97 réponses à ce sujet

[REH1967]

I'm currently using Texture Optimization Mod Lite to offset the drag on my PC after an hour or so in game, trying to do every conceivable thing to counter whatever the game engine is doing with my system resources! o.O



In truth, if Bioware ever optimizes their game engine a wee bit more, I will probably be choosing to use 4Aces Hi-Res Texture Mod. (of course, that's assuming rapidshare cooperates)

[Facemelt3r]

Rapidshare?! In the future, can you please use Fileplanet? or FileFront?
http://www.fileplane...submission.aspx
http://www.filefront.com/upload.php

Thank you, Rapidshare has a lockout timer and terrible download speeds. Very nice add-on pack.

Modifié par Facemelt3r, 23 décembre 2009 - 07:02 .

[Rorkror]

I hope if you get any news you will post it. Thanks again.

[Mordigan]

Here's a few screenshots of DAO with 4Ace's very excellent texture pack:




The armor and clothing textures look noticeably more detailed than the default.
And this is jpeg, so it looks even better in game..  Can't wait for him to be finished!  

Link to full size pic

Link to full size pic

Modifié par Mordigan, 27 décembre 2009 - 11:38 .

[4Aces]

Bio-Boy 3000 - Thanks for covering for me. Christmas was all messed up due to bad weather. Basically, one day turned into three.

News - I have spent the day re-installing my Texture Database and sorting some files to get ready for the Re-texture of the Core Textures that Bioware will not release in the proper size. Most of them are currently only 256x256 pixels, which is 1/16th of the full size 1024x1024. Remember that there are two dimensions (H & W) so increasing 256x256 to 512x512 is an increase of 4 (2x2) times the number of pixels. Increasing 512 to 1024 is four again, and 4x4 is 16.

Now that is important since I found out that dual core systems could be having all these errors due their CPU's being overtaxed or the savegames being bloated. I think that both are partially responsible for the graphical problems that some have (especially in Denerim), and I think that latter is extremely dangerous for our systems. While I do have a heat monitor, the CPU jumping to 100% and staying there for hours is extreme in my experience, and I have contacted Intel and AMD to request info on 100% CPU usage over time, and how it effects the lifetime of a CPU.  Common sense says it is really bad, even with adaqueate cooling.  Think running your car flat-out for 6 hours straight.  Sure they (the car and CPU) were made to do it for short bursts, but long term degrades the parts (usually).  I know some that played for 48 hours straight! 

Normally I would be looking to make a HiRes mod's textures at 2048x2048 pixels, but given the questionable performance of the game with larger textures, I will have to limit myself to 1024x1024 max.for these. I will be tuning the files to make sure that they work as smoothly as possible so this should not be a system killer.

Even though the Vanilla Core Textures are mostly LoRes, since they are Vanilla I will be able to still call this HiRes (actually should be Ultra Res since it is more than just doubling them), but for continuity it will still be named HiRes Pack 2.

As for our website and forum, we are still trying to get things sorted out. It turns out that while we were focused on the forum issue, hackers got into our (still unpublished - aka not public) file server to use for themselves. Our webmaster has fixed that exploit and and backtracing them, while working on getting our forum back up and then getting the file server public (it is done). Yep, it's Christmas time! ;-) So hopefully by the end of the week we will have both our forums and file sever up.

Modifié par 4Aces, 28 décembre 2009 - 01:18 .

[Statue]

I'm not sure if a game using 100% CPU resources is doing a bad thing. I've read lots of posts on game forums suggesting it's a good thing since you wouldn't want a program to not use the full capacity available to it, whether that's CPU resources or graphics card resources. It might feel nice having spare capacity, but if a program is running optimally and isn't expected to run alongside other programs (true of most full screen games), why wouldn't it use all available power?

Well those are the general arguments I've read that say it's ok for games to use up CPU and GPU resources. Not sure whether to trust them or not, but I have searched around for the issue and found those kind of arguments to throw into the mix. What might help is an expert. Even better, a Bioware expert

EDIT:
Further searching seems to suggest prolonged usage at 100% could be an issue if the system wasn't sufficiently cooled and/or was overclocked. The potential for damage to CPUs running at 100% primarily stems from two sources: heat and excessive current.

Regarding heat issues, a soundly engineered system will use cooling solutions that scale appropriately for 100% CPU usage (that's not to say that all systems are soundly engineered, or that system builders will all envisage and cover for 24 hour usage at that level). The cooling systems themselves can be prone to increased wear with increased workload, for example fans running constantly will have shorter lives than ones running intermittently, and should a cooling system fail the risk of a burnout will of course be greater if the CPU is at 100% than sat idling (however, in the event of a cooling system failure, all bets are off for the CPU's lifetime and the best bet is switching the system off and fixing the cooling system ASAP).

