9?

YES

2. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your performance in 0.9.

I would rate it a 2 or 3 - new maps unplayable

It runs fluidly apart from very frequent "studders" when everything freezes for ½-5 seconds. This makes the game unplayable even though there seems to be enough horsepower in my system to work the graphice. I'm guessing it's a video RAM buffering issue of some kind - probably related to too big/unoptimized custom textures in the new assets.


3. Name three or more maps in 0.9 which result in the worst performance.

All new 0.9 maps (and Fallujah I found out yesterday)

4. From the maps mentioned above, state which specific areas/directions affect your performance the most.

Unclear - most maps have a combination of water, vegetation, vehicles and buildings. Have not found any specific cause.

5. Name any maps that you have no performance issues with.

The old maps, but it seems they load slower and run a little bit worse. Can play most of them though. Muttrah runs well.

[DankE_SPB]

eh, you have not very powerful rig and unhappy that game do not run smooth on almost all High with quite big resolution?
lower your settings, this will help

[Menigmand]

eh, you have not very powerful rig and unhappy that game do not run smooth on almost all High with quite big resolution?
lower your settings, this will help

No, I am unhappy that the game does not run well with the NEW content, when the OLD content runs well at the same resolution and detail level. The new content is not any more detailed than the old, as far as I can see it's just different.

So the problem is not in my computer, but the way the new content is put together.

And to help the developers continue to improve this wonderful mod, I am providing my feedback, hoping it's possible to make it possible for people like me to continue to enjoy their good work.

[Jigsaw]

No, I am unhappy that the game does not run well with the NEW content, when the OLD content runs well at the same resolution and detail level. The new content is not any more detailed than the old, as far as I can see it's just different.

Actually that is wrong. For example the new US/Russian kit geometries are far more detailed than any of the other kits in-game, in the same way that Silent Eagle is about 10x more detailed than Kashan Desert. The detail level in-game has increased a lot from 0.8xx to 0.9 and im sorry to say that your laptop will struggle to cope, especially with that gfx card and only 2GB of RAM whilst using Vista as well.

The developers are of course looking for ways to optimise the game, but will not be held back by lower end systems. As Danke says lower a couple of your settings and your screen resolution and you'll find the performance will improve greatly.

[Menigmand]

Thank you for the reply and correction.

I agree that better graphics are great, but personally I notice no difference in the detail level of the new assets, and in my opinion it should be possible to model a convincing, say, Merkava tank with the same amount of polygons and texture memory as an M1 Abrams.

As for the levels, I fail to notice the extra detail in Silent Eagle as compared to Qin Ling and other old maps of the same size. Not saying it's not there, but just that I haven't noticed it.

With all due respect to both the developer's take on this and the players with better machines than mine, I would chance the guess that many of the players with less powerful rigs are also the kind of mature teamplayers that made this mod so interesting for me in the first place - no offense to the great people out there who upgrade regularly.

If the stuttering problems could be solved by scaling down the polygons and textures to the standard size, I wouldn't miss the sunglasses for the US troops.

But if I'm really in a small minority, then I'll just say "so long and thanks for all the fish"..

[Duke]

I would highly recommend fiddling with your current settings. There should be a few things you can change that will have a barely noticeable overall effect between medium and high say, but have a big impact on performance.

Take a look at this, its an optimisation guide for BF2 that i ran into a while ago, and its proved massively useful for me at least. My rig runs PR well on high/medium borderline (similar to you i expect), and i used this guide extensively. Obviously its made with vBF2 in mind, but 99% of it applies to PR.

I know that there are a few things in the current build that are being optimised by the DEVs for the next release that should have some impact on performance. So, in the meantime, try the above.

[Jigsaw]

As for the levels, I fail to notice the extra detail in Silent Eagle as compared to Qin Ling and other old maps of the same size. Not saying it's not there, but just that I haven't noticed it.

Well, I can quite easily help there. How you haven't noticed the difference is beyond me but then that is besides the point. What i've done is basically a direct comparison between the two maps you've used as an example, in terms of levels of detail. I've taken screenshots of both of the central villages on each map as well as a generic tree/hill area to show the differences. Click the images to see them a bit bigger.





