[MOD coming soon] X3-Reunion performance callback

[amirite]

Sweet, thats good to hear. I feel like there are endless tweaks you could make to this engine just on a surface level, as you have already demostrated with the jobs. If a mod like this were to start developing, combined with patches from Egosoft, that could add up quickly.

[Observe]

FYI: As some have pointed out, the performance "problem" with TC is more than simply large number of AI Jobs - which place load on cpu. Terran Conflict also places high demands on both memory and gpu. For example, compare the new station models:

1. X3-R Argon shipyard = 110 K polygons (approx)
2. TC Terran shipyard = 2.67 meg polygons.

Clearly if you have a sector with several of these new station models, the demands on gpu and memory will be very high. You can see this with loadtime when you jumpgate to the Terran sectors.

So, given increased AI Jobs, and unreasonably (for X3) high poly models, it is not surprising that all but the best (expensive) gaming rigs will suffer with this game. There may be other issues wich ES is aware of that they can fix. However, I'm not holding my breath that any patch can restore TC to equivelent X3-Reunion performance levels.

While the new TC models are great eye-candy, they along with everything else may just be too much for all but the few players who have the most powerful systems.

[Graxster]

I, for one, would love to see ALL the Terran structures replaced by standard structures. Dunno what they were thinking making everything so huge and complex. And why is everything so white? lol. As things are, I don't even go to the Terran sectors. There's never any action there anyway. Also, I totally destroyed everything in Aldrin. That's just an empty sector now.

I can say this: I fired up a custom game today with a custom map (actually just a copy of the game map), and the game runs about 100 times faster. Can't wait to see what you and your team can come up with. At later stages, TC is proving practically unplayable for me.

-Grax

[Observe]

I, for one, would love to see ALL the Terran structures replaced by standard structures. Dunno what they were thinking making everything so huge and complex.

Admittedly my system is not top-of-the-line, but with recent upgrades, including new video adapter and 3 Gig memory, my computer in every respect is within the mid-upper range ES recommends for TC.

I have found about 20-30 fps increase in Moon sector as example, if I replace Terran station models with X3-R Argon variety and with some tweaking (not elimination) of various Jobs. I definitely think that such a mod would provide ability for those able to play X3-R very well, but who find TC relatively unplayable. My system can handle TC unmodified, but it is not as smooth as I would like - and as can clearly be achieved by cutting back on TC elements that downright hog the CPU/GPU/memory.

What would you rather have in Terran Conflict: X3-R perfectly beautiful appearance with great performance, or X3-TC not much if any better appearance with horrible performance? Rather a no-brainer if you ask me.

[Litcube]

I, for one, would love to see ALL the Terran structures replaced by standard structures. -Grax

Fully concur with Graxter here.

As discussed in our other thread, the people who know better seem to agree that terrible optimization of scripting is what's giving us these headaches. It's very XTMesque; Egosoft gathered a horde of modders, threw them into separate rooms, and everyone created scripts and models without regard to what sort of performance impact their respective team members were going to introduce. Especially considering the missile boat scripts. Seriously, it's as though someone, all on their very own, decided, "I wanna do this really cool thing, and I can totally do it, but it will cost a lot of CPU cycles" and went ahead with it because they thought their idea was really cool. Meanwhile, everyone else on the team took similar liberties.

Observe, you're obviously team lead on this project. To get things moving, perhaps you should put out a mission statement. Those who are in line of what we’re willing to compromise to attain better performance could apply to be on the team. From there, we decide what needs to change, assign tasks, complete, release, etc.

[Spectre01]

The major GPU hogges are all the new insanely high poly count stations. The reason they sepent time on redoing all the stations is unclear. My rig lags baddly by just looking at the new military outpost or company HQ, even with everything set to absolutly low. If you can replace all the old stations with X3R one, and do some poly reduce work on that two stations I've mentioned (terran's stations are ok to me), I guarantee this method will inprove FPS by at least 40%.

[SETA Abuse]

This is such an excellent idea!

My own opinion somewhat mirrors what has already been said: the new Terran stations are pretty, but I'd rather see the old stations if means I can actually have playability in those sectors.

Really looking forward to seeing how this develops. The work on the Jobs lists is very exciting stuff, my X3:TC games inevitably grind to a massive slowdown towards "end game."

