TGE 1.5.1 Issue

#1 I nearly have the same system you have, except for more RAM, XP Pro, and I built it myself, but I'm not having any problems getting anything running. I did notice that it did seem to take longer for the "Lighting Mission" to actually load, but it did load for me.

Just as a guess, and it may seem dumb, but check your video drivers and make sure you have the most current.

#2 Not dumb at all. I will check that right now. Thanks for the feedback Chris.

#3 Make sure you're running a release build and give the lighting phase a minute to complete.

#4 I took both of your advice and was able to get the level running. Two questions:

1. What changes were made (or could you point me in the right direction) with this new update? 1.5.0 - 1.5.1

2. Why does it now take 4 times longer now to load a level? It used to be less than a minute and now it takes up to 4 minutes. I can't imagine what the lan time would be to join a server.


Anyway thank you John Kabus for the response. I uplaoded my patience and was able to get the level going.

#5 Is it the loading or lighting that takes 4x longer? Neither should be much slower on 1.5 compatible levels (in theory).

Also make sure your 1.5 and 1.5.1 exes are both clean release builds and running out of the same directory to compare times.

#6 The lighting is what is taking the longest. It gets to the half-way point and then crawls at a snails pace. I completely removed 1.5.0 from the pc. The exe is correct though.

#7 But you're seeing the 1.5.1 lighting take longer than 1.5?

If so can you run a quick test for me, just perform the following for both exes:

-delete the mission ml files (these cache the lighting)
-load the test level (I use stronghold, but use whichever you prefer - just make sure to use the same one for both tests)
-then copy the SG lighting stats from the console.log

After the tests post both sets of stats (noting which is 1.5.1 and which is 1.5). The SG stats are very handy, all of our lighting products that perform static or off-line lighting crank out similar stats, which show nearly all of the details of what happened during the process.

Here's an example set of stats:

Lighting Pack lighting system stats:
    Interior Lexel Count:                        7240756
    Interior Lexel Illumination Count:           21621242
    Interior Lexel Illumination Time (ms):       0.000286
    Interior Lexel Illumination Time Total (ms): 6181
    Interior Lexel Diffuse Count:                12137693
    Interior Object Count:                       11
    Interior Object Included Count:              10
    Interior Object Illumination Count:          260
    Interior Surface Included Count:             84834
    Interior Surface Illumination Count:         420128
    Interior Surface Illuminated Count:          252040
    Interior Surface Smoothed Count:             0
    Interior Surface Smoothed Lexel Count:       0
    Interior Surface Setup Count:                84834
    Interior Surface Setup Time Total (ms):      1932
    Interior Surface Merge Count:                81181
    Interior Surface Merge Time Total (ms):      1153
    Static Mesh BVPT Potential Occluder Count:   0
    Static Mesh Cast Ray Mesh Count:             0
    Static Mesh Surface Occluder Count:          0
    Terrain Lexel Count:                         96154
    Terrain Lexel Time (ms):                     0.000333
    Terrain Lexel Time Total (ms):               32
Successfully saved mission lighting file: 'starter.fps/data/missions/stronghold_71fae6ab.ml'
Total light map memory: 32.858M
Scene lighting complete (14.234 seconds)
//-----------------------------------------------

I tested 1.5 -vs- the current head and head was slightly faster - comparing head to 1.5.1 I didn't really see anything that could cause 1.5.1 to be slower, but the stats should help show what is going on.

#8 I am having so problems too
starter.fps stronghold mission 1.5.1 SDK

Lighting Pack lighting system stats:
    Interior Lexel Count:                   34538312
    Interior Lexel Time (ms):               0.003441
    Interior Lexel Time Total (ms):         118857
    Interior Lexel Diffuse Count:           13782984
    Interior Object Count:                  11
    Interior Object Included Count:         10
    Interior Object Illumination Count:     260
    Interior Surface Included Count:        90693
    Interior Surface Illumination Count:    677469
    Interior Surface Illuminated Count:     412939
    Interior Surface Smoothed Count:        0
    Interior Surface Smoothed Lexel Count:  0
    Interior Surface Setup Count:           90693
    Interior Surface Setup Time Total (ms): 1346
    Interior Surface Merge Count:           87189
    Interior Surface Merge Time Total (ms): 1253
    Static Mesh Surface Occluder Count:     0
    Terrain Lexel Count:                    96154
    Terrain Lexel Time (ms):                0.001134
    Terrain Lexel Time Total (ms):          109
Successfully saved mission lighting file: 'starter.fps/data/missions/stronghold_9ad659c.ml'
Scene lighting complete (128.594 seconds)

both built sdk and example have about the same load time

myRig
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3500+, MMX, 3DNow, ~2.2GHz
Memory: 2048MB RAM
Hard Drive: 2-250 Gig. Sata's, 1-250 Gig, 1-80 Gig
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GT
Sound Card: SB X-Fi Audio

1.5 sdk stronghold mission

Lighting Pack lighting system stats:
    Interior Lexel Count:                10027680
    Interior Lexel Time:                 63522.000000
    Interior Object Count:               11
    Interior Object Included Count:      10
    Interior Object Illumination Count:  260
    Interior Surface Included Count:     58778
    Interior Surface Illumination Count: 301637
    Interior Surface Illuminated Count:  166163
    Interior Occluder Count:             24483364
    Terrain Lexel Count:                 96154
    Terrain Lexel Time:                  157.000000
Successfully saved mission lighting file: 'newGame/data/missions/stronghold_9b3d85be.ml'
Scene lighting complete (69.250 seconds)

this is the built sdk .exe

#9 Hmm, I checked out the lighting performance and stats running three TGE versions (1.5, 1.5.1, 1.5.2 (HEAD unreleased)) against the 1.5 and 1.5.1 starter.fps stronghold missions - here's what I came up with:

-the TGE 1.5.1 difs are different (maybe updated?) and contain 1.5x the number of surfaces as the 1.5 difs (90,693 vs 58,778 mission total)
-TGE 1.5.1 is processing more data, but faster (this is likely due to a few lighting errors resolved in the 1.5.2 branch, which should be available shortly - 1.5.2 is comparable to 1.5 in data and speed)

James, the extra surfaces in the 1.5.1 difs are bogging down the relight - try running the 1.5.1 exe against the 1.5 stronghold mission, it should be comparable to the 1.5 exe.


