Wheres the new snapshot @jlv

[ColtonD719]

I do agree with the dynamic shadows, at least for the moving objects. I'd consider it a missing factor in the physics of the game, particularly for 3rd person players to get a judgement of the wheels proximity to the ground.

x1000

Single most difficult thing about playing 3rd person is not knowing when your front wheel is slightly off the ground and immediately proceeding to whif it.

x1000000

[Seabolt19]

idk if its a coincidence or not or if rf is even using the lod method on trees but the past 2 tracks with trees ive been lagging extremely bad

[model_90]

just a graphics overhaul please, this game has so much potential and the bedrock that is jlv's legendary physics engine deserves to be shown off

[Haberfield24]

idk if its a coincidence or not or if rf is even using the lod method on trees but the past 2 tracks with trees ive been lagging extremely bad

+1

Kegums was awful for me, when i got to the section near the start my game would lock up and drop to like 60fps before going back up to 125.

[Andy_Hack]

For me this game really needs anti-aliasing and dynamic shadows. It would definitely help to simplify polygon meshes and still maintain smoother looks. Dynamic shadows are probably even more important, because as long as i can remember, we always had to keep things quite dark in order to create some sort of shadows.

Alright, i was apparently already too tired when i wrote this, because I totally forgot to add Ambient Occlusion(AO).

[TonyL93]

What this game really needs is a proper terrain deformation system, brand new user interface (hud) and camera options etc.. , we need ONE rider model that you make outfits for. We need Better TRACTION, throughout my time playing sim ive always felt as if i'm riding on wet cement. If you add these features, its going to bring the game into this decade. The content creators always push this game, the models are with the time, its THE GAME that isn't there.. its the terrain that isn't there.. and unfortunately if we don't do something soon Mx bikes is going to take over We have a beautiful thing here but we need change.
MAKE SIM GREAT AGAIN

[Mr. Wiggles]

For me this game really needs anti-aliasing and dynamic shadows. It would definitely help to simplify polygon meshes and still maintain smoother looks. Dynamic shadows are probably even more important, because as long as i can remember, we always had to keep things quite dark in order to create some sort of shadows.

Alright, i was apparently already too tired when i wrote this, because I totally forgot to add Ambient Occlusion(AO).

when are you not tired tho ?

[DJ99X]

I think you might be fill rate limited. Does it speed up when you reduce the size of the window?

I did a bit more playing around. No, it is not impacted by window size. I went through and played with pretty much every setting. Reduced model detail, turned off a few things, got rid of all models, and barely an impact to FPS.

Reduced terrain definition, and voila, ~80fps. Switched everything else back on, returned all models, ran at 100% model detail. Ran slightly lower than 80fps.

In terms of triangles, the difference between a setting of 10 for ground detail and 50 ground detail was a jump from 3500 to 26000 triangles, which is eff all in the grand scheme of things, but a change of 30-40 fps. Not sure what else the ground detail impacts? Less vertexs being interpolated per frame? I wouldn't think it impacts any of the physics calculations, should just be purely visual.

Monitored the performance of my computer with the two settings.
a) I don't know why both GPUs are being used. Not sure if this is a contributing factor
b) They both have a higher loading with the lower ground detail, which suggests to me that it's limited at the CPU on higher ground geometry. But the analytics don't really show that as being the case.





Any thoughts?

[dylan22]

My biggest issue with the game is how cpu intensive it is. I’ve recently built a new pc with a Ryzen 5 3600 and a rtx 2070 8gb. And I can’t even ride the JS7 compound by myself without maxing out a core on my cpu causing lag spikes, while my gpu is just ticking along barely being used. Is this something that will ever change or is it hard coded within the game.

[TeamHavocRacing]

...?

[jlv]

I think you might be fill rate limited. Does it speed up when you reduce the size of the window?

I did a bit more playing around. No, it is not impacted by window size. I went through and played with pretty much every setting. Reduced model detail, turned off a few things, got rid of all models, and barely an impact to FPS.

Reduced terrain definition, and voila, ~80fps. Switched everything else back on, returned all models, ran at 100% model detail. Ran slightly lower than 80fps.

