posted 01-18- 04:45 PM               

Let's say I put 100 planes in a mission, and the frame rate drops to 2fps, down from 30fps with one plane. Ok, where did the CPU go?

Does it get spent _drawing_ the planes? Is it because there's all these polys to work at?

Or does it get spent _running_ the planes? That is making the flight model do it's stuff, making the AI pilot fly the thing, etc.

Does anyone know? If we could make the speed of running the plane's physics go do zero, would the game jump to 3fps, or 30?

posted 01-18- 05:24 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Aladar:
I'll tell ya where they go.... down the shitter with that many planes.

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Yeah, but down WHICH shitter?

Down the "too many triangles!" shitter?
The "too many AI pilots to think for!" shitter?
The "too much physics to model" shitter?

All of them?

The reason I ask is this... Let's say you make one REALLY big B-17 - one that looks like 12 B-17's in a bomber box. That way you have just as many triangles, but only one AI pilot and one physics. Is that going to be any faster that 12 separate planes?

It's got to be some faster, but how much? If the answer is "50%", well that sounds like something worth doing!

posted 01-18- 05:38 PM               

I do think this could be a good idea for something else though... like a group of tanks traveling along the ground, or a flock of birds circling the airfield; things which move in groups that don't need a complex flight/damage model or AI.

posted 01-18- 06:51 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by charmstar:
That is an interesting crazy idea.

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Heh...

quote:

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1) an AI pilot only tracks 1 enemy at a time. Already its annoying that a B17 won't shoot at two planes with different gunners. Imagine if a whole group of planes only targeted one plane!

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Mmmmm, durn.

quote:

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2) What happens when a plane in the 12 gets shot down? I guess you make that plane a sub-model of the greater pack, so that it just breaks off. However, that means whoever shoots it down doesn't get credit for a kill. Also, nobody bails out right?

Aside from the bail issue I think that's OK. This would only be used for offline missions.

[QUOTE]3) What happens if a plane gets a couple engines shot out, which would normally slow it down? Does it get dragged along with the other 11?

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I think what you'd really want to do is something more like the Mistal. That is, each of the planes is actually a sub-plane and they get "dropped" when the damage goes up.

You're right though, without some code to support this it wouldn't work. Oh well.

posted 01-19- 04:27 AM               

I have been doing some quiet experiments with a frame-rate friendly B17, and what helps is what DIDN'T work!

Switchins...only really relevant in close up

Polys...only up to a point. You can get away with a surprising amount of poly's without significant hits, but there does seem to be a 'critical mass' point. When I did a 'detailed' B17 fuse, it didn't have much impact. Detailed engine nacelles..likewise. Put them together...uh oh!

Also, with the physical engine models I am playing with at the moment, they are only visible close up, so when in formation with other planes, they shouldn't be a factor.

Well....DOF's...removed all the instruments from a B17. Figured that the sim must keep track of all the dof's whether the poly's were visible or not. No impact

Removed the cockpit interior, tail interior, removed lower level lods from the MG's, cut out seats, Norden bombsight..impact....un measurable!

Test mission involved 12 B17's and fr's were within a few each time.

Next test is with a 'cleaned' up fuselage. I have removed all the interior bits which are joined to the main fuse. This won't affect FR's outside of the 1st level lod area, but it will allow me to remove LOTS of textures.

I think on the B17, this is a major FR drain. More so than the model. There are 72 textures in a B17. 72!

The only textures you erally get to see are the fuse, engine and engine front. Oh, and the wheels and gunbarrels.

There is also a large 'cloudglass' LOD which can go.