I was very impressed by this build, having played since the initial release a few years ago I can safely say that this feels much more like it should. I am running on a 7 year old laptop, 2.2/4gigram/hd4000 series... 640x480 I was getting 40 fps in marine start at the beginning of the game. Usually I get around 20 - 30 I think.
The best change with this though is that when explosions or arcs start shooting, you don't get massive lag. Played on an HBZ server, and ARC spammed one of the hives, I think there were about 15+ ARCs. It was still reasonably smooth, even though the fps was low for me - but this was incredibly surprising. Same with the grenade launcher, explosions did not cause stutter.
I don't know what it is, but the feel/movement/animations also feel smoother. It is definitely easier to shoot aliens now I think.
I am not sure how top end spec users will find this patch, but I have seen a real change from running it on a really poor laptop.
Tbh, I don't see all that much of an fps boost. It even dropped down to 38 fps with exos, onos, arcs and biling gorges on a 18ppl server. But I just might not be as high end as i thought --> i5 2500K@4.3Ghz | 8GB |HD6970 | SSD
The overall feel has considerably improved though. Shooting grenades is - just as you mentioned - alot smoother now for example.
I noticed a weird Rifle reload animation bug the end of the reload sequence. The tip of the gun sometimes moved up and down in an unusual manner. Never seen it before.
Performance is much better although its similar in open areas like Landing Pad on Docking where it still drops fast and "wait for render thread" creeps up with my 3.0GHz Core 2 + gtx 660
After seeing the results on my primary desktop (which were quite promising), I'm installing Windows on my Core i3/Intel HD3000 laptop to do some benchmarking and give feedback on lower end systems. I'm not expecting it to be amazing, but I hope to get something close to playable.
Tried it out last night .. I've a oldish laptop that runs most games ok
Running NS2 in lowest detail in 1152x587 or something similar I get about 35fps with nothing going on and 15-20 other times..
I noticed an improvement alright, I was getting 40fps in general around the map with a few dips but the dips weren't as drastic! It seemed to hold steadier alright ..
Only issues I noticed were .. at one stage, I was getting 40fps .. I died and ended up speccing a teammate gorge ..
he started to heal and my fps went from 40 to 4 .. and never recovered (had to restart ns2) .. after the drastic dip, they stayed around 4-10
Lovin most of the map changes .. although courtyard seems a little bright .. Departures looks alot more interesting but I think makes it alot easier to attack from east wing (but then again it's probably just the first time on the map and everyone was arsin about looking at everything new except the marines shooting hive )
The servers seemed to ping alot better too .. I saw someone with a sub 20 ping not hosting the server!
Last thing .. I know anyone playing competitive will already have a very decent spec machine so it probably won't affect them so much, so my observation here would probably be rejected by this group .. but with the improvements in performance, I think Marines are going to start winning a bit more since killing aliens will be a bit easier for the average player I think in pub games this might have an effect on balance :P
Just an update .. I'm not sure if I played on after the massive FPS drop or not .. but I just loaded ns2 up again there, and my config had changed .. I can only wonder.. is it possible that I took on the detail levels of someone I was speccing??
I know it's a wierd thing to suggest .. er .. but .. is it possible?
If it happens again I'll let you know .. and I'll check if my settings changed
Im getting a 50+ fps boost when i actually switch things from low/off to high/on! I was also able to go one step up from 1280x720 Woot! Love the gains on this patch.
Man, now I gotta buy a new graphics card, if it's gonna bottleneck.
@squishpoke Personally, i'd wait.. with the upcoming OpenGL / DX11 changes very soon ...well, I can't say anymore than that, but yeah.. just wait, friend.
About OpenGL, I read a post somewhere here saying the newer Nvidia cards don't support it anymore? Is it even worth adding support for it then, surely DX11 is enough. (Note: Gonna be so mad when I can't play D2 anymore because OpenGL loses support -.-).
Man, now I gotta buy a new graphics card, if it's gonna bottleneck.
