How to improve the performance of my Game?

#1 1. Do you have any other ways to reduce the memory usage?

Have less "stuff" on screen.
Limit view distance, hide it with fog.
Get rid of the reflection for the water.
Reduce the size of your textures (x1024 pixels are a killer).
Recude the number of textures.
If you haven't already LOD all models and have billboards
Get a better graphics card ....

2. I try Torque 3D demo on my computer, it is quite slow

Before starting go to:
game/scripts/client/prefs.cs
Around line 41 change

$pref::lightManager = "Advanced Lighting";  

$pref::lightManager = "Advanced Lighting";

to

$pref::lightManager = "Basic Lighting";  

$pref::lightManager = "Basic Lighting";

There is no "clickable" option to alter the lighting type in the options gui. So do it this way to invoke Basic Lighting or via the drop down menu in the editor.

#2 Wow! thats a cool game Cai. =)

you could try using more levels of detail or removing the water reflections. youre still rendering the water even if its occluded by objects. honestly, i dont really think the water reflections add much to the game.

#3 @ Steven and Sean

Thank you so much. I will give a try.

We are developing a serious game for a research project, now just at first stage...

Most of the models don't have LOD... headache.

Thanks.

#4 Now thats a real cool game. After all its about the city where i live in, heh!

#5 Singapore is a beautiful contry. I visited there back in the late 70's.

To improve performance...

You have a lot of trees scattered around, some in clumps. Are the clumps of trees seperate trees? or are you using a replicator? using a replicator and playing with the number of objects setting, you can get the same look, but with better performance.

What size are your textures? The bigger the texture, the more memory it takes to render it.

And lod on those buildings.

It looks cool. :) You've done a really good job.

#6 @ Michael and Mike

Thanks. A lot of work needs to be done.

Currently we are using the replicator to plant the trees as well as the other plants.

The textures for the buildings are 512 x 512. If i reduce to smaller version, might not very clear. As the models are done previously, there is no LOD.


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To develop serious game is really hard. It is very broad, one simple scenario can be a game, but to make a game includes all science acquisition is really a large work. Currently it is just a plant transportation game in the 3D world as a MMORPG game. A lot to be done.

How to make games improve the learning interest for students is our main target. How to improve the development cycle is a major concern.

#7 If you ran T3D on Basic Lighting and its slow then i think your card is quite low end.

On the other hand, LOD and texture sizes play rather significant roles. Use the matrics command to get an idea of the polies and memory.

Terrain also slows it down, if possible draw the terrain onto the skybox and confine the player to a flat arena e.g. surrounded by buildings.

#8 My mission file is around 15k lines, does it consider too many objects.

My friend remove all the objects, the memeory is around 200M.

But I feel there aren't too many objects when i am walking in the world.

#9 I think the LOD will be only thing that could reaaly help, set it up when the objects are further away they have a lower LOD as they get closer to the character it will switch to a better LOD. If your video drives arent up to date, that could be a problem or switching over to a more powerful video card.

Just my opinion since the video didnt show many objects at all. If you have any buildings that you cant enter are they made as solid-geometry? another thing if builds or even if a fence post has polygons/faces (bottom of the post for example) in places no one will ever see remove those faces. It may make a difference in performance as its less for the computer has to render.

If the world isnt going to be too big have you thought about building the world as a model? Torque can make nice terrain but if the player isnt allowed or no need for the player to go underwater, the computer still processes the "sea floor" = more to process for what reason if players will never see it. It may take some more time to put together but atleast you can control polygon counts as much as possible.

Edit: I notice you do go under water, you could use a fogg feature under the water or allow them to go so deep before a warning pops up saying you will drown in so and so seconds, this way the player doesnt see there is no seas floor... unless there are quests that require the sea floor then you can scratch this idea.

Me and a friend are finely getting something started, I dont have much experience, just from reading other forums and reading books about game art.

If you havnt done so just take some time to look over each model slowly as their may be a few polygons that are not suppose to be their your team didnt see right off the bat, no matter how tiny it is.

Looking through your video i notcied open window shutters, One idea would to have the open ones extruded out of the model, it would delete one fave per shutter while still allowing it to stay 3d. Same with the partialy or fully closed windows shutters. Are the buildings fully conected or are there faces in between the buildings taking up resources?


My last idea would to get a few friends/game testers to play the game and go around slowly to see if there are anything that you dont really need but still make the game look great.

#10 hi, Kevin

Thank you so much for your advices. Now we have added too many objects into the scene, we will tidy up soon.