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Final Map KF-Grimpen

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TundraPuppy

FNG / Fresh Meat
Jul 12, 2009
3
4
#1
Map Name:
The Grimpen Marshland


Download link:
[url]http://www.aemaps.com/KF/Grimpen/KF-Grimpen.zip[/URL]


Available to play on my Killing Floor servers (requires clients opted into the beta, includes fast compressed download):
Hard: 216.196.254.234:7707
Suicidal: 216.196.254.234:7807
This map is whitelisted in the beta whitelist program.


Description:
Quiet and morose, the marshland known as Grimpen sits, brooding and humid in the heavy air. The Specimens have come and gone, but their return is imminent - your presence draws them inexorably closer to feed. And inevitably, the swamps will run red for a second time by the fall of day.

The storm draws nearer...


Screenshots:
Grimpen_1_small.jpg



Grimpen_2_small.jpg



Grimpen_3_small.jpg



Grimpen_4_small.jpg




-Tundra Puppy

 
#10
Hi Tundrapuppy,

Played this map a little last night and agreed that this is a great map but there are a few issues.

low fps, at some points the FPS dropped between 25-17fps which for my rig is quite low

CPU E8500@4Ghz
RAM 4Gb 10066Mhz @1106Mhz
GFX 4870x2 2Gb @ Stock
19500 3dmarks

I have repeated the play test a few times with different GFX drivers to make sure it was not a driver issue on my side even though i have not had any problems with KF since release but sadly same results.

I ran the map in rmode 1 and can see that there is alot being drawn at once, there are things you can do to help improve performance, first stop would be to use antiportals and zoneportals then move on to collision, cull distances and so forth.

I really hope you tweak the map further as the overall feel of the map is right up my street.

Cheers filthy.
 
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#11
I haven't played the map yet but I did take a quick look at it in the editor and it looks very good!

As others have mentioned, optimization is a problem despite only having a 2000 UU view distance. Here's some things you should consider;

- The biggest problem I can see right off the bat is the depth complexity. You've got a lot of moving bushes, trees, and tall grass that is really slowing things down. I would reduce the number of foliage or use less complex textures on them.

- Another big cause of FPS drop is the fact that not a single one of your 5000+(!!!) static meshes has a cull distance applied! I know the fog takes care of them after 2000 UU but you can still go through and put smaller culls on all of the higher poly detail meshes.

- You have quite a few textures that are only being used once or twice in the whole level. Check your Texture Browser > InUse tab and see if you can remove some of them. This will also reduce the size of your map and improve load times.

- Some terrain can be culled with the visibility tool, although you won't see much of a performance gain from this. You could also try bumping your TerrainInfo > TerrainInfo > TerrainSectorSize up from 16 to 32.

- I would set the Min/Max FadeDistance on your decolayer to 2000/2000. You will see a slight increase in FPS because the decolayer will just pop in and out instead of fading. The popping will be covered by the fog anyways.

- Reducing the number of terrain layers will help. Right now you have 8 layers, which is quite high. I would try to find two layers that you don't really need and delete them. The engine handles terrain layers best when you have a multiple of 3. (eg. 3, 6, 9). I would get rid of your 'G_Sand_1' layer (replace those areas with 'G_PathDirt_1') and replace 'G_BurnedGround_1' with projectors.

- Set unseen BSP faces to Unlit (F5 menu > Unlit checkbox).

- Consider combining the destroyed house into one static mesh. At the moment there's probably around 400 individual board statics being used just for one building.

- You could also zone off a few of the trader locations that are enclosed in BSP.

- As JustFilth mentioned, adding antiportals under the hills will probably help FPS.

That's about all I can think of right now. You really just need to reduce the depth complexity and it should run fine with such a short fog distance. Hope that helps, and again, good work on the map. I can't wait to play it. :cool:

Oh, and next time release it as a Beta first! Now you'll have to ruin the nice KF-Grimpen name with KF-GrimpenV2 or something. :eek:
 
Upvote 0
#13
Also dont forget to add Cull distance to your objects, that should help alot too.

FYI use the Depth Complexity tool. (Far right in 3d view) Anything that is red you have to fix, cause red means lag.

Your goal is to make it almost all green with a little bit of yellow

Oh yea when you do your zones, you can have a max of 64 zones. most people only use like 10. But thats the lazy way of zoning especially in big maps. In aspen I have 55 zones and i still dont think its enough.
 
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#14
Fel said:
Also dont forget to add Cull distance to your objects, that should help alot too.

FYI use the Depth Complexity tool. (Far right in 3d view) Anything that is red you have to fix, cause red means lag.

Your goal is to make it almost all green with a little bit of yellow
Click to expand...

Its alright to have small areas of orange / red here and there, and yellow is alright

Just make sure you limit the amount of it as best you can
 
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#15
DrGuppy said:
- The biggest problem I can see right off the bat is the depth complexity. You've got a lot of moving bushes, trees, and tall grass that is really slowing things down. I would reduce the number of foliage or use less complex textures on them.
Click to expand...

This would ruin the quality of the map imo though. The foliage is something that I highly enjoyed and what makes this map great.
 
Upvote 0
#16
Hey

Hey

HeatSurge said:
This would ruin the quality of the map imo though. The foliage is something that I highly enjoyed and what makes this map great.
Click to expand...

Sounds great and all. Yes it may ruin the beauty that you desire. I had to really modify my map to get it to work. I had a huge fps problem also. You have to sacrifice though. The map is only good if people can play it. Mast majority of people do not have monster machines that can play things like that. If no one plays it then how good is really. You can always take a screen shot and hang it on your wall.


Here are some things to look at also. I had lots of issues with fps on my map. I went from not being able to playing multiplayer to it working poorly. I have worked hard on it and the FPS got up really high.

1. Lots of good Zone Portals help.

2. Anything not touched by players or zeds turn off the collision. So like pretty things around your map.

3. Also anything not important turn off collision. Pictures on the wall is one good example.

4. Put block volumes around certain items that are not going to affect game play and turn off collision. By gameplay I mean things that block gun fire and so on.

Good example is my pool table. The balls and rails and felt do not need collision on. So i put a block volume around them and left the collision on the table on. I have static meshes for blinds above window sills. They do not do anything. So I turned off the collision. The trader area. Put a block volume around her and her walls and turned off the collision.

You get the idea.

One more thing. Grass does not need collision. Just there for looks.
 
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