The excess voltage issue would tend to be a problem not from simply running a CPU at 100%, but from doing so when it's overclocked (as reasonably a manufacturer doesn't usually cover OC'd usage in their warranty since it's not the usage the component was designed to cope with) or from other system issues leading to voltage spiking.

Modifié par Statue, 31 décembre 2009 - 11:22 .

[Destructo-Bot]

4Aces wrote...

Now that is important since I found out that dual core systems could be having all these errors due their CPU's being overtaxed or the savegames being bloated. I think that both are partially responsible for the graphical problems that some have (especially in Denerim), and I think that latter is extremely dangerous for our systems. While I do have a heat monitor, the CPU jumping to 100% and staying there for hours is extreme in my experience, and I have contacted Intel and AMD to request info on 100% CPU usage over time, and how it effects the lifetime of a CPU.  Common sense says it is really bad, even with adaqueate cooling.  Think running your car flat-out for 6 hours straight.  Sure they (the car and CPU) were made to do it for short bursts, but long term degrades the parts (usually).  I know some that played for 48 hours straight! 

This is nonsense. There are thousands of instances of chips running 100% for over a decade in mainframes and supercomputers and even desktops running SETI and FOLDING. Maxing your CPU out for long stretches will do little other than raise your power bill. I agree with your thoughts on textures, but I wouldn't advise repeating that nonsense elsewhere

Modifié par Destructo-Bot, 28 décembre 2009 - 03:35 .

[Mordigan]

4Aces wrote...

Now that is important since I found out that dual core systems could be having all these errors due their CPU's being overtaxed or the savegames being bloated. I think that both are partially responsible for the graphical problems that some have (especially in Denerim), and I think that latter is extremely dangerous for our systems. While I do have a heat monitor, the CPU jumping to 100% and staying there for hours is extreme in my experience, and I have contacted Intel and AMD to request info on 100% CPU usage over time, and how it effects the lifetime of a CPU.  Common sense says it is really bad, even with adaqueate cooling.  Think running your car flat-out for 6 hours straight.  Sure they (the car and CPU) were made to do it for short bursts, but long term degrades the parts (usually).  I know some that played for 48 hours straight! 

That savegame theory is interesting, but I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with the CPU being overtaxed..

CPUs are pretty tough, and can take lots of abuse provided you have adequate cooling and it's not over-volted.  I've had machines that have been significantly overclocked for years, and they worked perfectly.

The save game issue is definitely worth looking into though.  Bioware probably included the indexing to speed up loading, but in the long run, it may prove to be a bad decision.

It could very well be that this is the reason why the textures looked so craptacular in the first place.  Increasing the LOD in the textures caused stability issues with the game, so they had to turn it down.......waaaay down.

 Have you reported it to Bioware? 

Modifié par Mordigan, 29 décembre 2009 - 03:43 .

[Mordigan]

Just opened up a save game with the toolset, and I can see what 4Aces is talking about..  Despite the small size of the save game (about 6MB), after I'd opened it the toolset was using about 1.3GB in the task manager.
Took about a minute to fully expand the files unlike the 10 minutes 4Aces reported, but my system is much faster than his...

[4Aces]

Destructo-Bot wrote...

Reply moved to here.

Mordigan wrote...
That savegame theory is interesting, but I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with the CPU being overtaxed..

CPUs
are pretty tough, and can take lots of abuse provided you have adequate
cooling and it's not over-volted.  I've had machines that have been
significantly overclocked for years, and they worked perfectly.

The
save game issue is definitely worth looking into though.  Bioware
probably included the indexing to speed up loading, but in the long
run, it may prove to be a bad decision.

They are separate theories, but if it is indexing textures (like it appears to be), with all the 'new' ones that are in Denerim and nowhere else (at least I did not see them elsewhere), then this could be part of the Denerim problem (though I still think the last area will always be the worst). 

The adequate cooling is the problem.  At 100% for 5 minutes any system should be able to handle that, but after four hours, you need a room with good circulation.  Over-voltage does not mean 70C by default, as I have OCd four system myself (latest was 2.6 -> 3.5 without water).  When you OC'd your system, did you calculate for your cooling to 'break even' and return you to what the non-OC'd CPU had with stock cooing, or did you make sure to have a lot more cooling just-in-case?

Can you imagine running this for 12 hours straight with a stock Intel globe radiator and it's tiny fan? 

As for notifying Bioware, I have nothing concrete yet.  When I get the report back from Intel & AMD then I will know more.  If they say it is OK to play, then I will (since my chip still has a year left on it and Intel will have to honor the Warranty).  By play, I mean start testing some of my theories.  I will edit a save game to remove a lot of the extraneous areas from it (areas I have totally cleaned out), and see if that improves the game in Denerim.  If it does, then I can contact Bioware and tell them what is wrong and how to fix it.

