[MOD] [TC/AP] X3 Rebalance Mod (XRM) - Total conversion - v1.28 (21.12.12)

[paulwheeler]

REGARDING THE XRM AND PERFORMANCE
-------------------------------------------------------

After all the discussions recently regarding this subject, I thought I would put my thoughts down so we can finally put it to bed.


FACTS:

- The XRM has many, many tweaks to enhance performance. I could list them but this post would get rather long.

- The XRM does much, much, much more than vanilla.

- The XRM has some "eye-candy" which will negatively affect performance.



I have endeavoured to create a mod that strikes a balance between performance, playability and "eye-candy".

With the original TC release of the XRM, I think the performance between vanilla and XRM was pretty close and most people actually reported a fps improvement.

With the release of AP, the playing field has changed as AP has improved performance across the board so the performance saving features I introduced make less of an impact, hence the extra features of the XRM make more of an impact.

It is clear from the moment you fire the mod up that fancy effects are an important part of the XRM - I spent a lot of time on ship lensflares for example.

I could get rid of all the effects, new ships etc. and have blinding fps - but then thats just dull isn't it?



NEW SHIPS:

As you know the XRM adds lots of new ships from various modellers on this forum. Some of the best looking have come from Expnobody. However, his modelling style does not create the most fps-friendly ships. In fact, some of them have quite a large performance hit (I have not included the worst offenders). For example, his Bragi model has more than double the memory footprint than the Tyr. There is nothing whatsoever I can do about that except remove the ships from the XRM. I believe more people would complain about me removing the ships than there are people complaining about performance...



TRAILS:

By far the biggest effects performance hit comes from engine trails. Why did I add them? Because I deemed the hit to not be that huge and they look COOL!

Vanilla X3 has trails anyway on all fighters. The XRM has a larger number of trails as they are added to M6s, TSs etc. However, I have clawed back performance in other areas (in trails too: vanilla missile trails frequently cause fps hits due to speed related trail corruption - this is fixed in the XRM) so why not add more of an effect which I personally like?




MODULAR DEV HELL!

The XRM is an evolution from the SRM. With the SRM I tried to make it modular - I had packs to add trails, packs to add cockpits, packs for TWareT changes etc. etc. It was a logistical nightmare and just made releasing patches a major hassle.

I deliberately did not want to go down this path with the XRM. I wanted to make it as all-in-one as possible.

All I can do is make this mod as I see it should be made. I don't want to get into the hassle of having extra packs to remove things like trails - every time I release a patch I will have to run off another set of "performace" tships - not just for the base mod, but for every hull pack too!

For TC and AP that is 16 different TShips!!!!

I could remove trails simply by getting rid of the Particles3 entries as well - that would only be four versions of Particles3 - but again its a hassle if I want to make changes.

Its just way too much hassle, will cause support issues with people forgetting to update the performance patch and will put me back in the situation I had with the SRM.

Many mod developers have opted to have only support for either TC or AP. I am supporting both games which instantly doubles the number of types files I have to deal with.




ACTUAL PERFORMANCE

The number of people with performance issues is relatively small. If everyone was complaining I would do something, but they are not. Most people are running a system that should handle the XRM perfectly happily - if not, something is not right with their system.

My original test system:

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz
Asus P5B motherboard
4GB RAM (3GB usable)
NVidia GTX560ti graphics cars
Vista 32bit

The performance on my old system was fairly adequate - ~30-40 fps most of the time, only dropping to maybe 15-20 in the largest of battles (the main war and that was mainly when new cap ships jumped in). Of course running on SETA made performace drop - but since all you can do on SETA is fly in a straight line - whats the problem?

On my new core i7 system, with 8GB RAM and Win7 64bit and the same GPU it is outstanding and I never experience jerkyness at all - even on 6x SETA.

You are free to mod the XRM as you wish on your system. Getting rid of trails is a very simple tweak to TShips. But I will not release any kind of addon pack that removes effects as then I will be responsible for managing updates and the inevitable support issues that will crop up. I certainly won't be removing features from the main mod.


Removing new ships, trails or other effects will improve your fps no doubt - but in my eyes it is compromising the vision I have for the mod.


The fps gain from removing such things is also very subjective and will totally depend on your hardware, graphics settings etc. Someone may get a large increase, others may not.





WHAT CAN I DO TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE?

Now there is a lot more you can do to help performance before you start hacking away at the mod. Optimising Windows itself is well worth doing and you'll be suprised at the difference it makes.

Here is a thread written by a friend of mine from back when i was developing for Microsoft Flight Sim which deals with optimising win7 64bit for playing the sim. FSX is similarly cpu and ram bound, running an old dx9 engine, so its very valid for x3 as well.

Its an interesting read and might help you squeeze a frame or two out.

http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=34141&PID=198187#198187





FINAL THOUGHTS

I have had a lot of "advice" from various forum members on what I should or shouldn't do to "sort out" the XRM performance. However, every single solution has involved removing a feature of the mod.

If someone comes up with a performance saving idea which will not compromise the vision of the mod, then please PM me and I will try it out.

To those who are experiencing performance issues - I encourage them to look at their system to see if there are any issues there. If after that you are still not satisfied, then maybe the XRM is not for you.

I do not get paid to develop the XRM. I am a one man team now that Mizuchi is no longer actively developing for the XRM. I am not duty bound to support anyone's techinical issues whatsoever.

Having said that, those who have been using the XRM for a while know that I am commited to supporting this mod. I try and sort out bugs as quickly as possible. I also do everything I can to make this mod fun to play - I play it myself!




Ultimately I can't please everyone, so all I can do is please myself (no giggling in the back...).

[greypanther]

@ InFlamesForEver: since 8th of march:
http://www.egosoft.com/download/x3ap/bonus_en.php
and:
http://www.egosoft.com/support/faq/faq_answer_en.php?answer=2150


Have I said before that Egosoft are a great company?

[paulwheeler]

[paulwheeler]

[paulwheeler]

[kenright]

First, let me say that this mod is fantastic. It adds so much to the universe and really brings it to life. Combined with some of the more utilitarian scripts, it makes one of my favorite games ever.


I do have a question though... I'm playing AP with XRM installed, and I can't seem to start the HUB plot...

[joelR]

Paul,

Thanks for saying all that. It needed to be done. Its frustrating for many of us users as well to have to read the complaints.

Anyhow, you have my support.

Now lets put some more of those fps killing ships in the game!!!

[paulwheeler]

[kenright]

[Jumee]

[kenright]

[InFlamesForEver]

[paulwheeler]

The lasertower thing is a bug. Itll be fixed in 1.20. Just ignore them for now.

[greypanther]

I am running TC with XRM and a few others. Before tonight I had only had one crash of TC, now i have had 6 more within 10 minutes!

Four of them were as I was in grand exchange just looking at the shipyard with the planet in the background. One whilst I looked at the stats of an XRM ship, ( again ) the other as I attempted to jump out.

I am also running : marine repairs; cheat package; ware manager; claim sector; phanon corp. ( not activated ) no fog and no tubes; missile def mk2; all plots complete; XRM backgrounds; think thats it.

Any ideas anyone why so many crashes so quickly? Is it the backgrounds?

[paulwheeler]

Its probably the missile boat script bug. There is a fix coming. Im going to get it uploaded as soon as i get time.

If you want to sort it yourself check out the last few posts in Litcube's Missile Boat script thread.