Lag for strange reasons

[vonfrank]

I seem to get moments of incredible lag when certain ships are on screen at the same time.

For example, when I have the following ships visible on screen at once, the lag becomes ridiculous:
- JL Studio's Nova (http://bridgecommander.filefront.com/file/JL_Studios_Nova;96983)
- JL Studio's CGI voyager (http://bridgecommander.filefront.com/file/CGI_Voyager_Pack;85524)
and
- Wiley's Centaur (http://bridgecommander.filefront.com/file/WC_Excelsior_Centaur_Fleet_Pack;108323)

If any 2 of those are on screen and the other is off to the side, there is no lag, but the moment all 3 come into view my computer gets bogged down to about 1 or 2 FPS.

These 3 ships are not the only examples, sometimes its just between 2 different ships. Anyone know why this happens?

[Mario]

Polycount of those models and high res textures...

What are your computer specs?

[vonfrank]

It's not the poly count. I can have dozens of different ships on screen at once and there is no lag whatsoever. Its only with certain ships that there is this problem.

I think it has something to do with the textures. Perhaps when certain textures are on screen together at the same time my graphics card has trouble....... but I'm not really sure.

My comp specs:

Windows XP SP2

AMD Athalon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5000+
2.61 GHz processor
3.50 GB RAM

ATI Radeon X1600/X1650 Series
512 MB DDR2

[moed]

It is definitely the textures... trust me on this one.

Your machine is not too bad at all to have good resolutions with BC, it's just those massive textures on those certain ships.

If you have Photoshop (or download a good free imaging program) you can reduce the texture sizes with balance in mind: not so low a res that the textures look bad, but not so high as to really slow your gameplay down.

[eclipse74569]

It is definitely the textures... trust me on this one.

Your machine is not too bad at all to have good resolutions with BC, it's just those massive textures on those certain ships.

If you have Photoshop (or download a good free imaging program) you can reduce the texture sizes with balance in mind: not so low a res that the textures look bad, but not so high as to really slow your gameplay down.

To add onto this, if the textures are 2048x2048 try reducing them to half (1024) and see if that helps.

[vonfrank]

If i just reduce the texture resolution to 1024 instead of 2048, wont i have to modify the mesh in some way so that the model will recognize the new resolution?

I don't do any modeling work, (I'm a scripting person) so I'm not really sure what else would be required it i did that.

I was thinking that another alternative would be to download a lower resolution version of each high res ship model and have the model switch out to the low quality version when the ship is at a far distance.

[Nebula]

no changes to the model are needed...

[moed]

If i just reduce the texture resolution to 1024 instead of 2048, wont i have to modify the mesh in some way so that the model will recognize the new resolution?

I don't do any modeling work, (I'm a scripting person) so I'm not really sure what else would be required it i did that.

I was thinking that another alternative would be to download a lower resolution version of each high res ship model and have the model switch out to the low quality version when the ship is at a far distance.

As Neb said, no changes to the model are needed. The textures automatically re-size when you change the texture resolution to as an example 2048 to 1024. The ship on screen won't look quite as sharp during a close up but 1024 is still a very good res.

Also, make sure the mip map option is turned on in your configuration. This feature switches out the textures to lower res when the ship is far away during game play.

Hope this helps 

[King Class Scout]

from someone who has this problem ALL the time (and with a LESSER quality graphics card).  what they're saying is right. anything over 1024 causes me lag...as did some peoples models (looks at baz).  heck i had to upgrade the drivers for the STOCK graphics card that's in my machine...to the tune of a 17 MEG download.  and that was just to run 1024's

[vonfrank]

Ok, so I lowered the resolution of the textures for the Nova class using GIMP, but now the textures are all black with only some details at certain light angles.

Do I need to use photoshop?

[moed]

I am not familiar on using GIMP. I have Photoshop and there's an easy way to reduce the texture size with that.

The thing to remember is that whatever program you use, if you have a .tga that is 2048x2048 make sure you reduce exactly by 2 or 4. Example: 2048x2048 to 1024x1024.

Also, the image should be 24bits per pixel. You can also do it at 32bits per pixel but that doesn't add any "extra" color information but does take up more space. 

[Maxloef]

I am not familiar on using GIMP. I have Photoshop and there's an easy way to reduce the texture size with that.

The thing to remember is that whatever program you use, if you have a .tga that is 2048x2048 make sure you reduce exactly by 2 or 4. Example: 2048x2048 to 1024x1024.

Also, the image should be 24bits per pixel. You can also do it at 32bits per pixel but that doesn't add any "extra" color information but does take up more space. 

actualy 24 bit deletes the alpha channel which you NEED....

[moed]

actualy 24 bit deletes the alpha channel which you NEED....

Oops! Forgot about that.

Thanks for the catch!

[vonfrank]

No matter what i do with GIMP, the textures always come out black at certain angles in game.

I guess I'll have to get photoshop.

[Nebula]

try paint.net