@squishpoke Personally, i'd wait.. with the upcoming OpenGL / DX11 changes very soon ...well, I can't say anymore than that, but yeah.. just wait, friend.
Recorded a video with a few players on a server testing out the performance.
I can't say for sure what my framerate was or how much the ARC's affected it since Fraps usually bogs down my machine significantly when recording. I play with everything off at 1080p.
Joining the server took FOREVER though (not exclusive to 249; frequently occur in 248 as well). Got stuck in "PRECACHING" for several minutes while it sounded like my HDD was about to die.
It precaches until 10% then loads fast, I have this same problem and it sounds like my hard drive is being shitted on as well
Probably grenade launcher bug found in Beta 249?
I tested the GL in 248 and 249 beta.
In 248 the grenades have an amount of friction to them and don't slide to far after hitting the ground.
Now in 249 beta, the GL got new technology ammunition upgrades. The Grenades are now frictionless because "It Hovars Without Flapping" above ground. So that makes Grenades basically ground torpedoes, awesome! So in beta 249 Grenades hovar about 5 centimeters (2 Inches) above ground when they hit the ground. So now this ground-ground-torpedo is on its way but when it hits an obstacle (like stairs for example in Cafeteria) it shoots up in the air just to drop on the ground again so it can hovar further on its way to destruction.
Additionally there is a ghost or fake grenade upgrade which is being induced at the right angle and obstacle. So while visually the nade fakes its position its ghost explodes somewhere else. It seems that the fake nade and ghost nade are splitting up their directions after hitting an obstacle.
So overall the new improved GL ammunition is an enhancement, NOOOOT?!
Probably grenade launcher bug found in Beta 249?
I tested the GL in 248 and 249 beta.
In 248 the grenades have an amount of friction to them and don't slide to far after hitting the ground.
Now in 249 beta, the GL got new technology ammunition upgrades. The Grenades are now frictionless because "It Hovars Without Flapping" above ground. So that makes Grenades basically ground torpedoes, awesome! So in beta 249 Grenades hovar about 5 centimeters (2 Inches) above ground when they hit the ground. So now this ground-ground-torpedo is on its way but when it hits an obstacle (like stairs for example in Cafeteria) it shoots up in the air just to drop on the ground again so it can hovar further on its way to destruction.
Additionally there is a ghost or fake grenade upgrade which is being induced at the right angle and obstacle. So while visually the nade fakes its position its ghost explodes somewhere else. It seems that the fake nade and ghost nade are splitting up their directions after hitting an obstacle.
So overall the new improved GL ammunition is an enhancement, NOOOOT?!
All you need to do now is find the right angle from marine start, so that you can research GLs and spam them across the map all the way to the hive. Bwahaha.
This is it. Now this is a game that I can gladly recommend to my friends. I knew the engine was the issue because most of the recent games runs smoothly on my really very old computer. Here are the specs (under computer). In build 248 I was playing on 1366x768 resolution, everything on low except texture details were on medium and multicore rendering was on. I could hardly hit 40-50fps on combat at midgame and the end game was arround 30fps. I couldn't play in public 16+p servers because of this very reason. Then, I've started playing gathers (it's 6v6 but also gather servers have ensl maps -less lights, more fps-).
With this build though it's a whole different story. I can only imagine re-coding most of the engine with a very limited staff so first of all, I bow to you guys. There isn't much to say really.. Now the game runs smoothly at 1080p res, everything is turned on, except textures are on medium (when I set to high, micro shutters start, seriously though, how much vram does the high setting need?) shaders at medium (off is better after midgame), AA is off (due to the performance impact, i may fiddle with the nvidia cp after 249 is released) and Vsync-Triple- is also turned off (causes mouse lag for some reason but since the engine don't tear like source, keeping it off is not a problem). I hit 55-60+fps at the begining and it's constant like that. Sometimes it drops to 45-50 but seriously, compared to the 248 build, it's a huge fucking improvement (pardon the language, I'm that excited).