Now I need to check out that Race Patrol script from ttl, anything to make the game more immersive AND give me more FPS / less lag is solid gold to me.

Good luck Observe, this sounds very promising.

[Musicker]

I know this is a day (month) late and a dollar(several hundred) short, but I have noticed an absolutely massive difference in performance in X3:TC since I upgraded from my old Nvidia 7800 GT 256mb card to a 9800 GTX+ 512mb card. The game went from being so frustratingly choppy that I couldn't play it, to me playing it every night until way past time for me to go to sleep so I can make it to work.

The game is now smooth as silk in almost every sector, even with lots of ships and stations showing. The only time I get a bit choppy is when I go into a sector like Emperor mines where there are 10,000 roids floating around plus lots of ships and stations. I don't really notice much difference in Terran sectors, but that might be because I haven't seen a Terran sector with a lot of roids plus the huge polycount stations.

Other than that, the game has smoothed out to the point where it acts just like X3:R again. I don't think the AI jobs have as much to do with things as was speculated early in this thread.

I don't have a real fast system either, it's just a P4 3.0Ghz w/hyperthreading, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, a 300Gb Sata drive for the system, and a 250Gb ATA166 data drive.

The video made ALL the difference to me. The sweetest thing about this motherboard is it has a PCIE 16 video slot, so my 9800 GTX+ card works wonders with X3:TC.

I'm a happy guy again, I've been in TC non-stop since I got my new video card last weekend. I was seriously bummed about it being so frustrating with all the lag/video chop with the old card.

Cheers,

Musicker

[TERRAN-CONFLICTOR]

Is X3 TC a multi threaded application?

[amtct]

Is X3 TC a multi threaded application?

No.

[markmid]

The video made ALL the difference to me. The sweetest thing about this motherboard is it has a PCIE 16 video slot, so my 9800 GTX+ card works wonders with X3:TC.

I'm a happy guy again, I've been in TC non-stop since I got my new video card last weekend. I was seriously bummed about it being so frustrating with all the lag/video chop with the old card.

Cheers,

Musicker

On an 8800 GT, for me its the graphics too or the sector combat that bottlenecks and trust me I have really been pushing it running many versions of my earlier, less optimized AI scripts in the past. If I had 30 or 40 ships all engaged in a fight its a lot more gpu intensive than two dozen full sector by sector checks, all building stations, checking each ship for enemies, sending out patrols etc.

In the end I made the average attacks on a sector smaller and increased performance dramatically in my gameplay, significantly more so than most of my other work on optimising the code to date.

I am guessing you can also test if its the graphics or sector combat by being further away from the fight itself then getting closer to it.

[ravenkey1506]

This is what is.
I hope you it will be interesting and may help in your work.
[ external image ]
textures in the format jpg - very bad option. Data obtained from X3Editor.


tga better

[Litcube]

Observe, waiting for 2.01 before moving further? It looks as though the performance issues have been recognized by Egosoft, and mod developement on this front might benefit from waiting until 2.01.

[Observe]

After much delay due to RL circumstances, I have decided to revive this thread, and put together an X3-TC -> X3-R conversion "forward to the past" mod.

I haven't played X3 for several months, but re-installed the game following TC 2.0 release. Performance is still pathetic compared to X3-R. We are told that next patch will include performance improvements, but as far as I can tell, there is no way TC will ever match X3-R for a couple of primary reasons:

1. Too many sectors
2. Too many Jobs

Therefore, I am in the process of putting together a simple mod containing the X3-R map with X3-R equivelent Jobs file.

My early tests indicate easily DOUBLE performance for TC. This is an easy mod to make, and so I expect to have it ready within the next week or so for those who may be interested.

Reference threads on the subject:

Performance comparison between X3-R and X3-TC

[MOD IDEA] X3 Terran Conflict - improved performance

[Litcube]

I think I like your style.

[Observe]

Thanks Litcube. I finished putting together the "guts" of the mod yesterday, and now all I need to do is add the old X3-R Game Starts.

This mod should at least provide TC owners with ability to play X3-R Universe with performance approaching X3-R - minus all the TC added Aldrin, ATF, Terran, and other space "junk".

[Roben]

Thanks for taking time to help....