Since my game only uses 2.5GB of my RAM at it's highest point (the system uses 1GB by itself + 0.3 for virus/firewall/Real Temp) then I doubt the textures are actually to blame.  If they are then this is perversly horrible memory management, and they capped it at 4GB (so when you hit that it dies).  Others report crashes but I can play in Denerim without any since I am just running HiRes Pack 1.  I was going to try JBTextures overlayed with HiRes Pack 1 to see if that would crash the game, but then I found out about the CPU and have been waiting ever since (though I have had no time to play anyway).


Now on to actual news - I had a family issue since yesterday that is taking a lot of my time.  It is not overly serious, but I am not able to get much work done right now.  I should be able to get most of it sorted out tomorrow, and I will get as much done as I can.  I only had three hours for work yesterday, which were lost due to a rare CS4 crash that corrupted my 150MB, 30 layer, master material file that I was going to use for Pack 2 textures.  I will try to get in a few before I head to bed tonight, but I wanted to assure you that the teaser pack of textures will still be coming.  While I might be behind schedule, I will still be giving a full week's worth of work to it before deciding how much longer to work on DAO.  I may release a two texture pack tomorrow, or I might just wait and release something more substantial on the weekend.

Modifié par 4Aces, 31 décembre 2009 - 03:27 .

[Sledge454]

The main difference between a server and a desktop x86 CPU nowadays is the amount of on-die cache. I highly doubt running a modern CPU at 100% for a good length of time will greatly affect the lifespan of the chip.

Modifié par Sledge454, 31 décembre 2009 - 02:16 .

[4Aces]

Sledge454 wrote...

The main difference between a server and a desktop x86 CPU nowadays is the amount of on-die cache. I highly doubt running a modern CPU at 100% for a good length of time will greatly affect the lifespan of the chip.

That is not what I was told, but if you are correct then I am sure that Intel and AMD will confirm that.  I hope they do, but this is my only system, and seeing that heat-based shut downs of the CPU can damage it (Intel CPU spec sheets), I will play it safe for now.  Besides I have a few hundred hours of modding ahead of me (if I remake all the Core Textures) for HiRes Pack 2.

[Sledge454]

4Aces wrote...

seeing that heat-based shut downs of the CPU can damage it (Intel CPU spec sheets)

This is why I have a Thermalright Ultra 120 sitting on my Core 2 Duo and when I build my next machine in a month it will have the Thermalright Venomous X sitting on top of a quadcore 3.2.  My CPU's don't overheat.

Modifié par Sledge454, 31 décembre 2009 - 04:36 .

[4Aces]

I love my Thermalright Ultra 120 too! It is nearly as effective as water cooling without all the extra hassles. Now if they could just make it smaller with the same effect. ;-)

Everyone - I was able to get about 12 hours of work done over the last two days. I split my master material files into five parts, so that a crash would not waste so much time, and got them all assembled. Now I have a door and the covered wagon done. These are the texture views since it saves me all the time of having to track these particular items down in the game (which lets me get back to work on the mod).




These two files can be downloaded from my own website.

Please remember that the Vanilla one is only 256^2 while the ones on the left are full sized 1024^2.  If you download the pics and zoom into say 300% you will see the full difference in detail.  This is an open beta, and if I took time to test these in-game, you would likely only get two per day.  I am hoping to get about 5 done per day (or more).  With the covered wagon I also had to take some liberties.  The original texture was so blurry I could not even tell what some of the textures were supposed to be (wood, canvas, or other).  So if something does not look right just let me know.  It is much easier to fix now that I have everything chopped into pieces (masked).

Modifié par 4Aces, 01 janvier 2010 - 08:31 .

[Sir Hawkmoon]

great to see ur back on work. hope u and ur family have a good start in 2010.

[Sledge454]

So you're going to remake every texture? If so, then very cool.

[Facemelt3r]

Anyone hazard a guess as to where the wagon and or this particular door are located in-game? I can't remember seeing a covered wagon... ever. I have a feeling that door will look far too bright in contrast with the other textures, and am interested to see. It does look like a newly constructed door either way. Mais, vous faites bon travail!

new doors
old doors

new door
old door

I hate to critcize your work, but I feel it is too bright and the appearance of the wood too fresh and new.

Modifié par Facemelt3r, 02 janvier 2010 - 02:31 .

[lisakover]

can you make a mod that lowers the texture quality for us with crappy comps/laptops

[lisakover]

Bio-Boy 3000 wrote...

lisakover wrote...

can you make a mod that lowers the texture quality for us with crappy comps/laptops

You could try the Optimized mod from 4Aces found on his site here.

Thanks, I'll download TOM Light soon as rapidshare lets me =/

[4Aces]

Facemelt3r wrote...
I hate to critcize your work, but I feel it is too bright and the appearance of the wood too fresh and new.

