Patch#10 Beta, LoD & terraforming game

[Ganossa]

Hi guys! There are new links on the topic Lucifer

I updated the OP and very well done video. It is definitly not well done yet but I also notice that they are aware of the problem as the distance of building transformation slightly changed.
However, the (bad) quality of LOD still remains the same.

[baptistus]

The lod setting of the grass on the last "let's paly" about HatG is HORRIBLE !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqvTIzw3WXE
It begins at 9min 30s
It seems there is no transition between "no grass" and "grass". I don't have this horrible clipping at this time in game. It seems the grass actually load "progressively" (maybe it used transparancy effect ?)

[Ganossa]

The lod setting of the grass on the last "let's paly" about HatG is HORRIBLE !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqvTIzw3WXE
It begins at 9min 30s
It seems there is no transition between "no grass" and "grass". I don't have this horrible clipping at this time in game. It seems the grass actually load "progressively" (maybe it used transparancy effect ?)

It looks pretty much as if they use dx9 so shader 3. There you have exactly that problem.

[IamOdysseus]

I have a very important decrease in graphics since patch 10.

[Ishan]

It looks pretty much as if they use dx9 so shader 3. There you have exactly that problem.

• DX9 uses shader 2.0
• DX9.0c uses shader 3.0
• DX10 uses shader 4.0
• DX10.1 uses shader 4.1
• DX11 uses shader 5.0

So there's no way one could have a different shader set if one is running in DX11 mode which is pretty easy to confirm programs like MSI Afterburner using Rivatuner OSD.

@Librarian
Well i'm a medieval modder, still the concept of LOD should be universal, you and I have ties with SS if i'm not mistaken. These are all 3D models which are comprised of polygons, more it gets the more stress it puts on the graphics card since it has to render a highly detailed model. As we move away from the model we can decrease the LOD so as to get more performance since on those occasions it has to render other objects on screen and beyond a specific point it switches to sprites. It is something you may already know.

LODs basically are trimmed down 3D models of the same thing with less polygons which gets rendered depending on what distance there are at. For medieval 2 every 3D model had 4 sets, meaning 4 different 3D models, varying in quality. Like:

1 4 
59 unit_models/_Units/EN_Lmail_Hmail/giltines_chosen_lod0.mesh 121 
59 unit_models/_Units/EN_Lmail_Hmail/giltines_chosen_lod1.mesh 900 
59 unit_models/_Units/EN_Lmail_Hmail/giltines_chosen_lod2.mesh 2500 
59 unit_models/_Units/EN_Lmail_Hmail/giltines_chosen_lod3.mesh 6400

Where red part are distances as per the battlefield tiles. Highly detailed lod which is lod0 gets loaded from 0-121 distance beyond that lod1 gets loaded and so on.

It seems CA has been struggling with this where they're trying to cater things to cover majority of the fanbase. Any optimization results in such noticeable transitions which some gamers find annoying, while players with lower end rigs will see performance increase and would not mind this.

Rome 2's benchmark can clearly detect the type of hardware one has, so imo it should be more detailed where it can cater both the things depending on the resolution and graphics card installed. For lower end rigs it should orientate more on performance while the opposite for higher end rigs.

[Ganossa]

• DX9 uses shader 2.0
• DX9.0c uses shader 3.0
• DX10 uses shader 4.0
• DX10.1 uses shader 4.1
• DX11 uses shader 5.0

So there's no way one could have a different shader set if one is running in DX11 mode which is pretty easy to confirm programs like MSI Afterburner using Rivatuner OSD.

If you set gfx_enable_directx11 false; in the preferences.script.txt the game will force you to use DX9.0c shader 3 (do not know any game coming out these days that uses DX9.0 with shader 2). While the game is not optimized for that you will have the problem seen in the CA video (and many more).
By the way you can run shader 3.0 also in their DX11 mode which simply disables all new features.

[Ishan]

If you set gfx_enable_directx11 false; in the preferences.script.txt the game will force you to use DX9.0c shader 3 (do not know any game coming out these days that uses DX9.0 with shader 2). While the game is not optimized for that you will have the problem seen in the CA video (and many more).

I know that but I'm not sure why CA would run the game in DX9 mode when they're previewing something like this, so i'm unwilling to believe this unless CA states otherwise.

By the way you can run shader 3.0 also in their DX11 mode which simply disables all new features.

Are you referring to SweetFX shader suite injector?

[Kal-El]

Wow. I noticed something strange was going on. But for me the latest patch makes my game run very smooth at extreme.

[Sir_Pee_Alot]

They sould give us a LOD distance option in the graphics menu, Then the people can select what they want.

[The Librarian]

They sould give us a LOD distance option in the graphics menu, Then the people can select what they want.

There is. Grass details, tree details, unit details all control the distance of, well, details that are displayed, and thus the LOD. They just decreased the distance overall.

