Tomcatz SAM factory
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Just a WIP update on the Straight Flush to show I’m still interested even if I’m a little behind my own schedule.
Model rescaled to DCS World’s dimensions Lenght 7.38m x Width 3.73m x Height 5.88m as these ratios match a side plan .gif and scale better with Falcon’s existing models.
L2 @ 1800 tri needs reducing further
L3 @ 182 tri is animated - I’m sure I can improve it with a few more tri and a little work.
The existing untextured L4 seems good enough at distance not to need a rework although if a 3ds max source file is needed so it can be colour match to a particular skin I guess I could make one.
L1/L2/L3 work well enough in my install but I want to be 100% satisfied with them before I share them for testing ie. I’m not happy with how the L1 TV/IR optical tracker and search radar box match up with real photos so will probablly rework them to match a variant.
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Dear Ramsay- Great work !
Do you want to do the same excellent job with my KUB, BUK and S300 systems? So I want have the situation that 2 artists do the same job… -
Great work Ramsay!
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Ramsay,
that is outstanding, great details.
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wow great one’s m8…
May I ask why do u have a 50.000feet LOD? thus 9NM or 15km?
I don’t believe that far away u can see it with naked eye…
Unless it’s needed for Maverick and TGP… is it so?
Also every LOD has it’s unique texture? the last one has no texture thus more impact on loading? meaning even if it doesn’t load one it has to process the record like:
LOD changed load new LOD look for a texture if there is no texture unload the current texture else load the texture display new LOD apply texture.
I’m asking to get answers for my self also…
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@Tom:
Dear Ramsay- Great work !
Do you want to do the same excellent job with my KUB, BUK and S300 systems?I’m happy to plod away at the SA-6 system and then move onto to one of the others but as your work output is higher and the community is impatient please don’t be restricted by my small contribution.
… I (don’t) want have the situation that 2 artists do the same job…
Understood and the reason I posted a WIP update.
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wow great one’s m8…
May I ask why do u have a 50.000feet LOD? thus 9NM or 15km?
I’ve replaced the standard Straight Flush L1/L2/L3 models in the 4.32u3 DB but L4-L7 are default BMS models/distances including the L7, 1 pixel LOD#38 drawn out to 50,000
I don’t believe that far away u can see it with naked eye…
Correct - so I assume it’s used as a flag or as part of the codes logic and leave it alone until I know different.
Unless it’s needed for Maverick and TGP… is it so?
IMHO the Straight Flush L5 @ 3000 is about all that can be seen using the TGP on a HD monitor.
Also every LOD has it’s unique texture? the last one has no texture thus more impact on loading? meaning even if it doesn’t load one it has to process the record like: …
The DB structure is inherited from the original Falcon DB. L1 - L3 share a common .dds texture that adds detail that is visible to the player (L3 less so as the model is small). In game, lots of L4-L7 models are in the players bubble. The untextured L4 - L7 models take less GFX passes to draw and FPS is higher. Although there is a penalty in loading/unloading textures FPS are improved in complex scenes with lots of models if the distant models are untextured.
Note: I believe the dev’s are working on tidying up the DB including the LODs so expect some changes.
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Thanx Ramsay… well I hope this get’s cleaned up soon and many things will get better after this. Also rules should be established on the subject. not only for LOD distances and detail (polys) but bubble and deaggregate values.
Even such the system has to unload L3 and load L4+… and even untextured it’s a load and in some cases when this happens alot (FLOT) those interactions can result to many… like having a hell of objects to draw and at the same time load unload as u move… we all know that those require disk access which is slow… unless they are all loaded in memory when u fire up the mission and it’s only memory reads and writes… still this means CPU and GPU load…
Maybe models are in memory but I don’t believe Textures are, thus better FPS when no texture is there?If this get’s more optimized then more detail can be imported to the system…
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Arty I think you are making too many conclusions about lower LODs, textures loading etc…
Considering my Falcon history and considering the fact that I always had (and still has) pretty high FPS/stutters sensitivity, I think it’s safe to say that current BMS is the most balanced version of Falcon ever, regarding performance. Yes RV had better models format (DXMs which even I could modify as a 3D DB noob) and it was smoother but it had no shaders. Without shaders BMS is almost as smooth as RV was and in some aspects even smoother, and that without new models format… and I tell you this as one who spent 100s of hours modifying PS and checking FPS in RV, in the past.