In terms of triangles, the difference between a setting of 10 for ground detail and 50 ground detail was a jump from 3500 to 26000 triangles, which is eff all in the grand scheme of things, but a change of 30-40 fps. Not sure what else the ground detail impacts? Less vertexs being interpolated per frame? I wouldn't think it impacts any of the physics calculations, should just be purely visual.

Monitored the performance of my computer with the two settings.
a) I don't know why both GPUs are being used. Not sure if this is a contributing factor
b) They both have a higher loading with the lower ground detail, which suggests to me that it's limited at the CPU on higher ground geometry. But the analytics don't really show that as being the case.

Any thoughts?

This is the engine's worst sin. It renders the terrain in fans of 8 triangles so 26000 triangles is 3250 draw calls. The basic algorithm goes like this:

Starting with the entire terrain -
If I draw the whole section as a fan of 8 triangles, will it miss by too much in screen space?
If it's close enough, draw it.
Otherwise, break it into 4 sub-sections and start again with each sub-section.

It's a bit more complex than that in practice since it also has to force subdivision at texture edges and also can't skip a level on adjacent sub-sections, but that's the general idea.

This was pretty good for old hardware because it didn't waste any polygons but it's terrible now. For new hardware I could replace the 8 triangle fan with a 512 triangle grid at essentially no cost. Another problem with the current terrain engine is it has some really complicated code to accommodate texture size limitations that don't exist anymore, so a rewrite should actually simplify it. Probably going to tackle this pretty soon since it's currently the worst performance problem in the engine right now IMO.

[TeamHavocRacing]

That's cool and everything, but when's the new snapshot?

[m121c]

Popping in to say great discussion. Kind of wild I am still some what mentioned as past creator (Thanks Andy). Also sort of feel bad for being one of the first to push 4K maps for gear knowing full well most would not take advantage of the extra pixels... but I wanted to push my abilities.

I actually learned a lot from all of this. I don't know a lick about the inner workings of how these engines work anymore, but I am curious, what is the reason why things like physically based rendering shaders can't be implemented? I know we have had this discussion before... but it's been awhile seen I've poked my head into the game world. From a graphics perspective, they are great. From a artists perspective, even better. But from a game development perspective, where is the catch? From my uneducated viewpoint of the matter, the time involved into making PBR based assets is greatly reduced, and the texture size can be further optimized.

Ultimately, I am looking for an expert non-technical answer as to what would bring the gap closer together between big title game graphics, and MX simulator. There is just something about MXS that just does't look right, and why is that? I get there are teams of people responsible for creating these large AAA titles and the file sizes are astronomical, and maybe that level is seemingly unachievable, but how to we bridge the gap a little? How does MXS get the little details? Is it an engine thing, a man-power thing, a priority thing?

Not a stab at anyone. Thinking out loud and curious. Still to this day, the only Mx game where I feel like I am riding a dirt bike with a freaking controller.

[jlv]

Oh no, not the PBR argument...

PBR is a marketing buzzword that doesn't really mean anything. If it means conserving energy to you, just invert your specular map and multiply your texture map by it. If it means the "Disney shader" (Principled in Blender), I have no interest in doing that. I doubt most people even know what half the settings do. If it just means more realistic graphics to you, yes I want to do that. As an example, I really want to switch from a point light to using an environment map for lighting. That may or may not mean PBR depending on who you ask but it's a much bigger improvement than the Disney shader. Here's something I rendered the last time this came up -



TBH I don't understand why people use Principled even in Blender. The node system is more powerful and has the advantage of actually using well defined terms unlike the Principled shader. Like if I attempted to realistically model a real material by measuring the light reflecting off it from all different angles (i.e. directly measure the BSDF of the material), I could re-create it perfectly using nodes, but it would be impossible using Principled. I don't get what the huge attraction is.

[Racers52]

Would be nice to see a decal drop/masking ability make its way in the game.

I really do not know how hard it would be to implement but even games from the early 2000's were achieving a similar concept.


I think it would make spotting new developing lines much easier and would encourage more line formation in racing.

Regardless of how you want to add this feature it is definitely a must in my opinion.