Here's the data from the tests if anyone wants to check it out (cut down to the key pieces of data - some stats were renamed between versions, but represent the same data):

---------------------------------------------------------
[b]TGE 1.5 - starter.fps/stronghold 1.5[/b]

  Lighting Pack lighting system stats:
    Interior Lexel Count:                10027680
    Interior Lexel Time:                 78309.000000
    Interior Surface Included Count:     58778
Scene lighting complete (85.422 seconds)


[b]TGE 1.5.1 - starter.fps/stronghold 1.5[/b]

  Lighting Pack lighting system stats:
    Interior Lexel Count:                   15205432
    Interior Lexel Time Total (ms):         69309
    Interior Surface Included Count:        58778
Scene lighting complete (77.141 seconds)


[b]TGE 1.5.2 - starter.fps/stronghold 1.5[/b]

  Lighting Pack lighting system stats:
    Interior Lexel Illumination Count:           10823110
    Interior Lexel Illumination Time Total (ms): 74206
    Interior Surface Included Count:             58778
Scene lighting complete (82.781 seconds)

---------------------------------------------------------

[b]TGE 1.5 - starter.fps/stronghold 1.5.1[/b]

  Lighting Pack lighting system stats:
    Interior Lexel Count:                23065333
    Interior Lexel Time:                 175264.000000
    Interior Surface Included Count:     90693
Scene lighting complete (185.110 seconds)


[b]TGE 1.5.1 - starter.fps/stronghold 1.5.1[/b]

  Lighting Pack lighting system stats:
    Interior Lexel Count:                   34528539
    Interior Lexel Time Total (ms):         145794
    Interior Surface Included Count:        90693
Scene lighting complete (156.531 seconds)


[b]TGE 1.5.2 - starter.fps/stronghold 1.5.1[/b]

  Lighting Pack lighting system stats:
    Interior Lexel Illumination Count:           24299803
    Interior Lexel Illumination Time Total (ms): 155041
    Interior Surface Included Count:             90693
Scene lighting complete (166.781 seconds)
---------------------------------------------------------

#10 The lighting only has to be run once per mission right? Except when you upgrade to 1.5.1 it has to rebuild all of the lighting files.
@David
By any chance did you try running the same maps again with 1.5.1?

#11 This test was done with the 1.5.1 SDK built .exe in the 1.5 SDK stronghold mission

Lighting Pack lighting system stats:
    Interior Lexel Count:                   15197729
    Interior Lexel Time (ms):               0.003668
    Interior Lexel Time Total (ms):         55745
    Interior Lexel Diffuse Count:           5880286
    Interior Object Count:                  11
    Interior Object Included Count:         10
    Interior Object Illumination Count:     260
    Interior Surface Included Count:        58778
    Interior Surface Illumination Count:    442300
    Interior Surface Illuminated Count:     232253
    Interior Surface Smoothed Count:        0
    Interior Surface Smoothed Lexel Count:  0
    Interior Surface Setup Count:           58778
    Interior Surface Setup Time Total (ms): 959
    Interior Surface Merge Count:           53896
    Interior Surface Merge Time Total (ms): 718
    Static Mesh Surface Occluder Count:     0
    Terrain Lexel Count:                    96154
    Terrain Lexel Time (ms):                0.000967
    Terrain Lexel Time Total (ms):          93
Successfully saved mission lighting file: 'newGame/data/missions/stronghold_9b3d85be.ml'
Scene lighting complete (62.656 seconds)

Honestly it seems using this .exe textures do not seem as sharp ( meaning when a little way's from the building the edge's seem jagged nor is the textures sharp I'm not sure if this means LOD or antilansing)

yes it only lights once, you need to delete the .ml file to rerun the test

#12 The light map textures or the diffuse textures look fuzzy? I don't think anything changed that should affect the diffuse textures (though I didn't work on the rendering side much, so I could be wrong :). If they look odd you should probably post a new thread with some shots to see what's happening.

If the light maps look odd let me know. There are some light mapping errors that I mentioned above odd issues where some surfaces are not lit. Some of these are already fixed in HEAD, others are being worked on. But there's definitely another TGE drop planned to finalize the changes and all Constructor compatibility features.


Hi Stephen,

Yup, the lighting is cached, but it needs to run after changing the mission file, which happens frequently during development, so we try to reduce, or at the very least avoid increasing, the relight time every release.

The lighting profile settings affect all relights including the one that happens on mission load, so you can seriously boost the relight speed by dropping the lighting quality and disabling shadows, but we still try to shave off a little more each release to make it faster. :)

#13 @Stephen-
Yes, I ran the same maps and I had already deleted the .ml files. The game doesn't lag one bit during game play or developement it's juts when the game tries to load.

@John -
Sorry for not being able to get the stats to you. I am currently not on my computer which has Torque installed. Quick question.....do you know when 1.5.2 will be released?