The first thing you should notice is the sheer size difference between the two, to the point that i've had to zoom a lot further out on Silent Eagle to fit the whole thing in. I'd say that Silent Eagle has roughly quadrupled the size of the centre village.

The next thing to take into account is that on Silent Eagle, with 4x as many buildings all but two of them are enterable! This obviously is far superior in terms of detail and far better for gameplay, in fact as a dedicated infantry specialist some of the best firefights i've had have been in that village.

Finally another key difference is the undergrowth level. On the Qinling screenshot i've not had to take a close up screen, simply because there is nothing else to see there and undergrowth is basically non-existant. Now compare that with the close up screen of Silent Eagle and notice the amount of undergrowth, the wrecked cars, the pock marked walls etc etc.




On these screens i've just gone to a generic area of wooded terrain. What you're looking at here is the tree density, which as you can see is far superior on Silent Eagle than on Qinling. Also take into account increased undergrowth levels as shown in the close up screen and you'll see why the map is more resource heavy.

Finally take into account the fact that Silent Eagle has a gigantic missile silo complex, a powerplant, two heavily detailed airfields and another couple of smaller compounds, whilst Qinling has an open quarry and a small farm and surely you can now see just how superior in detail it is?

With all due respect to both the developer's take on this and the players with better machines than mine, I would chance the guess that many of the players with less powerful rigs are also the kind of mature teamplayers that made this mod so interesting for me in the first place - no offense to the great people out there who upgrade regularly.

Difficult to substantiate that claim really as there is no evidence to back it up. In fact I know for a fact that PR's population count has increased from release to release and from a personal point of view I have seen no problem with the level of teamplay in PR during 0.9, I still play with the same people I used to in previous versions.

But if I'm really in a small minority, then I'll just say "so long and thanks for all the fish"..

Believe me, absolutely no-one here wants that to happen and I really hope that you do not decide to stop playing because of your feelings on this issue. I urge you to consider having a play around with your settings and finding an optimal balance between good graphics and playable performance.

Follow the tweak guide Duke posted, reduce your settings and you should see a significant improvement.

[Dev1200]

As for the levels, I fail to notice the extra detail in Silent Eagle as compared to Qin Ling and other old maps of the same size. Not saying it's not there, but just that I haven't noticed it.

Quin Ling has little to no grass. Silent Eagle is covered in it.


Also, tone your settings down. The new maps are ultra-high detailed, and require a lot of ram to run. Get a more powerful graphics card and more ram, and you should be fine.


However.. I will point out this.

On Yamalia, Running BTR zoomed in gets me 20fps, compared to ~105fps unzoomed.

I have a quad core CPU @ 3Ghz, 6 gigs of ram, and an ATI HD 4850. I can run Crysis on max settings, with around 50 fps. However, I get 20fps on yamalia. Dragonfly is even worse.


Since most of the people playing PR have High-End rigs, and EVERYONE experiences this, then it's not just the low end people wanting less detailed maps.

The BF2 engine can only do so much.. and straining it doesn't halp.

[joethepro36]

Your problems are to do with RAM. I have the same amount as you (2gig) and I cannot run new maps with medium or above textures or terrain.

I turned both to low in .9 and have silky smooth play now on every single map.

FPS issues are an entirely different beast but my current hd 4650 runs everything else fine @ 1280 x 1024 (4x aa) on all maps except for some minor FPS issues on gaza and fallujah. And even then I still get about 40+ FPS.

edit: do note that dragonfly is still so bad that if I move quickly in a landie, I can actually lock up my computer due to the RAM requirements.

[Menigmand]

Thanks for all feedback and suggestions. Probably the reason I never noticed the increased detail is because I was too busy stuttering around

As it stands, it's not an FPS-drop for me, so I'm unsure if fiddling with settings will help out. I will try tweaking a bit, or - failing that - just come online once in a while to find a server running one of the old maps.