Burning Sands unfortunately had alot of issues that didn't crop up during testing, however thanks to both friends and fellow gamers I've had a large number of reports identifying the problems.
Burning Sands suffered from:
Memory CTDs
Why?
- Too many lightmap files
- Too many textures/texture pallets being loaded for objects
- Problem statics
Performance issues especially in the city
Why?
- Too may enterable buildings or high poly buildings close together
- Memory taken up in loading the map in the first place
Other bugs e.g. Combat areas in layer 64 had become messed up.
I'm confident this is all fixed and will be released with the next release, which will be done when its done.
She's still big and pretty despite my optimisations.
Heres a list of some the changes
Removed pavements (that was about 2000 objects, all had been lightmapped, so thats over 2000 textures not loaded, huzzah!)
Removed problem statics e.g. iraqi low apartments.
Optimised Lightmaps in both resolution and in selection of objects (was 55 atlases, now only 15!
Optimised terrain Lightmaps by decreasing resolution of FINAL LMs to 50% (note this achieves better quality and avoids offsetting colormaps than simply LMing on medium)
Replaced alot of enterable buildings with non-enterables/more optimised versions. This might sound bad to some people, but honestly I think spreading out the enterables will be good for both performance and gameplay. (muttrah being a prime example of this)
Removed a good number of destructable objects
created several more open spaces in the city (both for gamplay and FPS)
Removed alot of rocks (LOD issues)
Removed alot of mid east village statics
These changes mean that alot more RAM is freed up during loading than before and also the FPS will be higher since theres fewer polys to render in the city, without sacrificing gameplay.
Also, for those of you who played the last public beta test - I've fixed the CTD on low terrain bug
HUZZAH!Gamplay changes
Asset and balance tweaks
Now all assets spawn in main base even at the start, exception is two MEC vehicles in the military base. This will prevent confusion.
AASv4 implemented
For you budding young mappers out there, remember all because it runs at 100FPS on your computer on local doesn't mean it'll behave like that on a public server. Optimisation is key!
Never use 3 objects where one will do, never use 3 kinds of objects when one kind will do.
Space out your enterables
Be selective with your lightmaps
I hope you enjoyed this humble blog, and I hope it reaffirms your belief that optimisation and fixing problems is at the fore of our minds.
Live Long and Prosper
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