[alQamar]

There is. Grass details, tree details, unit details all control the distance of, well, details that are displayed, and thus the LOD. They just decreased the distance overall.

Well Lib if you like to review my video you can see it everywhere I talked about.
The problem seems severe to me as even close objects will radically downgrade.

As said I won't mind far objects to use lower level of details. Then again:

CA praised us how great the achievements would be introducing more levels of detail, promising great quality AND performance"regardless our rigs" in the video about siege of Carthage. None of that was visible.
If they really made what they promised in "this is alpha" then by introducing MORE LoDs the result consequently should enable a neatless quality when zooming in and out. That was never the case.

From my video footage we now speak about 4 strongly visible levels of detail those are so aprutive anyone notice it, except you choose to ignore them or accept them.
Mostly because the levels to each other are INCOMPATIBLE and show completely different textures or even one colored sprites on lower settings.

As long CA continues this way the settings ultra and extreme sound ridiculous with the aforementioned problems.
So in fact you cannot setup the LoD good enough as they are so present even on higher settings.

The ironically thing is this all even doesn't speed up the game even as you can read in my 'performance promises obeyed' thread.

People playing on high graphics preset will even suffer a -17% avg FPS in the benchmark compared to patch 9.

[IamOdysseus]

I have written this in CA oficial forums:

Here is a screenshot previous:



I had these quality with Ultra preset, Very high shadows and very high unit quality.


Now I have this:



With everything on extreme

Now Rome I has definately better graphics than Rome II

[The Librarian]

I don't really see a difference except that you zoomed out?

[Post Hoc]

Athens

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I have almost everything maxed out...

[The Librarian]

Well I played with the new patch without checking this thread first, and I didn't even notice the new LOD. I'm pretty used to sprites, since they've been in every TW game.

[alQamar]

Well for sure the problems mentioned here are not exclusive for older shader models, or did I get your conversation wrong here?

[Ganossa]

Well for sure the problems mentioned here are not exclusive for older shader models, or did I get your conversation wrong here?

Yeah, I guess at least. What I mentioned was this circle you can see around you when especially moving the camera around on grassy land. This is something that is very prominent when having dx11 turned off in the settings file. It just looked exactly like that issue in the CA video so thats what we are discussion and the question why they would run in on dx9.

[Ishan]

No I do mean the directx shader. You can select it in the R2 graphic settings.
The low draw distance of grass is what jumps at you when playing in dx9 mode and I never saw it with dx11 activated. This is the only reason that made me think they played it on dx9 though I could not think of any good reason why they should?!

Yeah, I guess at least. What I mentioned was this circle you can see around you when especially moving the camera around on grassy land. This is something that is very prominent when having dx11 turned off in the settings file. It just looked exactly like that issue in the CA video so thats what we are discussion and the question why they would run in on dx9.

Thanks for clarifying it and yes that would most likely be the case, since they might've thought that people using older DX9 cards couldn't handle ultra graphics settings so best to optimize things like grass draw distance to give them a little performance boost. Something that can be customized in games like Oblivion\Skyrim not sure if TW modders have this luxury. Is there a DB file that manages grass draw distance when used in DX11\DX9 mode?
----
Anyways, as for the CA video it's hard to say what type of settings these guys were using. As for the pre-release videos...well we all know what happened there, off-topic anyways.

Lets hope these guys at CA manage to do something about this for high end users. It's quite a complicated process which takes considerable amount of time and is usually figured out before release of final game. Not much can be expected once the game is released, so kudos to whoever CA dev is behind this, at least the guy is trying whatever he can to make the game optimized for everybody.

Performance needs to be tested on 2 main factors.
1) Type of resolution one is using, so that would be 720p, 900p, 1080p, 1440p & multi-monitor setup.
2) Type of Graphics hardware or whether it's using SLI\XfireX.

Multiplying options 1x2 gives them a lot of testing platforms, which i'm not sure they're willing to do unless a huge expansion is on the horizon.

[baptistus]

Well for sure the problems mentioned here are not exclusive for older shader models, or did I get your conversation wrong here?

they are talking about my post

The lod setting of the grass on the last "let's paly" about HatG is HORRIBLE !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqvTIzw3WXE
It begins at 9min 30s
It seems there is no transition between "no grass" and "grass". I don't have this horrible clipping at this time in game. It seems the grass actually load "progressively" (maybe it used transparancy effect ?)

It is strange they would run it on dx9 for a promotion video.

[The Librarian]

Hey Ishan, thanks for the highly interesting answers. I understand what it's about (technically), but I have to say it's not really a big deal for me ingame.

You mentioned we both had ties with SS. Do you mean as modders? Because I've never modded a TW game. I was active on the SS forums quite some time ago, though. My previous screen name was 'The Second Spartan'.