Ouch, that is a lot brighter than I thought it would be.  I will edit it right now and test it myself.  As for the covered wagon, I do not know where one can be found.

When I release further packs of these, feel free to let me know if there is something major wrong, as this is an open Beta.  I need the feedback, as I do not have time to test these myself.

Everyone - Patch 1.03 for HiRes Pack 1 is ready at the Nexus.  This fixes the lether armor seam issue, the head colors, and now replaces the gloves that have skin showing so that the skin no longer looks like claws (Vanilla not due to mod). 

@Sledge454 - as many of the Core Textures as I can.

EDIT
There, I have finished tuning the Specular and Normal Map of the door.  I also altered the Specular of the Wagon a little and reuploaded them as the same pack on my website.  Just overwrite with these and it should look better.  The covered wagon can be seen in the Party Camp.  I will have to re-edit the wood for the front lip of the wagon, since it is not canvas (but the original texture was too blurry for me to know it was supposed to be wood). 

As you can see by the difference in the diameter of the rope between the sides and the main storage area, they are stretching some of the texture pretty far, so when they were doing that to a 256^2 it looked a blurry mess.  Aslo note that without better meshes, the features on the wagon are not going to look much better.  Think of it like an oil painting.  It looks good when you are looking at it straight on, but move to the side and it loses a lot of dimension.  The same thing happens with textures (and Normal Maps).  So hopefully someone will crack their file system so we can get better meshes into the game to go with the textures.

EDIT
There is a new patch (1.04) up on the Nexus for HiRes Pack 1.  The bald head skin seam is fixed, as is the seam on the leather armor itself (skin seam was fixed in 1.03).  I also toned down the bump map for the faces, as some thought they were too porus.  Since the entire day (so far) was spent patching, I will now go and look for more versions of 'my' door in the game, so I can see if the texture is too bright, or the game is making it glow (if you can interact with it). 

Modifié par 4Aces, 05 janvier 2010 - 07:45 .

[Facemelt3r]

I will now go and look for more versions of 'my' door in the game, so I can see if the texture is too bright, or the game is making it glow (if you can interact with it).

Wagon looks really great. Noticed the wagon prop is floating off the ground when I was eyeballing it, hehe bioware. The doors are still too bright, they look like they have a light shining on them. Your comment got me wondering... so here are some screenshots of the original texture in the web browser (unless you overrid that image) compared to in-game latest darker texture via windowed mode.

Latest door texture.
plc_doorlg_01_spec.dds removed from latest texture.

In the second screenie I highlighted the guard with the cursor, for certainty's sake. Removing the specular map only really altered the metal. Based on this crude comparison I'd have to say that the engine is brightening textures, but whether it's that particular area or not I don't know. You wrote about finding other instances of the door.... it may be those lamps above the doors are really giant spotlights or something... so good thinking. I'll take a look around the game world now.

Modifié par Facemelt3r, 05 janvier 2010 - 11:11 .

[Facemelt3r]

Yeah the engine brightens the textures.... of some doors...

Stock doors compared to reference picture
Stock doors... one bright one not? WTF?

I am not highlighting the door in the second screen... now I'm just perplexed as I don't remember it looking that way. So far my take is that it's a giant spotlight most of the doors in this area. Looks normal in the nighttime section of this map.

A-ha... indeed.

Curious choice of lighting

^^ That's just weird. I'd say that had to be two different textures but...... your texture changes both of the doors.

Here's your texture in all its glory. Looks very nice.




Unfortunately the issue with engine lighting makes the dilemma a bit more annoying... can't simply darken the textures and get a non-spotlight looking image. That's my .02 anyhow, I know about 2 cents worth of information on textures and how a game engine handles them.

Again thanks for what you've already done and intend to do.

Modifié par Facemelt3r, 06 janvier 2010 - 12:03 .

[4Aces]

Facemelt3r - Thanks for verifying that. I did some digging into the door issue and found out that the engine seems to be brightening all of these that I could find (so far). I tired out some darkening techniques, which did help a bit, but made it too dark overall. Then I noticed that, contrary to a Senior Graphical Programmer's claim that they made the LoRes textures on purpose (to save memory/CPU cycles - they are the only reason possible), they used detailed ploy doors. The metal bands are actually modeled. This takes up more memory, and blows their claim all to heck.

I was expecting flat doors, so I did not match my metal bands with theirs. I will have to go back and fix that, since you can see a distortion at the top of my bands (which are slightly smaller than theirs). This is going to make things much harder to retexture if all the LoRes textures have relatively HiPoly models.

EDIT

After 10 iterations, the door is done (or as done as it will be for awhile).  I reuploaded the teaser pack with the new door in it.  Take a look at it in both the bizarre lighting and normal conditions.  The lighting still blows the highlights but if I overdarken to compensate then the normal is too dark.

Modifié par 4Aces, 06 janvier 2010 - 04:20 .