Current DB is maybe not perfect but it’s built “correctly”, meaning the models are balanced, higher LODs with sane distance values which makes sense considering the details you can see from a given distance. It seems to me here that some guys are afraid from loosing details, but if you look at high quality models you’ll see that there isn’t much difference between LOD0 and LOD1 but with much less tris on the second… LOD0 should be an orbit view fun of a great model or zoomed in TGP camera view, and not much more than that because even in close gun fight, LOD1 should have enough details with much less tris count that LOD0. People who build models should indeed think of that, the details are great but how much really you see of it from the cockpit? in orbit view LOD0 will be there anyway… I think for LOD0, 500-600 feet is more than enough, the 2nd LOD should be almost as details but without all the high tris count parts and shapes…
Second, textures should be optimized as a standard. FYI loading the F-16 into the sim ATM is insane because the engine is loading 11 or 12 small textures… we should aim for large sheets 2048x2048 for an AC, even if its larger than all the small textures, its still easier for the engine to load it.
About untextured LODs, in flight you still want to see something sometimes even at great distances, and the VPRD bubble value of the model (info in RP5 manual) should anyway deny rendering of such model at distance so its not a waste of resources really… and anyway drawing single dots or a couple of tris is really nothing for current V-Cards, even in Falcon environment.
And don’t mistake thinking the bottleneck in the FLOT is coming mainly from rendering… its not only that, think number of units, think every flight deaggregating from single campaign unit to 2 or 4 ship sim vehicles, each with many processing routines to update visual parts (DOFs and switches, not the rendering task but the processing), with FCC code running, SMS, avionics, digital brains and on and on and on… think every ground unit is deaggregating from a single 2D camp entity into dozen of vehicles, each again with its own processing etc… so don’t think rendering is the only or even the main load in FLOT area.
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I-Hawk I know all this… I know that the BMS version is the best ever…
But along came the gfx update that gives the ability for more then 2 monitors. This drives the VGA’s to their limit’s.
What i’m talking about ain’t basic configurations… but for ppl that their systems are on their limits…
Yeap they could buy more expensive and better hardware. Sure. Wouldn’t it be better if those things where more better so that the engine would run smoother and not go bellow 20FPS in a TE?
Yes loose some eyecandy… ok…
I’m asking in a way to try and have it all… lolAbout the non textured models I believe this is not working… I searched and I couldn’t see any… Even cities pop up close up and with full textures when there are lods with no textures or with their 3d models chopped off.
What I mean with pop up is u are near the area and suddenly they appear.
If u zoom in (view zoom) u see them full textured and models are ok and not as a inverted pyramids as some are in LOD4+…
what I mostly say is that there are LODS and textures that are never shown… but maybe the code has to deal with them… thus taking cpu resources…??? -
Yes loading of large objects I guess will always be balanced between smoothness and time, if you don’t want stutters all around you have to compromise on time (call it delay, call it “suddenly popping up objects”), BMS loader code maybe take some time but I can hardly remember any stutters during flight. Loading distance is also a compromise, we have a bubble and we must give-up some less important objects (cities and villages) for more important ones (AB, Army bases and war production facilities mostly), don’t know if that will every improve, I guess that’s the “price” we are paying for not having scripted mission generator which can always predict what objects should be loaded, when and where etc…
TBH Arty for better performance I suggest you to first upgrade system, V-card is strong but is only 1 component, you need new system, start with CPU… even my older CPU E8400 is easily OC to 3.8GHz and is much faster than Q6600, now i5 3570 is even more of a killer… you need CPU speed for BMS rather than more CPU cores with relatively lower speed, it’ll make a HUGE difference for you, especially in FLOT areas with many objects.
From what I have seen, with strong and optimized HW and settings, BMS is mainly GPU Bounded in TEs and empty camp areas and mostly CPU Bounded in heavy camp areas (FLOT), of course we all agree the later is much more important.
BTW (since you remember we spoke of CPU heat back then) yesterday I assembled Noctua NH-C12P fan… wow what a great choice, very low-cost (less than 60$ here) and doing great job. Now even at max load (CPU turture with Prime, all cores) temps never go beyond 60-65 degrees… when running the sim in 3D it hardly gets near 45…
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I would love too but no money for such… and unfortunately my MB can’t go higher for frequency… After 3.2 I have stability issues… The CPU can go higher but the MB not…
Well I didn’t tried it much with my new PSU… but I believe it’s reaching it’s limits… if someone has a 775 socket MB that doesn’t need it… I’m here… -
any other link??? for dowload
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is there any installation tutorial
because i cant -
check here that it heips me!!
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Thank GOD for Mediafire, perhaps one sharing site which links working over time.
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nice work
any explanation about how to install?
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Yep, copy koreaobj.hdr and koreaobj.lod to objects folder in appropriate theater.
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just replace this 2 files?
what about the all folders in the zip file?