I hope you sort out the minor bugs and release it soon. (last night the game froze the computer when I exit the game, then it came back after 2 minutes. happened only once -out of 10 maybe more games-. I can provide more information if needed)
Probably grenade launcher bug found in Beta 249?
I tested the GL in 248 and 249 beta.
In 248 the grenades have an amount of friction to them and don't slide to far after hitting the ground.
Now in 249 beta, the GL got new technology ammunition upgrades. The Grenades are now frictionless because "It Hovars Without Flapping" above ground. So that makes Grenades basically ground torpedoes, awesome! So in beta 249 Grenades hovar about 5 centimeters (2 Inches) above ground when they hit the ground. So now this ground-ground-torpedo is on its way but when it hits an obstacle (like stairs for example in Cafeteria) it shoots up in the air just to drop on the ground again so it can hovar further on its way to destruction.
Additionally there is a ghost or fake grenade upgrade which is being induced at the right angle and obstacle. So while visually the nade fakes its position its ghost explodes somewhere else. It seems that the fake nade and ghost nade are splitting up their directions after hitting an obstacle.
So overall the new improved GL ammunition is an enhancement, NOOOOT?!
Recorded a video with a few players on a server testing out the performance.
I can't say for sure what my framerate was or how much the ARC's affected it since Fraps usually bogs down my machine significantly when recording. I play with everything off at 1080p.
Joining the server took FOREVER though (not exclusive to 249; frequently occur in 248 as well). Got stuck in "PRECACHING" for several minutes while it sounded like my HDD was about to die.
You've probably got the game installed on the same drive as your OS, if that is the case, try to get another hard drive and install the game on that and play it, it makes a HUGE difference.
Brings minutes of loading time down to about 40 seconds for first load and then 10 seconds for sequential load (on my PC anyway, i don't have SSD).
went and tested it in an actual game... no significant improvement whatsoever. Would start with 120fps, then drop to 70-80 if I switched weapons or if there was even 1 skulk on my screen, any sort of mouse movement near lights would also drop it significantly. Probably works great on the NSL maps but it's still super inconsistent. Didn't really drop lower than 60 which is cool I guess, but jumping from 120 to 60 and back up again feels really weird
Hoping it'll help more on the NSL maps, I have a feeling it was all the lights that were really causing the FPS drops.
Recorded a video with a few players on a server testing out the performance.
I can't say for sure what my framerate was or how much the ARC's affected it since Fraps usually bogs down my machine significantly when recording. I play with everything off at 1080p.
Joining the server took FOREVER though (not exclusive to 249; frequently occur in 248 as well). Got stuck in "PRECACHING" for several minutes while it sounded like my HDD was about to die.
You've probably got the game installed on the same drive as your OS, if that is the case, try to get another hard drive and install the game on that and play it, it makes a HUGE difference.
Brings minutes of loading time down to about 40 seconds for first load and then 10 seconds for sequential load (on my PC anyway, i don't have SSD).
That shouldn't be required, there's some type of issue with something. It renders very slowly to exactly 10% then immediately flies up to 100%, during the load it sounds like the hard drive is really, really struggling
Comments
Don't use Fraps for recording, it drags fps down. I heard recording with MSI Afterburner works pretty well...
Tbh, I don't see all that much of an fps boost. It even dropped down to 38 fps with exos, onos, arcs and biling gorges on a 18ppl server. But I just might not be as high end as i thought
The overall feel has considerably improved though. Shooting grenades is - just as you mentioned - alot smoother now for example.
Performance is much better although its similar in open areas like Landing Pad on Docking where it still drops fast and "wait for render thread" creeps up with my 3.0GHz Core 2 + gtx 660
Running NS2 in lowest detail in 1152x587 or something similar I get about 35fps with nothing going on and 15-20 other times..
I noticed an improvement alright, I was getting 40fps in general around the map with a few dips but the dips weren't as drastic! It seemed to hold steadier alright ..
Only issues I noticed were .. at one stage, I was getting 40fps .. I died and ended up speccing a teammate gorge ..
he started to heal and my fps went from 40 to 4 .. and never recovered (had to restart ns2) .. after the drastic dip, they stayed around 4-10
Lovin most of the map changes
The servers seemed to ping alot better too .. I saw someone with a sub 20 ping not hosting the server!
Last thing .. I know anyone playing competitive will already have a very decent spec machine so it probably won't affect them so much, so my observation here would probably be rejected by this group .. but with the improvements in performance, I think Marines are going to start winning a bit more since killing aliens will be a bit easier for the average player
I know it's a wierd thing to suggest .. er .. but .. is it possible?
If it happens again I'll let you know .. and I'll check if my settings changed
About OpenGL, I read a post somewhere here saying the newer Nvidia cards don't support it anymore? Is it even worth adding support for it then, surely DX11 is enough. (Note: Gonna be so mad when I can't play D2 anymore because OpenGL loses support -.-).
Could you please define "very soon" ?
I poked around in the options but no joy.
Though you have to have NS2 running in full screen. Does not work otherwise.
Cheers, I had it running in windowed full screen, it shows up in full screen mode!
It precaches until 10% then loads fast, I have this same problem and it sounds like my hard drive is being shitted on as well
I tested the GL in 248 and 249 beta.
In 248 the grenades have an amount of friction to them and don't slide to far after hitting the ground.
Now in 249 beta, the GL got new technology ammunition upgrades. The Grenades are now frictionless because "It Hovars Without Flapping" above ground. So that makes Grenades basically ground torpedoes, awesome! So in beta 249 Grenades hovar about 5 centimeters (2 Inches) above ground when they hit the ground. So now this ground-ground-torpedo is on its way but when it hits an obstacle (like stairs for example in Cafeteria) it shoots up in the air just to drop on the ground again so it can hovar further on its way to destruction.
Additionally there is a ghost or fake grenade upgrade which is being induced at the right angle and obstacle. So while visually the nade fakes its position its ghost explodes somewhere else. It seems that the fake nade and ghost nade are splitting up their directions after hitting an obstacle.
So overall the new improved GL ammunition is an enhancement, NOOOOT?!
All you need to do now is find the right angle from marine start, so that you can research GLs and spam them across the map all the way to the hive. Bwahaha.
With this build though it's a whole different story. I can only imagine re-coding most of the engine with a very limited staff so first of all, I bow to you guys. There isn't much to say really.. Now the game runs smoothly at 1080p res, everything is turned on, except textures are on medium (when I set to high, micro shutters start, seriously though, how much vram does the high setting need?) shaders at medium (off is better after midgame), AA is off (due to the performance impact, i may fiddle with the nvidia cp after 249 is released) and Vsync-Triple- is also turned off (causes mouse lag for some reason but since the engine don't tear like source, keeping it off is not a problem). I hit 55-60+fps at the begining and it's constant like that. Sometimes it drops to 45-50 but seriously, compared to the 248 build, it's a huge fucking improvement (pardon the language, I'm that excited).
I hope you sort out the minor bugs and release it soon. (last night the game froze the computer when I exit the game, then it came back after 2 minutes. happened only once -out of 10 maybe more games-. I can provide more information if needed)
http://i41.tinypic.com/jf7prl.jpg
You've probably got the game installed on the same drive as your OS, if that is the case, try to get another hard drive and install the game on that and play it, it makes a HUGE difference.
Brings minutes of loading time down to about 40 seconds for first load and then 10 seconds for sequential load (on my PC anyway, i don't have SSD).
@peregrinus what does r_stats say for you?
Hoping it'll help more on the NSL maps, I have a feeling it was all the lights that were really causing the FPS drops.
That shouldn't be required, there's some type of issue with something. It renders very slowly to exactly 10% then immediately flies up to 100%, during the load it sounds like the hard drive is really, really struggling
I have the same cpu, 3x the FPS. (150-200) I don't get it.